Is the PDF Security Lockdown Necessary?


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Why doesn't the OP use d20pfsrd.com? You can print out individual monsters if you wish, and everything's linked so you can check on rules on the fly.


Kthulhu wrote:
Michael Griffin-Wade wrote:
I would hazzard to guess that most of us just don't care that the DRM is there at all. I count myself in this block of people. I get what I need from the PDFs that I have now and I don't really need any more.

This. I have copy-pasted stuff from Paizo's PDFs, so I dunno what all of that is about. And beyond that, there's really nothing I want to be able to do other than read them. And I'd guess that a good 90% of the customer base agrees with me.

Oh, and Gothulhu? I think you should answer Devil's Advocate re: your girlfriend. :P

The problem with analogies is that they can easily be false. The relationship between two human beings has nothing in common with how a company distributes its IP. Also, there are laws concerning the fair use of IP that do not apply to humans. If you produce and sell products including some IP, I can buy it, take it him and use it how I like. Doing the same thing with your girlfriend is called prostitution, which hardly seems like an element of a healthy relationship.

I have referenced an actual study that was conducted in Japan and sales figures stated by Neil Gaiman as evidence that DRM is not always the best choice. No one has yet to respond with an actual study that links piracy with a decrease in sales.

Analogies are fun and they can be useful literary and rhetorical tools. Analogies are inductive reasoning, which is useful for moving towards an answer, but it alone cannot give us the answer. As a logical argument, a flaw (or potential) can always be found when you rely on analogy or inductive reasoning.

As a broader response, I guess I would summarize my view like this:

A company or individual can choose to utilize DRM in an attempt to protect their IP, it is completely within their rights. Bypassing DRM, or finding others who already have is often so simple as to render those protections irrelevant. Paying customers are less likely to attempt to bypass DRM, or not possess the skills to bypass it on their own. Fair Use has long been established, that customer may purchase IP and edit it for their own private use, or even public use if used for teaching or research. Therefore, the only people who are prevented from copying/editing an IP are legitimate customers, which is completely legal if there is no DRM present.

Is it their right within the law? Yes.
Who does it benefit? No one, as far as I can tell.


Adam Jury wrote:
Blazej wrote:

Apply this logic to a store, is it necessary to put locks on your doors? If you didn't, they could come in at any time, browse and pay for product without you having to sit and wait at the store. They might even pay you extra for the privilege. Problem though is that it just takes one bad person to clear your inventory.

You can't give the benefits to the good customers without leaving yourself completely unprotected against the bad.

No matter how many times someone torrents or otherwise distributes an Eclipse Phase PDF, we are still able to sell them; you can't clear our inventory. The analogy to physical goods and services is broken; many studies and my personal experiences and the experiences of my friends and colleagues show that people who pirate electronic goods often end up also buying them, buying them in other formats (like a shiny hardcover book...) or buying other related merch.

Some will argue that piracy reduces demand for the commercial versions; we haven't seen that to be the case, and we have spoken with many fans who said "I think it's awesome that you distribute your stuff for free and let us remix it and share those remixes, and that's one reason our entire gaming group buys your stuff."

Is that going to work for every publisher? No, probably not. But Paizo does a lot of similar things, such as the big advanced playtests -- all of which build up good will and get people involved and emotionally/mentally invested, making them more likely to continue to purchase.

I admit my memory failed me and I forgot who you were. I have a different view of someone who suggests, "why don't you try out this business model and see how it works out," and "we are trying this business model and seeing how it works out." I certainly feel a bit more out of place discussing this with someone who actively performing it than a person that is just recommending it.

I obviously can't argue with your experience. All I have for actual experience is the piracy of RPG books that goes on among my local community. Frankly, the people around that get pirated copies, I doubt that they purchase it afterward whether they liked it or not. There have been a few people with bad experiences with digital security, sometimes with important functions being limited and other times the product being destroyed by some system error. If I had to guess, none of the people I know would change their purchasing habits (for good or ill) if security were reduced. I think that it would increase the ease of use for those with legal copies and the improve the quality and speed of release of illegal copies.

My analogy comparing digital products to physical products is obviously not completely accurate. If I had to repeat that response in another way, I would say that this is that trusting people helps them purchase and use products, but it also opens yourself to risk and that it is up to the company to evaluation and decide if the risks exceed the rewards for their own individual situation.


Calixymenthillian wrote:
While I'm not saying this is relevant to PDF security, the village shop near where I live has a good deal of the items for sale in an unlocked building well out of sight of the owner, and similarly the nearby farms tend to leave some of their produce next to the road with just a price sign and a bucket to collect payment. They don't seem to have too much trouble.

