Or overgeneralising there.Yes, SOME over-reacted. There feel better about yourself now.
They're supposed to break the law because of you? Yeah right.Oh, no you are right, they are not "suppose" to risk their neck on my behalf. Of course, that doesn't mean I should particularly grateful for them either. I'm not going to kiss their collective asses because they watched out for their own. And as I pointed out, they had other options as well, they could have given refunds to those customers that lost out (probably not a full refund as most were probably responsible and backed up their products). Did see that happening, please post links to companies that did put their customers first in that fashion. And please for the love of god do not try to pass off links to people that put discounts on pdfs as a substitute, not the same thing at all. In one situation they are taking money out of their own pocket, in the other they are enticing you to give them less of your money they you might other wise have (but may not have even bothered with).
Drivethrough/RPGnow already apologised that they took stuff off their site too early,So though my statement above was an overgeneralization, it wasn't entirely untrue. Thank you.
and Paizo was able to negotiate a stay of execution for bought stuff for another 12 hours. They did all they could. They were forbidden by wizards to keep the stuff up for longer than that.Are you 100% certain of that, or is that a desire to believe the best in Paizo that leads you to it?
I'm sure they did what they could to soften the blow, but what help is that if wizards is intent on screwing fans, and has the legal right to do so?They had other options as well, I pointed out one above. Give customers a (partial) refund. Anybody offer to do that? Sorry, not bending over to kiss asses yet for people covering their own....
Actually it looks like RPGNow.com will be offering refunds for those who never downloaded a PDF that they bought. You can read the statement here.
Dear RPGNow.com customers,
We wanted to respond to some of the fears and concerns expressed to us and on various online forums regarding the recent announcement that Wizards of the Coast is suspending all sales and downloads of the digital versions of their products. So I am writing this to address those concerns.
First, there are no "contract negotiations" with Wizards that led to the current situation. We have been doing business with Wizards on downloads for over six years now and always enjoyed a positive and co-operative license relationship. Some have hypothesized that the situation might be a result of a negotiation issue is a reasonable hypothesis, but that is incorrect.
On Monday I spoke with Wizards' legal department in a call that I thought would discuss the lawsuits Wizards has filed. We had been co-operating with Wizards to supply information on pirated files for those lawsuits (as allowed under our site privacy policy). Instead I was informed of Wizards' decision to cease all PDF sales at this time. It was a complete surprise to me.
Wizards gave us legal notice to remove their titles. Due to what I'll characterize as a miscommunication on intent, we complied immediately and removed all public access to Wizards' products from DriveThruRPG and RPGNow. In turns out this was not a situation that either we or Wizards desired. I am in discussions with Wizards legal and it looks highly probable that we will be able to offer customers time to come back and re-download prior purchases for their personal archives. We will email and post information on sites once we have final confirmation on this.
I regret that some customers have inferred that our download counts are any guarantee of availability to re-download titles. We really do not like iTunes' approach of "one download, you lose it, pay again" so we do our best to offer perpetual downloads of purchased titles. Our agreements with publishers though do not let us guarantee this - as this situation makes clear. We have learned a lesson here by reading that some customers inferred otherwise, and we will make some changes soon to clarify this on DriveThruRPG and RPGNow.
We are offering full refunds to anyone who purchased a Wizards title from us but never downloaded it. These are extremely rare cases, as most everyone downloaded the goodies as soon as they were originally purchased.
I am otherwise as confused as anyone else here on the rationale behind Wizards' decision. I know there are some smart people at Wizards who get it, so I can only speculate that there are others who are not as informed and who are making the call on this.
As many folks on forums have stated, I also believe that piracy for the foreseeable future is unavoidable for books. So long as printed copies and scanners and torrents exist, RPG books have been and will be pirated. It's sad and fatalistic, but it's true.
Given that RPG books will always be on file-sharing sites, it means that anyone who purchases a legal PDF is doing so because they prefer to make that choice over pirating the file. Thankfully, the number of RPG fans who make that decision are legion and it lets us send payments every month to hundreds of RPG publishers and creators. By making this choice to legally support their hobby, fans are keeping RPGs alive. I say that without one bit of exaggeration or melodrama. Around seven new RPG titles go live every day at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow. The hobby could not be nearly that prolific if not due to fans choosing to support their hobby.
This makes DRM an extremely poor choice for any publisher. DRM inevitably restricts ease of purchase and ease of use, and anything that tips customer choice from legal purchase toward pirating is a bad business decision. DRM does nothing to prevent pirated files from being available, since the files will already be available anyway from scanned copy.
We already learned lessons on DRM the hard way in the past, so I know the issue intimately. For many years now, we have embraced watermarking as the preferable solution.