Yep, I know about them and it clearly works for them. I'm not saying it couldn't. But if those stores were in different locations, I don't doubt that they would have different levels of trouble.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

OK, can anybody point me to something that can't be done with Paizo's PDFs as it is now? Because I can't think of anything.


Gorbacz wrote:
OK, can anybody point me to something that can't be done with Paizo's PDFs as it is now? Because I can't think of anything.

From the OP:

Spahrep wrote:

I understand the customization putting the owners name on it, it makes sense, but why oh why do you have the export pages disabled.

I bought the bestiary 2 pdf, and i wanted to print myself out a mini bestiary for use with this weeks game, I wanted to export all the plants / fey to one pdf so i could easily use it on my ipad.

Instead the only option i was left with, was to print a few pages at a time after making a list of all the pages that contained those creatures (couldn't use the gui). Then most printers only let you list about 20 char for selective printing,so i had to run 4 print jobs.

Is this necessary?

This is also going to prevent me from doing something else which i was thinking of doing which is subscribing to modules and then exporting pages with new creatures to make a supplementary PDF for my own use of all the special mobs in modules.

What purpose does this serve?


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Irontruth wrote:


I have referenced an actual study that was conducted in Japan and sales figures stated by Neil Gaiman as evidence that DRM is not always the best choice. No one has yet to respond with an actual study that links piracy with a decrease in sales.

The study that you linked to (which is in Japanese, and thus most of us cannot read it to determine the means in which data was collected nor the statistical models used to determine conclusions) was a published by an institute that focuses on breaking old models of business; additionally, I do not think that the journal that they publish undergoes a peer-review process - but I could be wrong about that.

However, assuming that the study was done correctly, it still doesn't apply to Paizo's business model.

They are discussing video content, and the focus of the study is on animation that is no longer being produced commercially. In that sense, tracking what animation people have taken the time to record digitally and make available gives companies a focus for which of their old stock to produce commercially (in much better quality than what is available for free).

The parallel would be that Paizo used to make a magazine called P-Mag, but no longer have it available for purchase in any format. People who own the old P-Mags are scanning their old magazines and making adventures available. In response, Paizo digs out the old P-Mags and updates the quality (better pics, etc) and then re-releases them.

The models of study are different.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Abbasax wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
OK, can anybody point me to something that can't be done with Paizo's PDFs as it is now? Because I can't think of anything.

From the OP:

Spahrep wrote:

I understand the customization putting the owners name on it, it makes sense, but why oh why do you have the export pages disabled.

I bought the bestiary 2 pdf, and i wanted to print myself out a mini bestiary for use with this weeks game, I wanted to export all the plants / fey to one pdf so i could easily use it on my ipad.

Instead the only option i was left with, was to print a few pages at a time after making a list of all the pages that contained those creatures (couldn't use the gui). Then most printers only let you list about 20 char for selective printing,so i had to run 4 print jobs.

Is this necessary?

This is also going to prevent me from doing something else which i was thinking of doing which is subscribing to modules and then exporting pages with new creatures to make a supplementary PDF for my own use of all the special mobs in modules.

What purpose does this serve?

That's easy, print the relevant pages to PDF via a Ghostscript virtual printer, reassemble in any PDF editor, voila.

In other words - OP, don't moan at Paizo for lack of your computer skillz. :)


Blazej wrote:


I admit my memory failed me and I forgot who you were. I have a different view of someone who suggests, "why don't you try out this business model and see how it works out," and "we are trying this business model and seeing how it works out." I certainly feel a bit more out of place discussing this with someone who actively performing it than a person that is just recommending it.

Please, don't feel that way. I'm here discussing it because I _want_ to discuss it, because I think it's important to the future of publishing RPGs. We're quite open about our business -- if you haven't read our Year in Review 2010 post, check it out here: http://eclipsephase.com/posthuman-2010-year-end-review

Blazej wrote:


I obviously can't argue with your experience. All I have for actual experience is the piracy of RPG books that goes on among my local community. Frankly, the people around that get pirated copies, I doubt that they purchase it afterward whether they liked it or not.

These are the class of pirates that I consider to "not count." If they aren't going to buy my stuff no matter what I do, there's no use trying to convince them to buy it, nor try and punish them. Time spent on them is time I could be spending improving our books, making more books, or playing Pathfinder. ;P

I have a post about this here: http://adamjury.com/2010/piracy-doesnt-matter/

(There are a handful of other posts about piracy on my personal blog, all under the 'piracy' tag.)