The posts by D&D fans across all gaming forums, while angry at times, are ultimately posted out of concern for Wizards and the desire to see Wizards make the best choices. Whether I ever do business with Wizards again or not, Wizards is a big part of the hobby that I love and for that reason alone, I hope that they reconsider. Especially given the ongoing fan feedback on this, I am optimistic that they will.
Steve Wieck,
President
www.DriveThruRPG.com
www.RPGNow.com
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The "we're looking into providing this content in a format that prevents piracy" (paraphrased, and emphasis mine) makes me wonder if we will ever see PDFs again.
The sad thing is that they actually think they can do this.
Bigger and Better industries with the resources of small countries have tried and repeatedly failed.
Or in the famous words (Benjamin Franklin maybe??):
"Anything one man can invent, another can circumvent."
WotC is facing the same pipe-dream that the MPAA and RIAA tried and failed at. Clearly they don't pay attention to their history lessons.
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...The "we're looking into providing this content in a format that prevents piracy" (paraphrased, and emphasis mine) makes me wonder if we will ever see PDFs again...
This is already possible with certain software licensing (like the the US Government's Rosetta Stone volume license), and certain sensitive material documents and PDFs that require the user to logon to the company or organization site in order to use or view the material. Essentially, you use the product from the company servers and all that exists on your computer is an executable command function that allows access through the server. It's very easy to accomplish and manage; very, very frustrating for the user. Active X, read-only PDFs with access codes :-(
There's not one thing I can say here that has not already been said. I've just posted so I can be number 800. But WOC really did shoot themselves in the foot with this one.
But it's only 799!
Actually it looks like RPGNow.com will be offering refunds for those who never downloaded a PDF that they bought. You can read the statement here.
Thank you for posting this. I am glad to see that at least some of them are sacrificing money for their customers. I hope that everyone does get access to their files even if they have downloaded it again, at least one more time, or they get a small refund if they don't get that chance. Right now, I am willing to bow down in respect to RPGNow.com now for this move.
that doesn't mean I should particularly grateful for them either.
In other worlds: You blame them for not breaking the law and risking getting sued by wizards (which I'm sure they'd have done).
I think they'd be more than happy to not have you as a customer.
And as I pointed out, they had other options as well, they could have given refunds to those customers that lost out (probably not a full refund as most were probably responsible and backed up their products).
I'm quite sure that those who didn't get their chance to download their stuff at all will get a refund. In fact, Drivethrough/RPGnow is doing that.
The rest they can't possibly check. Did someone not download it because he didn't have the time or because he didn't have the need?
They'd end up reimbursing everyone, or at least everyone except those who are honest enough not to take advantage.
And would they get back the money from wizards? Not a snowball's chance in hell.
And please for the love of god do not try to pass off links to people that put discounts on pdfs as a substitute, not the same thing at all. In one situation they are taking money out of their own pocket, in the other they are enticing you to give them less of your money they you might other wise have (but may not have even bothered with).
Where did I do that?
All I did is correct someone who thought he couldn't download PF any more. I told him that he can. At reduced prices. He already wanted to download.
So though my statement above was an overgeneralization, it wasn't entirely untrue. Thank you.
I wasn't saying that you were wrong. I was saying that you are overgeneralising. Which you are, and it seems to me you do that to cast Paizo as villains.
Are you 100% certain of that, or is that a desire to believe the best in Paizo that leads you to it?
Neither. I'm quite certain of that, based on the fact that Paizo did never try to pull the fast one on me.
They had other options as well, I pointed out one above. Give customers a (partial) refund. Anybody offer to do that? Sorry, not bending over to kiss asses yet for people covering their own.
You must hate wizards to an extent that should not be possible to mankind.
For if Paizo is guilty for looking after themselves by not breaking laws, wizards is about ten million times as guilty for actively screwing over people
It is his fault that his stupid, non-planning ahead ass can't get into his own house.
So, to add insult to injury, you bash on the victims here.
Yeah, that is going to endear you to the crowd.
Just not over here. I bet you'd be quite the star over at gleemax.
The "we're looking into providing this content in a format that prevents piracy" (paraphrased, and emphasis mine) makes me wonder if we will ever see PDFs again.
Expect them to be online only. With a downpayment for the right to watch it, and a monthly payment for, well, the right to watch it NOW. Like their role model WoW, just with less making sense.
Director of Brand Strategy
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I keep seeing references to Paizo promising infinite downloads, but I don't believe that's the case. Sure, most products you buy through them in pdf format are available after they've been taken off the site for new purchases, but it's not expressly promised anywhere. In fact, when Goodman Games was selling their d20 licensed pdfs at the end of the year before the (supposed) termination of that license, the very question came up. See here.
When you purchase a PDF, the download (as far as we're concerned) is yours. Therefore, you should still be able to download your PDFs in perpetuity. However, if Goodman should come in and tell us differently, we will have to comply.That being said, we do not think this is going to happen.
Thanks,
cos
Perhaps they were short-sighted or naive to think none of the publishers whose pdfs they sell would ever make them unavailable, but when they were asked point-blank if the possibility of them being taken off the severs existed, Customer Service did say that there were circumstances in which one would not have access to their legally purchased material.
It seems like what you're saying is that the decision itself isn't the problem, it's the PR follow-up to it (or lack thereof) that's the issue. Is that correct?
But that's just it - if there wasn't an outcry they would know that they screwed up if their decision didn't improve the piracy/sales situation. And, conversely, just because there's an outcry doesn't mean they did screw up if it turns out that their decision improves the piracy/sales situation.In this particular case, outcry doesn't do anything useful except make the fan base look ugly. Which is bad, because the fan base already looks pretty ugly given that piracy in it is so rampant the publishing giant of the tabletop community felt that PDF availability was harming their business.
It's possible to have one outcome you want but suffer another outcome that's worse. If they reduce the piracy but lose too many customers due to poor customer service as a result, then the policy is a screw up.
It is not correct. The decision and its implementation are very much part of the issue. The lack of deft PR exacerbates that problem as well as exists as its own problem (and a repeated problem at that...).
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I didn't tar everyone with the pirate brush. I said many. Not all. I was specifically avoiding tarring everyone with the pirate brush. At the same time, however, we have to acknowledge that it's true.many of the people complaining about this are those who actively pirate books.
Hey now. That's pushing it a bit too far.
I happen to be frustrated because I bought the entire collection of 1E material and as much Greyhawk as I could from drivethrurpg that I can't get to anymore.
Don't tar everyone with the pirate brush, especially as so many in this forum are subscribers - legitimate purchasers of digital material, WotC, Paizo or otherwise.
Actually Scott, those people who are actively pirating aren't complaining, because they are still getting the stuff they want. Several people earlier in the thread commented that if you know where to look, and I assume most pirates do, the stuff is still there. It's just like making laws, they only alter the behavior of those who are already law abiding. The only people hurt by WoTC pulling legal files from everyone are those of us who get them legally. To say that pirates are complaining is a specious argument at best.
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So wait. There was never any guarantee given that you would be able to download the material indefinitely and so the producer of the product is to blame for the material not being able to be downloaded indefinitely? Sorry that doesn't compute.
According to DriveThruRPG and RPGNow there was no such guarantee...So people blaming them for offering a guarantee and breaking it are wrong..
That said.. they did say that after the fact and seeing peoples reactions that obviously they should have been more clear on that..
Here is what they said.
Dear DriveThruRPG.com customers,
We wanted to respond to some of the fears and concerns expressed to us and on various online forums regarding the recent announcement that Wizards of the Coast is suspending all sales and downloads of the digital versions of their products. So I am writing this to address those concerns.
First, there are no "contract negotiations" with Wizards that led to the current situation. We have been doing business with Wizards on downloads for over six years now and always enjoyed a positive and co-operative license relationship. Some have hypothesized that the situation might be a result of a negotiation issue is a reasonable hypothesis, but that is incorrect.
On Monday I spoke with Wizards' legal department in a call that I thought would discuss the lawsuits Wizards has filed. We had been co-operating with Wizards to supply information on pirated files for those lawsuits (as allowed under our site privacy policy). Instead I was informed of Wizards' decision to cease all PDF sales at this time. It was a complete surprise to me.
Wizards gave us legal notice to remove their titles. Due to what I'll characterize as a miscommunication on intent, we complied immediately and removed all public access to Wizards' products from DriveThruRPG and RPGNow. In turns out this was not a situation that either we or Wizards desired. I am in discussions with Wizards legal and it looks highly probable that we will be able to offer customers time to come back and re-download prior purchases for their personal archives. We will email and post information on sites once we have final confirmation on this.
I regret that some customers have inferred that our download counts are any guarantee of availability to re-download titles. We really do not like iTunes' approach of "one download, you lose it, pay again" so we do our best to offer perpetual downloads of purchased titles. Our agreements with publishers though do not let us guarantee this - as this situation makes clear. We have learned a lesson here by reading that some customers inferred otherwise, and we will make some changes soon to clarify this on DriveThruRPG and RPGNow.
We are offering full refunds to anyone who purchased a Wizards title from us but never downloaded it. These are extremely rare cases, as most everyone downloaded the goodies as soon as they were originally purchased.
I am otherwise as confused as anyone else here on the rationale behind Wizards' decision. I know there are some smart people at Wizards who get it, so I can only speculate that there are others who are not as informed and who are making the call on this.