Blazej wrote:
I think that it would increase the ease of use for those with legal copies and the improve the quality and speed of release of illegal copies.

For a mainstream RPG release, it's going to hit pirate sites within a week of electronic release, if not sooner. The more popular you are, the more quickly you'll get pirated and the more people will pirate it. Compare the list of top 10 grossing movies of 2010 with the top 10 pirated movies of 2010 -- a lot of overlap.

Blazej wrote:
My analogy comparing digital products to physical products is obviously not completely accurate. If I had to repeat that response in another way, I would say that this is that trusting people helps them purchase and use products, but it also opens yourself to risk and that it is up to the company to evaluation and decide if the risks exceed the rewards for their own individual situation.

Absolutely. Each company has a different opinion on a) how much risk/damage there is and b) how much time/effort/money can be spent trying to reduce that number.

I'd rather spend my time telling people "Yes you can share that, get your campaign going!" than "No, you can't share that." :-)


Gorbacz wrote:
OK, can anybody point me to something that can't be done with Paizo's PDFs as it is now? Because I can't think of anything.

Well, I know I can't clap my hands, say "Computer, Paizo Adventure Path 37!" and expect a fully-rendered holographic version of the the boat I'm supposed to be on to appear.

-- Andy

Former VP of Finance

Devil's Advocate wrote:

Dear Pirate,

...

I would like to quote this for later use, and would like to know who to attribute. Is this yours originally, or did you copy it from somewhere?


Andrew Tuttle wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
OK, can anybody point me to something that can't be done with Paizo's PDFs as it is now? Because I can't think of anything.

Well, I know I can't clap my hands, say "Computer, Paizo Adventure Path 37!" and expect a fully-rendered holographic version of the the boat I'm supposed to be on to appear.

-- Andy

Mr. Tuttle, sir, I like the cut of your jib.


Yar! Cosmo says why are we discussing Pirates when Ninjas are superior! He said to stop pirating everything and start Ninjaing everything!


Grick wrote:


Discouraging professional piracy: Either by breaking the security, scanning the physical book, or just stealing a copy from someone who paid for it, all it takes is one copy to get copied and spread around before it's widely available.

Just a minor comment: Often, it's not just the "will it be done" but also the "how quickly will it be done?"

Some people are quite impatient. The longer they have to wait for some book to be available illegally, the more likely they are to get the legal version.

Though I won't make any claim as to the time the PDF lock-up adds to the "cracking" process.

And I'm not a professional in the piracy scene, but I think that the "solutions" for piracy that you can get easily (torrents, emule and other p2p-networks) are not really that secure, since you leave a paper trail.

There are more secure and anonymous solutions out there, but those are probably not for the average Carl Computer-Clueless.

And I also won't make any claim as to the percentage of clueless persons among pirates.

Grick wrote:


Is the revenue loss from the group of people who meet all of those criteria big enough to justify the (slight) inconvenience of every existing customer?

If it were an inconvenience to every existing customer, it would be a different matter.

But a lot of people simply don't care that you can't extract single pages and make your own collections. A lot of people won't even know you could theoretically do that.

So, analogous to your list of requirements for pirates they need to fulfil in order to be detained by this, we have another list:

A)Willing to purchase Paizo products
B)Interested in PDFs
C)Interested in extracting pages from PDFs
D)Considering the stuff you can get from PRD and other sources instead to be insufficient
E)Inconvenienced by all this so much they won't pay for the PDFs
F)Not interested to be a subscriber for the other benefits you get for subscribing

There, my list goes up to F), meaning more requirements, meaning the number of people that fulfil all criteria is smaller ;-P (That's nonsense, of course, but it will be hard for any of us to even ballpark the numbers without hard facts.

In fact, I thought of another criterion:
G)Does not know how to break the PDF-lock to go ahead and do all the stuff he wants, anyway.

But let's keep out the grey areas in legality.

Ssieth wrote:


This is why I own a grand total of 0 Paizo PDFs.

I own a grand total of A LOT of Paizo PDFs. I paid for a grand total of 0 of them.

Not because I'm a pirate (I'm actually a ninjester), but because I'm a subscriber.

Even without the PDF deal, the whole subscription thing would probably work out for me just fine.

I did think about an "AP Bestiary" where I'd collect all the monsters from the bestiary sections from all APs (that was way back before there were other lines with monster entries, or I'd have thought about a general Bestiary with everything from all lines) and was disheartened that it could not be done, but it wouldn't have stopped me from buying the PDFs had I ever been buying them.

Plus, the more I thought about it, the more I disliked the idea. It wouldn't be a proper book, anyway, if page 87 followed page 91 (which has a totally different layout, to boot!)