As many folks on forums have stated, I also believe that piracy for the foreseeable future is unavoidable for books. So long as printed copies and scanners and torrents exist, RPG books have been and will be pirated. It's sad and fatalistic, but it's true.
Given that RPG books will always be on file-sharing sites, it means that anyone who purchases a legal PDF is doing so because they prefer to make that choice over pirating the file. Thankfully, the number of RPG fans who make that decision are legion and it lets us send payments every month to hundreds of RPG publishers and creators. By making this choice to legally support their hobby, fans are keeping RPGs alive. I say that without one bit of exaggeration or melodrama. Around seven new RPG titles go live every day at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow. The hobby could not be nearly that prolific if not due to fans choosing to support their hobby.
This makes DRM an extremely poor choice for any publisher. DRM inevitably restricts ease of purchase and ease of use, and anything that tips customer choice from legal purchase toward pirating is a bad business decision. DRM does nothing to prevent pirated files from being available, since the files will already be available anyway from scanned copy.
We already learned lessons on DRM the hard way in the past, so I know the issue intimately. For many years now, we have embraced watermarking as the preferable solution.
The posts by D&D fans across all gaming forums, while angry at times, are ultimately posted out of concern for Wizards and the desire to see Wizards make the best choices. Whether I ever do business with Wizards again or not, Wizards is a big part of the hobby that I love and for that reason alone, I hope that they reconsider. Especially given the ongoing fan feedback on this, I am optimistic that they will.
Steve Wieck,
President
www.DriveThruRPG.com
www.RPGNow.com
Edit: Seems people already Mentioned this...
In other worlds: You blame them for not breaking the law and risking getting sued by wizards (which I'm sure they'd have done).
I think they'd be more than happy to not have you as a customer.
No, I never said that, stop putting words in my mouth. As is evident by the facts as they become clear, if they had in fact given more time to the customers to download, they would have been fine. There would not have been any "law" being broken (or contract breached). In fact if it wasn't really spelled out when they had to stop (which from the statements that there was a miscommunication), WotC couldn't win a suit on that basis. Still all of this is irrelevant, because I pointed out there were other options that these companies could have used even if they did fear lawsuits from WotC. Perfect options? No.
I'm quite sure that those who didn't get their chance to download their stuff at all will get a refund. In fact, Drivethrough/RPGnow is doing that.
To which I have applauded. Yaaa, Hip-hip-horray!
The rest they can't possibly check. Did someone not download it because he didn't have the time or because he didn't have the need?
They'd end up reimbursing everyone, or at least everyone except those who are honest enough not to take advantage.
And would they get back the money from wizards? Not a snowball's chance in hell.
Why should WotC give them any money for a situation that these companies created themselves? In alot (maybe most even) of business when you download a purchased digital document, you only get one download. That is pretty standard operating business on the webz, see the comment about iTunes in the post above. The fact that these companies decided to be "nice guys" to their customers and it back fired on them just shows they were naive.
Where did I do that?
I didn't say you did, it was a preventative comment. I wasn't interesting in hearing how company X was giving discounts so that was the same as giving money back nonsense is all. Someone, not necessarily you, might have been tempted to try that.
I wasn't saying that you were wrong. I was saying that you are overgeneralising. Which you are, and it seems to me you do that to cast Paizo as villains.
Actually most of my comments have been generalized because I am not trying to paint any individual company as "viilains".
Neither. I'm quite certain of that, based on the fact that Paizo did never try to pull the fast one on me.
So because you have faith in them is your sole reason. Very good.
You must hate wizards to an extent that should not be possible to mankind.
For if Paizo is guilty for looking after themselves by not breaking laws, wizards is about ten million times as guilty for actively screwing over people
LOL, considering your coming comment, I find this pretty funny. Yes, I think WotC is making a poor choice, never denied that. I am not defending their actions, I am not drinking their kool-aid. I just have no interest to ignore the actions/decisions of others as well, I have no interest in that flavor of kool-aid either.
So, to add insult to injury, you bash on the victims here.
Yeah, that is going to endear you to the crowd.
Just not over here. I bet you'd be quite the star over at gleemax.
And really that is what rage is about for some (not all, most likely not even most). WotC by this action showed them to be dumbasses because they didn't back up their files like they should have. Sorry, I feel no sympathy for someone who was too stupid to back up their files. As I said, a lot of online products can't even be downloaded more than once. People are complaining because they lost a bonus and acting as if it was a penalty. These people are not victims, except victims of their own choices.