Ssieth wrote:


However - the whole point of a PDF for me is to give me the ability to remix the material to be more convenient for my own usage. Without that the product is pointless.

I guess we vastly differ in that: I think the PDFs immensely useful. Instead of having 7 books open at the table, I just have 7 PDFs open, and I just switch from one file to the other if I need anything.

I can also do full-text search. I can still get the pictures out - which is especially useful in the case of maps, which I put into MapTool, the official map tool used and endorsed by yours truly. Not in online games, but in our regular sessions. Beats the living crap out of having a player paint a map.

Ssieth wrote:


I guess I also resent the insinuation that I'm a criminal. I don't like purchasing a product that's specifically locked against me in case I turn out to be a thief/pirate/terrorist.

In that case, find a nice, remote cave and live there, living off the land. Because otherwise, people will "insinuate you're a criminal" all the time.

  • Want to fly somewhere? They'll check your luggage, let you go through a metal detector, won't let you use a lot of hand luggage (and will probably even restrict what exactly you can take with you into the cabin), and so forth, and so on. Just as if they assumed you were a terrorist!
  • Want to rent a flat? Chances are you'll have to leave a security deposit you'll get back after you move out and everything's okay. Just as if they assumed you'd strip anything that could be sold and thresh the rest and disappear in the middle of the night.
  • Want to test drive a car? You'll probably have to leave your ID card with the dealership while you drive around in the car. It's as if they just assume you'll drive away with the car, repaint it and then sell it to some bloke.
  • Want to order something online? If you're a first-time customer (especially not a commercial one), you'll have to look long and hard to find a place that will let you purchase on account for your first order (or anything). Chances are you'll have to shell out the dosh up front, as if you were one of those rip-offs that won't pay for stuff and have it sent to a fake address or something.
  • Want to... well, you get the point.

    It's not really "insinuating you're a criminal". It's just not knowing you at all. So you have few options:
    1. You just assume the best of everyone. In a lot of cases, that will make you fall onto your beak. Pirated PDFs, stolen test-drive cars, online shopping fraud, trains being hijacked, the works.
    2. You don't treat everyone the same. While this probably doesn't apply to stuff like online purchases, imagine the airport security just waving through some people while they check the luggage of others. There is no question whether someone would take exception of not being trusted while others are. The question is just how long it will take for someone to make a scene. Or to sue. And to blow this thing up (the situation, not the airplane). Spur the media on into a feeding frenzy.
    3. Require extensive background checks before you trust anyone. This also applies more to other stuff (and it is used in some cases), but in theory, you could do it to give out unprotected PDFs only to those whose check came up with nothing. For some situations, like getting highly paid jobs, people will often put up with that. For PDFs?
    4. Institute universal restrictions, so nobody will be singled out and nobody will have to get a background check.

    We can see that 2 and 3 don't really work for PDFs. So you can either go with 1 and trust everyone, or play it safe and have some restrictions for everyone.

    In that case, they went for the restrictions. I don't have a thought parasite in the heads of Paizo (still working on it, but will be another couple of weeks. Can't rush that stuff), so I just guess why they did it: I believe they did it this way because they thought the protection afforded by the restrictions was significant enough to do it, while the number of people who were inconvenienced were insufficient to balance it out, especially if you only count those who care enough to not buy anything.

    Gothulhu wrote:
    Still, nobody answers the question, does pdf security help sales? I would guess no, but you shouldn't go on a guess. Just find out. It would not be hard. You could either gets sales figures from companies that have removed DRM or you could run your own experiment.

    Sales figures? Good luck finding a company that is similar enough to Paizo to serve as a viable base for comparison.

    Because that's what you need in order to get a meaningful result.

    You can't just compare companies.

    Comparing, say, Paizo with those guys from upthread, Posthuman Studios those guys who let you freely share and change their PDFs, my guess would be that Paizo's sales would be significantly higher. But that's not because Paizo has the better DRM scheme (I know it's not really DRM, but let's stick with those three letters for ease of use). It's simply because Paizo's just bigger, their game is bigger. Doesn't say anything about the DRM-scheme.

    As for running their own experiments: That's not always feasible.

    Gothulhu wrote:


    I cannot comprehend why every time posts like this show up Paizo cheerleaders come out and profess how they can do no wrong.

    You know, comments like that will really endear you to everyone...

    Gothulhu wrote:


    I believe in this equation like I believe in 2 +2 = 4. More happy customers = more money for Paizo.

    That's an enormous oversimplification, and one based on the assumption that the gain of this would indeed exceed the loss.