Now maybe I'm just cynical. When WotC announced 4e, as soon as I can I downloaded everything free on their site that was remotely related to older editions (including the SRD and SRDModern), because I fully expected all of it to be wiped out at any given time. When I download stuff I care about from Paizo, I immediately back it up on CDs, because I fully expect at some point my computer will kick the bucket and Paizo might die off or change their policy. I watch out for me, I don't expect companies to coddle me.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Speak of the devil, and he will appear.
Welcome to the Paizo boards, Titanium Dragon. I've read most of your posts in the Gleemax thread, and I know from experience that you are capable of posting reasonable messages free from hyperbole and falsehoods.
In the last 24 hours, however, I've seen you call Paizo "leeches," I've seen you refer to us as a "cancer" on the industry, and I've seen you suggest people sue us over Wizards of the Coast's decisions as well as misrepresent Paizo's policy on PDF redownloads.
Let me be the first person to formally welcome you to the Paizo message boards.
Please understand that here, on our boards, misrepresentation, slander, and lies about Paizo are going to be responded to quickly. I don't understand your modus operandi over at Wizards.com except that you're an ardent supporter of Wotc and 4e (which I have _no_ problem with) and that you have an overpowering distaste for Paizo.
That's fine too, but please do take every opportunity to play it cool here. Take a look at how Scott Betts posts. He shares a lot of your opinions, yet manages to convey them in a way that doesn't poison online communication.
Please take a page from his playbook while posting here.
And welcome to the boards!
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Huh, the part that I find interesting is that not too long after someone jokingly accuses Scott Betts of being Titanium Dragon, Titanium Dragon shows up and Scott Betts disappears...
Clark? Superman? not in the same place at the same time?
or maybe Normal Osborne / Green Goblin would be more apt? :P
Scott Betts openly posts on Wizards.com as a different screen name (I can't remember it off the top of my head, but it sounds a bit Asian). He's got a great blog on converting the Rise of the Runelords to 4th edition, and it's pretty clear to me that he is not Titanium Dragon. Their arguing styles (to say nothing of their regard for Paizo) are completely different.
Let's focus the attention of this thread (and indeed the entire community) on _issues_ and not on the personalities of posters.
Thanks.
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Let's focus the attention of this thread (and indeed the entire community) on _issues_ and not on the personalities of posters.Thanks.
Wait, is Erik telling us to avoid the time honored interweb tradition of shooting the messenger? I thought flaming and bashing each other was what messageboards were all about.
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Pres Man, Also, Paizo never guaranteed "perpetual" downloads. I'm pretty sure it was Vic, but someone said on these boards, in response to a question a few weeks ago ("how long will we have access to 3P downloads on this site for pdfs we've purchased").
The response was "until the publisher asks us to remove them from our store".
Pretty straight forward, that.
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By that logic, I could be Sebastian.Huh, the part that I find interesting is that not too long after someone jokingly accuses Scott Betts of being Titanium Dragon, Titanium Dragon shows up and Scott Betts disappears...
Clark? Superman? not in the same place at the same time?
or maybe Normal Osborne / Green Goblin would be more apt? :P
And thank Heaven that mold was broke after the failed beta test.
[conspiracy theory] Does anyone else wonder if this is really a move to draw our attention away from what WoTC is doing with their other hand? [/conspiracy theory]
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Actually Scott, those people who are actively pirating aren't complaining, because they are still getting the stuff they want. Several people earlier in the thread commented that if you know where to look, and I assume most pirates do, the stuff is still there. It's just like making laws, they only alter the behavior of those who are already law abiding. The only people hurt by WoTC pulling legal files from everyone are those of us who get them legally. To say that pirates are complaining is a specious argument at best.
It took about 15 seconds of web surfing; they're all still out there, and I don't even know "where to look" I just know "how to run a Google search".
_If_ this was an attempt to actively attempt to stop piracy, it's not going to work. People who pirate will get the material regardless of what companies attempt to do over their DRM. Frankly, that's been the problem with DRM all along. First there was Napster, then KaZaa, now BitTorrent, next year it'll be something brand new. All it takes is one person with the free time and drive to pirate something and it's out and about. Frankly, there is little stop djinn, it's already out of the bottle and it's not going back any time soon.
If you haven't read it already already, do a search on Gabe Newell's (of Valve Software) recent comments about piracy and what Valve has discovered regarding their pricing structure and piracy, it's a very interesting read, and a different opinion coming from somebody within one of the industries hardest hit.
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CEO
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And apparently the pdf sellers. Even assuming that the pdf sellers reaction was understandable because they feared legal action from WotC, as a customer that doesn't exactly endear me to them. As a customer I may have stood by them through good and bad times, but apparently some of them are not invested in watching out for my interests in return. So while their react is understandable it gets no points. If in turn they had said they were going to stop selling the products but were giving those who had purchased them a reasonable amount of time to download them and/or refunding those that couldn't (perhaps they are deployed overseas for example), that would be deserving of points in their favor.
I can't speak for RPGNow/DTRPG, but our communication from WotC was pretty clear. They gave me exact deadlines by which we needed to a) stop selling the PDFs and b) stop offering already sold PDFs for download. I immediately went onto the messageboards and told our customers. Then I drafted the email that we sent out to everyone, sent it to Wizards for approval, and then starting emailing it out to everyone. We did our best to give everyone as much of a "heads up" notice as we could.
-Lisa
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Now that Mages by the Sea has pulled all PDFs, and people have lost the ability to download ones they have already paid for, how might I be able to find OOP products (anything pre 3e) they produced at a reasonable price?eBay, used book stores, Amazon; happy hunting!!!
I wonder.. I'll be hunting for oDnD stuff
This is truly a great shame.
I have bought a few pdf copies of 1st ed to keep my books, and yes I have them all, from falling to dust from use(I have old Toys'R'Us price stickers on mine so you know they are old). I was overjoyed when I found the pdfs for sale here. Now I am a sad panda.
It maybe that WoTC is trying to kill all D&D that is not 4e. I suspect that, I truly do. Good for all of us who love the game that the OGL will allow other companys willing to do the work to keep the game alive and growing. Because while 4e is an ok game, it is not what I would call D&D.
I have seen some rip Paizo here and other places but I think even though they are a company out to make money like all companys they are doing the D&D community a great favor by putting their time and passion into building pathfinder. I for one want to thank them for their efforts.
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And apparently the pdf sellers. Even assuming that the pdf sellers reaction was understandable because they feared legal action from WotC, as a customer that doesn't exactly endear me to them. As a customer I may have stood by them through good and bad times, but apparently some of them are not invested in watching out for my interests in return. So while their react is understandable it gets no points. If in turn they had said they were going to stop selling the products but were giving those who had purchased them a reasonable amount of time to download them and/or refunding those that couldn't (perhaps they are deployed overseas for example), that would be deserving of points in their favor.I can't speak for RPGNow/DTRPG, but our communication from WotC was pretty clear. They gave me exact deadlines by which we needed to a) stop selling the PDFs and b) stop offering already sold PDFs for download. I immediately went onto the messageboards and told our customers. Then I drafted the email that we sent out to everyone, sent it to Wizards for approval, and then starting emailing it out to everyone. We did our best to give everyone as much of a "heads up" notice as we could.
-Lisa
And thank you for your excellence! :)
I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I for one would have been a LOT less ticked off, probably not even the slightest bit angry, if WOTC had just handled this PDF thing a little bit differently.
I mean if they had simply told Paizo and RPGnow, etc... what they wanted to do, and gave everyone a week, maybe two, to buy and DL any and all WOTC PDF's they want to make sure they have, because the PDF's will be gone for an unknown period of time, with forever as a possibility, a lot more of us would likely be far happier with WOTC right now.
Instead they treat us all like PDF pirates and don't give us law abiding customers a chance to get PDF's they may not make available for months, very possibly a year or more considering their performance in other electronic areas. Sure, SOME of you had the chance, but not everyone goes onto the internet everyday to see whats going on in the world of D&D. Some people don't check their e-mail multiple times a day, so don't see Paizo's e-mail until 3 minutes before the time is up.
WOTC simply handled this about as badly as it could have been handled. Simple as that. IF they had given more time for people to get informed and to find money to buy the PDF's they wanted, WOTC would have far fewer people angry with them. It would not have killed them, or their court case, to keep the PDF's up for a week or two.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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Since I can't really speak with my wallet any more than I am (I haven't bought anything WotC produces since last January, and now can't even legally buy the only thing left they offer that I might have considered) I did something that was perhaps a little bit childish. I went to my local Barnes & Noble and Borders stores on my lunch break, opened up their copies of Book of Erotic Fantasy to the dildos page and left them sitting right next to the 4e material. I hope lots of parents see it and make the association WotC so feared when the book came out.
Since I can't really speak with my wallet any more than I am (I haven't bought anything WotC produces since last January, and now can't even legally buy the only thing left they offer that I might have considered) I did something that was perhaps a little bit childish. I went to my local Barnes & Noble and Borders stores on my lunch break, opened up their copies of Book of Erotic Fantasy to the dildos page and left them sitting right next to the 4e material. I hope lots of parents see it and make the association WotC so feared when the book came out.
I know that was childish, but i cannot help but laugh histerically..
The Raksasha whose head was proportedly eaten by Yoda commits act of Edition Domestic Terrorism! More at 5!