    I don't know whether this would be so. I do believe that Paizo knows better, since they have more information about the matter, and they have some people with more education and experience in the fields required to make those kinds of decisions.

    I also believe Paizo to be ever concerned about customer satisfaction, basing that belief on past experiences. I think they'll do what they can to look into it and make what they think is a good decision.


  • Gothulhu wrote:
    Brian E. Harris wrote:
    Gothulhu wrote:
    Same stuff, different post
    They're certainly not hurting for customers.
    Man I hope you're wrong about that. I hope Paizo has the goal of providing gamers with top-notch content for their games. To continue doing that, and do it better, they will need customers.

    Uhhh, what?

    I said they're NOT hurting for customers - meaning, they've got plenty of customers, and they get more all the time if the claims on this board are any indication.

    Additionally, it would seem that they DO have the goal of providing gamers with top-notch content, since, well, they're doing that.


    Andrew Tuttle wrote:
    Gorbacz wrote:
    OK, can anybody point me to something that can't be done with Paizo's PDFs as it is now? Because I can't think of anything.

    Well, I know I can't clap my hands, say "Computer, Paizo Adventure Path 37!" and expect a fully-rendered holographic version of the the boat I'm supposed to be on to appear.

    -- Andy

    It doesn't? Oh, man, you're missing out! That seraglio encounter gains so much from the holo media.

    Do you have the right plug-in?

    It's called "LSD". I guess it's more of a pop-in.


    Gothulhu wrote:
    I cannot comprehend why every time posts like this show up Paizo cheerleaders come out and profess how they can do no wrong.

    No, it's just that whenever whiny complainers show up with moronic arguments, people are quick to point them out.

    Gothulu wrote:
    I believe in this equation like I believe in 2 +2 = 4. More happy customers = more money for Paizo. If you can make just a few customers happy without spending any money, why not do it? If you believe making money is good for Paizo. And, if pdf security doesn't increase sales, the other reasons for having it do not exceed the reasons to get rid of it.

    You put the lie to your own argument. You're obviously unhappy with the situation, i.e. an unhappy customer, yet you continue to shell out the money for the product.

    The message you're sending to Paizo? "Do whatever you want, including the opposite of what I desire, I'll continue to pay for it."

    Fix yourself.


    Abbasax wrote:
    Mr. Tuttle, sir, I like the cut of your jib.

    *Smiles and winks at Abbasax*

    I was "taken aback" while "weathering the storm," but I figured it was time for "a different tack."

    I shrugged, realized the "sun is over the yardarm," and "nailed my colours to the mast."

    (I was afraid that nautical metaphor'd be lost, thanks for catching it. All this "piracy" double-speak and what-not, not?)

    KaeYoss,

    If only it was a matter of a hit or three of LSD ... sadly, I suspect I'll have to wait a few years before my holo-media's so robust! :D

    -- Andy


    KaeYoss wrote:
    Comparing, say, Paizo with those guys from upthread, Posthuman Studios those guys who let you freely share and change their PDFs, my guess would be that Paizo's sales would be significantly higher. But that's not because Paizo has the better DRM scheme (I know it's not really DRM, but let's stick with those three letters for ease of use). It's simply because Paizo's just bigger, their game is bigger. Doesn't say anything about the DRM-scheme.

    Absolutely true. A bunch of our stats are in the Year End report; but we're 3 people, no office, with a release schedule of 4 print books and 8+ electronic-only releases per year. We're much smaller than Paizo, not near as diversified, much younger, we have no hierarchy. Our company is Different from many others -- and we like it that way. But we also think that other companies can also be successful with a similar model; and a lot of Paizo's practices (low PDF prices, widespread public distribution [in our case, Creative Commons; in Paizo's case, open playtests and the OGL]) are very similar to ours.

    BTW, I think one of our authors, Jack Graham, will be running an Eclipse Phase game at PaizoCon this year. :-)


    I also don't understand what value Paizo thinks that their DRM is providing them.

    All the Paizo products show up on the torrent sites alongside everything else. The DRM just doesn't work. All it does is inhibit the usefulness to legit customers.

    All the discussion about "is piracy bad for business etc." is irrelevant - it's based on the theory that the DRM works. It doesn't.

    So yes, it's their right to do it blah blah blah. But it doesn't help them, so they should quit it. Watermarking's fine. Do it. It prevents the total goons with the sophistication of "here gaming buddy he's my PDF I emailed it to you." But the more extensive annoyances - in the end, they just don't work. The rest of this is all noise.

    Shadow Lodge

    Ernest Mueller wrote:

    I also don't understand what value Paizo thinks that their DRM is providing them.