Since I can't really speak with my wallet any more than I am (I haven't bought anything WotC produces since last January, and now can't even legally buy the only thing left they offer that I might have considered) I did something that was perhaps a little bit childish. I went to my local Barnes & Noble and Borders stores on my lunch break, opened up their copies of Book of Erotic Fantasy to the dildos page and left them sitting right next to the 4e material. I hope lots of parents see it and make the association WotC so feared when the book came out.
ROFLMAO!!!
They do say a picture is worth a thousand words :)~
Speak of the devil, and he will appear.
Oooh, hey, a new face on the boards. Welcome, and may Lilith deliver your n00b-welcome-cookies soon!
I went to my local Barnes & Noble and Borders stores on my lunch break, opened up their copies of Book of Erotic Fantasy to the dildos page and left them sitting right next to the 4e material. I hope lots of parents see it and make the association WotC so feared when the book came out.
And Project Mayhem is in full swing.
Does anyone know a place where to purchase bird seed in bulk? Or any places that deliver food to wizards employees, or have wizards employees eat there? I want to apply as a chef. :D
First there was Napster, then KaZaa, now BitTorrent, next year it'll be something brand new.
The something brand new is actually brand old, and has been around for some time. And the "new" stuff cannot even be traced.
I won't go into details, but, as you say, it's so damn easy to get stuff you're not paying for, and it's so damn hard to catch people doing it.
The only things really stopping people from getting ninja'd stuff is either inborn honesty or appreciation for the company you could steal from.
Considering how wizards is acting, they have to hope the first one is still a wide-spread virtue, and more widespread than the vice of wrath and the desire to get back at them.
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What? Where do you get off telling me that i hate soymilk, leafy! lol.. I don't dislike soymilk at all, actually :PI just like Chocolate milk better! :)
In a perfect world, we'd have chocolate soy milk!We do--it's what I drink: Chocolate Silk.
I prefer Chocolate Almond Milk...since soy is one of the top allergens...it doesn't treat my intestines so well...
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Since I can't really speak with my wallet any more than I am (I haven't bought anything WotC produces since last January, and now can't even legally buy the only thing left they offer that I might have considered) I did something that was perhaps a little bit childish. I went to my local Barnes & Noble and Borders stores on my lunch break, opened up their copies of Book of Erotic Fantasy to the dildos page and left them sitting right next to the 4e material. I hope lots of parents see it and make the association WotC so feared when the book came out.
Huh, I always turn the 4e stuff backwards and then put any pathfinder stuff in front of it...
Nice thing is, since 4e came out...B&N is carrying a LOT more non-WotC RPGS!!!! it's sweet!
Dark Heresy, Pathfinder, Iron Kingdoms, WoD, Serenity, Deadlands Reloaded...Nice to see a VARIETY of games there again...
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Director of Brand Strategy
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The only things really stopping people from getting ninja'd stuff is either inborn honesty or appreciation for the company you could steal from.
Considering how wizards is acting, they have to hope the first one is still a wide-spread virtue, and more widespread than the vice of wrath and the desire to get back at them.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. The difference between brand-name recognition/market-share and respect and appreciation are huge. It seems WotC overestimates the value of the former and gives the latter too little credit.
Venting behind the cut:
Now that Mages by the Sea has pulled all PDFs, and people have lost the ability to download ones they have already paid for, how might I be able to find OOP products (anything pre 3e) they produced at a reasonable price?
Feel free to browse what I have for sale here:
GentleGiant's sales pageMaybe you'll find something useful. I'm certainly ready to negotiate bulk discounts. Only problem might be steep shipping prices.
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Chief Technical Officer
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...But quick as people are to blame WotC, its pretty clear that WotC wasn't the one who made them the promise that they could redownload their PDFs. Hopefully this well be a lesson to the consumer, that these companies do not own the rights to all the products they distribute and apparently lack contracts which prevent their PDFs from being yanked down immediately, given that's precisely what happened, and even Paizo only gave its customers a day's notice. It will hopefully also be a lesson to these companies to actually write better contracts with their PDF suppliers, so that this sort of situation cannot recur.
We do not promise eternal access to downloads; we know that the contracts that allow us to distribute non-Paizo PDFs can be terminated. In the case of a termination, we will generally seek permission from the publisher to continue providing downloads to those customers who have already purchased them (and I believe that that has been granted to us in every case other than Wizards of the Coast). In the case of a publisher declining to provide ongoing access, we would then ask that the publisher to allow us an opportunity to notify our customers that the files would no longer be accessible, and we'd seek to provide them with as large a window to download those files as the publisher would allow.
There are other ways that people can lose access to specific downloads; for example, when publishers update their files, the older version is usually replaced by a newer version, in which case access to the older version is no longer available.