    ...
    So yes, it's their right to do it blah blah blah. But it doesn't help them, so they should quit it. Watermarking's fine. Do it.

    As stated a couple of times by Paizo employees in this very thread, the "DRM" is there as a side result of making the watermark not easily removable. So the reason it's there is that Paizo would like to actually SELL their PDFs. Sales probably go down when you're competing with "free".

    Now then, does this "DRM" make it impossible to remove the watermark? No, apparently not. But most people aren't going to invest the time and effort into doing so. Pirates want things free and EASY.

    Silver Crusade

    Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
    Ernest Mueller wrote:

    All it does is inhibit the usefulness to legit customers.

    What kind of usefulness does the DRM prevent for you?


    Kthulhu wrote:
    Now then, does this "DRM" make it impossible to remove the watermark? No, apparently not. But most people aren't going to invest the time and effort into doing so. Pirates want things free and EASY.

    That's funny, considering that the biggest pirates are the ones who buy legitimate copies and then put the work into removing the DRM themselves. The ones getting pirated copies "free and easy" are all the little fish that nobody concerns themselves with.


    Chris Self wrote:
    Devil's Advocate wrote:

    Dear Pirate,

    ...

    I would like to quote this for later use, and would like to know who to attribute. Is this yours originally, or did you copy it from somewhere?

    The "Dear Pirate" post is mine originally.

    You can attribute the quote either to Devil's Advocate, or to Eric Morton writing as Devil's Advocate.


    Ernest Mueller wrote:

    I also don't understand what value Paizo thinks that their DRM is providing them.

    All the Paizo products show up on the torrent sites alongside everything else. The DRM just doesn't work. All it does is inhibit the usefulness to legit customers.

    All the discussion about "is piracy bad for business etc." is irrelevant - it's based on the theory that the DRM works. It doesn't.

    So yes, it's their right to do it blah blah blah. But it doesn't help them, so they should quit it. Watermarking's fine. Do it. It prevents the total goons with the sophistication of "here gaming buddy he's my PDF I emailed it to you." But the more extensive annoyances - in the end, they just don't work. The rest of this is all noise.

    The locks on your door keep the honest people honest. It doesn't keep thieves out.

    And just for the record, I HAVE been hindered by the protection tools on the PDFs, when building a tool to extract text programatically from the PDFs for d20pfsrd.com (it didn't work that great, would have worked awesome if the protection was gone). But I was trying to use it not as it was intended to be used, c'est la vie. I still get to enjoy the PDFs when I do not wish to lug around the books, or do a full-text search. That use is well worth the cost of the PDFs.


    Gorbacz wrote:
    Ernest Mueller wrote:

    All it does is inhibit the usefulness to legit customers.

    What kind of usefulness does the DRM prevent for you?

    Tried to assemble a player's guide packet for my current campaign by cobbling together pieces from various PDFs, couldn't. Also wanted to change a couple proper names and details to fit my campaign. (Second Darkness with no meteor, in this case.) Can only do it by manual cut and pastes and printing out specific pages and then assembling from there. A big pain.

    Silver Crusade

    Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
    Ernest Mueller wrote:
    Gorbacz wrote:
    Ernest Mueller wrote:

    All it does is inhibit the usefulness to legit customers.

    What kind of usefulness does the DRM prevent for you?
    Tried to assemble a player's guide packet for my current campaign by cobbling together pieces from various PDFs, couldn't. Also wanted to change a couple proper names and details to fit my campaign. (Second Darkness with no meteor, in this case.) Can only do it by manual cut and pastes and printing out specific pages and then assembling from there. A big pain.

    You can cobble pieces easily. Print individual pages via a Ghostscript virtual printer and re-assemble them as you see fit in any PDF editor.

    And as for freely editing the contents themselves, well, that goes a bit above and beyond regular use of the PDF, don't you think? Can you imagine a PFS event where people turn up with edited PDFs?


    Kthulhu wrote:
    Ernest Mueller wrote:

    I also don't understand what value Paizo thinks that their DRM is providing them.

    ...
    So yes, it's their right to do it blah blah blah. But it doesn't help them, so they should quit it. Watermarking's fine. Do it.

    As stated a couple of times by Paizo employees in this very thread, the "DRM" is there as a side result of making the watermark not easily removable. So the reason it's there is that Paizo would like to actually SELL their PDFs. Sales probably go down when you're competing with "free".

    Now then, does this "DRM" make it impossible to remove the watermark? No, apparently not. But most people aren't going to invest the time and effort into doing so. Pirates want things free and EASY.

    But don't you see - DRM isn't something 'all the pirates' need to overcome. It's something ONE pirate overcomes, and puts on a torrent, and everyone else downloads and then seeds. No one except that one guy needs to crack the DRM, this is the Internet age.

    Putting the watermark in in the first place keeps honest people honest. If you just forward to your buddy, it's got your name on it. All the rest of it - it makes it harder for some random guy to remove their watermark from their copy by just firing up Acrobat, but it's just as easy to go torrent the copy someone else removed the watermark from.

    Every Paizo product is dewatermarked and up on the major RPG oriented torrent sites. That's just a fact. So anyone that wants to obtain it for free, already can. Putting DRM on my copy only makes it so I can't adapt the content easily for my game.

    Silver Crusade

    Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
    Ernest Mueller wrote:
    Kthulhu wrote:
    Ernest Mueller wrote:

    I also don't understand what value Paizo thinks that their DRM is providing them.

    ...
    So yes, it's their right to do it blah blah blah. But it doesn't help them, so they should quit it. Watermarking's fine. Do it.

    As stated a couple of times by Paizo employees in this very thread, the "DRM" is there as a side result of making the watermark not easily removable. So the reason it's there is that Paizo would like to actually SELL their PDFs. Sales probably go down when you're competing with "free".

    Now then, does this "DRM" make it impossible to remove the watermark? No, apparently not. But most people aren't going to invest the time and effort into doing so. Pirates want things free and EASY.

    But don't you see - DRM isn't something 'all the pirates' need to overcome. It's something ONE pirate overcomes, and puts on a torrent, and everyone else downloads and then seeds. No one except that one guy needs to crack the DRM, this is the Internet age.

    Putting the watermark in in the first place keeps honest people honest. If you just forward to your buddy, it's got your name on it. All the rest of it - it makes it harder for some random guy to remove their watermark from their copy by just firing up Acrobat, but it's just as easy to go torrent the copy someone else removed the watermark from.

    Every Paizo product is dewatermarked and up on the major RPG oriented torrent sites. That's just a fact. So anyone that wants to obtain it for free, already can. Putting DRM on my copy only makes it so I can't adapt the content easily for my game.

    Howzabout you address my points above before we go into "I use [b], it means that I'm Right" territory? :)


    Gorbacz wrote:


    You can cobble pieces easily. Print individual pages via a Ghostscript virtual printer and re-assemble them as you see fit in any PDF editor.

    And as for freely editing the contents themselves, well, that goes a bit above and beyond regular use of the PDF, don't you think? Can you imagine a PFS event where people turn up with edited PDFs?

    Well, I'd already tried that with CutePDF and it didn't work, perhaps it will work with some other combination of software, perhaps not.

    And "oh no people might cheat at PFS" ranks right below rat's asses in my hierarchy of what I care about. To use your technical elitist argument, then "their GMs should generate MD5 checksums of the files the players bring and make sure they're unaltered."

    What's the "regular use" of a PDF? What's the "regular use" of a RPG? I'll tell you what it is, it is whatever the people buying it want to use it for. So yes, altering a player's guide for my group falls under "regular use" by definition, because I need to do it.

    Yes they're "within their rights blah blah mindless Paizo cheerleader party line" to do it. But:

    1. Legitimate customers (and looks like I buy just as much of their stuff as you do, so your attitude of being Paizo's defender against bashers is completely unwarranted) have legitimate reasons they want to remix and alter the content. These are supposed to be aids and guidelines for our home games, after all.

    2. The DRM does not prevent anyone who wants to get it for free, from getting it for free.

    As it does not inhibit getting for free, and does inhibit desired use by customers, then it's a net loss.

    Silver Crusade

    Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

    1. Don't use your laziness as a reason to complain. Really. It's not that hard. If you want to edit PDFs - and you clearly are after that - it means that you have the technical skills needed to pull out a simple print/reassemble stunt. It's just a matter of researching the correct, legitimate and non-DRM-removing methods to do that. Sadly, it is also slightly more time consuming than posting that DRM prevents you from that.

    2. PFS might rank at your rat ass rank, but it doesn't rank so with Paizo, and they set the terms of engagement. And ensuring that a PDF with a watermark is a legitimate copy of the original in org play is something that I would be after if I ran that business, frankly.


    Gorbacz wrote:

    1. Don't use your laziness as a reason to complain. Really. It's not that hard. If you want to edit PDFs - and you clearly are after that - it means that you have the technical skills needed to pull out a simple print/reassemble stunt. It's just a matter of researching the correct, legitimate and non-DRM-removing methods to do that. Sadly, it is also slightly more time consuming than posting that DRM prevents you from that.