We have also blocked specific customers from accessing any of their previously purchased downloads after we found that their personalized PDFs had been made available via illegal filesharing.
So, while we will generally try to provide ongoing access to purchased assets, we do not and cannot guarantee that the files will always be accessible. (I recommend that customers download their purchased assets immediately, and maintain their own backups.)
Now that you know better, I hope that you will retract any statements on other boards that indicate otherwise, partly because they inaccurately paint us in a negative light, but mostly because I wouldn't want customers taking your mistaken impression as the truth.
(And as far as our ability to write contracts goes, that's actually a moot point in this case; while we do have a standard PDF distribution contract that every other company has used and continues to use, Wizards of the Coast provided their own PDF distribution contract to us. It was in no way unfair—after all, we did agree to use it—but it is unique, and we didn't write it.)
Fair use is a mine field to be honest.
And love is a battlefield.
We are young, heartache to heartache we stand
No promises, no demands.
Dance fight!
On a more serious note, thanks for the clarification Vic! Personally, after immediately downloading my purchase, I move it over to a 4gb USB thumb drive, and add the unzipped folders to a tarball I keep on my netbook.
USB drives are fairly inexpensive these days, and while they are small, I find they tend to be more robust than backing up media on cd or dvd.
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Paizo did more than any of the other companies did, they delayed the inevitable.
They didn't just say "Sorry you're S.O.L." They let us know that you had a few hours to buy new PDFs and a day to download them!!!
gave me enough time to download my previous stuff. Paizo did an exemplary job, and I'm sure they had to bend some rules to give us what they did give us...
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Chief Technical Officer
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Maybe the shut down is temporary and Paizo will have PDFs back up in a few weeks or months.
While I can't talk about the specifics of the contract, I can tell you that their files no longer exist on our servers. If Wizards were to change their minds, bringing things back up exactly as they were would be a lot harder than taking them down was.
While I can't talk about the specifics of the contract, I can tell you that their files no longer exist on our servers. If Wizards were to change their minds, bringing things back up exactly as they were would be a lot harder than taking them down was.
Wow... I'm surprised they didn't ask to witness the deletion. ;)
But seriously, I don't see how that drastic of a measure will guarantee them anything.
Maybe the shut down is temporary and Paizo will have PDFs back up in a few weeks or months.While I can't talk about the specifics of the contract, I can tell you that their files no longer exist on our servers. If Wizards were to change their minds, bringing things back up exactly as they were would be a lot harder than taking them down was.
$ shred /dev/hda ?
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$ shred /dev/hda ?Maybe the shut down is temporary and Paizo will have PDFs back up in a few weeks or months.While I can't talk about the specifics of the contract, I can tell you that their files no longer exist on our servers. If Wizards were to change their minds, bringing things back up exactly as they were would be a lot harder than taking them down was.
My company stores digital evidence for law enforcement agencies - much of it criminally related - and even they don't demand a complete wipe that quickly.
crazy.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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$ shred /dev/hda ?Maybe the shut down is temporary and Paizo will have PDFs back up in a few weeks or months.While I can't talk about the specifics of the contract, I can tell you that their files no longer exist on our servers. If Wizards were to change their minds, bringing things back up exactly as they were would be a lot harder than taking them down was.
Nah, they shipped the drives to that volcano and tossed them in along with Kobold Cleaver*
Thus was WotC pleased by their sacrifice.
*
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It took about 15 seconds of web surfing; they're all still out there, and I don't even know "where to look" I just know "how to run a Google search".
_If_ this was an attempt to actively attempt to stop piracy, it's not going to work. People who pirate will get the material regardless of what companies attempt to do over their DRM. Frankly, that's been the problem with DRM all along. First there was Napster, then KaZaa, now BitTorrent, next year it'll be something brand new. All it takes is one person with the free time and drive to pirate something and it's out and about. Frankly, there is little stop djinn, it's already out of the bottle and it's not going back any time soon.
From reading the public legal filings, it is precisely BECAUSE of the legally obtained PDFs that they caught some people pirating them. The PDFs at DriveThru RPG have a visible watermark - similar to how Paizo does it - and apparently they also have a micro-watermark (that's what WotC called it) which identifies which account was used to purchase that particular PDF. Because the visible watermark was removed, but the micro-watermark wasn't, they were able to determine who the original purchaser was (and I guess they found three different ones flying around as they filed three separate complaints - one against some folks in Poland, one against some folks in the US, and one against an American and a Phillipines resident who didn't even remove the visible watermark....). Without the PDF watermarking the book would still have been "pirated" as many have said - it just would have lagged a couple of days while someone scanned it. Then it would be totally untraceable. Having OEF PDFs in this case actually made figuring out who the pirates are possible.