    2. PFS might rank at your rat ass rank, but it doesn't rank so with Paizo, and they set the terms of engagement. And ensuring that a PDF with a watermark is a legitimate copy of the original in org play is something that I would be after if I ran that business, frankly.

    1. But what is the value of me having to jump through all those hoops? None to me, and, as I've demonstrated, none to Paizo. Apparently there's some value to you, in that it justifies you getting your jollies by acting all demanding and confrontational on the forums, but that doesn't make them money per se.

    2. You can just add a watermark to a pirated/edited copy if you want, it's not hard. There's always ways for people to cheat. If someone uses an altered book, someone will eventually have a legit copy to compare, and you ban them from PFS permanently. Problem solved, without making everyone walk around with a ball and chain to make them all slow in case they decide to commit a crime.


    Calixymenthillian wrote:
    While I'm not saying this is relevant to PDF security, the village shop near where I live has a good deal of the items for sale in an unlocked building well out of sight of the owner, and similarly the nearby farms tend to leave some of their produce next to the road with just a price sign and a bucket to collect payment. They don't seem to have too much trouble.

    That can work if the community is willing to work together to provide a stable environment. There are plenty of places where it doesn't work, and the internet is one them, because some communities are fractured, apathetic, and/or the sub communities are at odds with each other.


    Ernest Mueller wrote:


    1. But what is the value of me having to jump through all those hoops? None to me, and, as I've demonstrated, none to Paizo. Apparently there's some value to you, in that it justifies you getting your jollies by acting all demanding and confrontational on the forums, but that doesn't make them money per se.

    2. You can just add a watermark to a pirated/edited copy if you want, it's not hard. There's always ways for people to cheat. If someone uses an altered book, someone will eventually have a legit copy to compare, and you ban them from PFS permanently. Problem solved, without making everyone walk around with a ball and chain to make them all slow in case they decide to commit a crime.

    1. The intent is not for you to have to jump "through hoops". It's an unfortunate side effect. Like I mentioned, I ran into the same troubles that you and the OP mentioned above. I learned to cope, primarily because it wasn't the intended use. Also intended use is easily defined, and is done so by statutes in federal law, it's called a warranty of merchantability. It's usually reserved for physical products regarding their usefulness at the time of sale, and whether or not they are usable as a reasonable person would attempt to use it. Do you really believe that a reasonable person expects to be able to pull Intellectual Property from a product, change it, recompile it, and use it as it was originally built? On a physical product, that usually voids the warranty. Serious question here, I'm not baiting.

    2. What you suggest, where the PFS GMs compare products line by line to everyone's PDFs doesn't seem efficient? It seems it would be easier for the PFS GM to have all the books/PDFs of the rulesets allowed in the game, and he/she would confer with those, without the advent of comparing anything. Maybe the protection can make the players feel better knowing the documents are as published, but to be honest, I don't know if that can really be classified as a concern at all.

    Grand Lodge

    Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

    What Paizo does with it's PDFs is not anywhere near strong DRM. Strong DRM is when you have a server dependency, such as what used to happen with the iTunes store when you had to regularly reauthorise your computer to play your purchased media. (Apple recently removed it's DRM for new purchases). Yahoo had a DRM music store which left it's customers high and dry when Yahoo shutdown the service including the DRM authentication servers. In contrast if Paizo were to shut down tomorrow, you'd still retain the same ability to read and make use of the PDFs you have now.

    Dark Archive

    Because we just keep seeing it, I think it is time for everyone to acknowledge that the security on Paizo's pdfs is hindering some people. Maybe not a lot of people. But, yes, some people are hindered by them. That part of the argument is dead. It is put to rest. It is an ex-argument.

    They may be able to find work-arounds, but that is time and effort people don't want to spend on a pdf they paid for. Is that not a reasonable expectation? To use something you paid for the way you want to use it?


    Gothulhu wrote:

    Because we just keep seeing it, I think it is time for everyone to acknowledge that the security on Paizo's pdfs is hindering some people. Maybe not a lot of people. But, yes, some people are hindered by them. That part of the argument is dead. It is put to rest. It is an ex-argument.

    They may be able to find work-arounds, but that is time and effort people don't want to spend on a pdf they paid for. Is that not a reasonable expectation? To use something you paid for the way you want to use it?

    Accept that they made it perfectly clear when you purchased it that it's intended use, and thus overall design, was for reading and easy referencing, and that any editing of it was strongly discouraged. So it would be like buying a wrench and than complaining it doesn't work very well as a hammer. Just because the editing is what you bought it for doesn't mean that it was set up by Paizo to do that or that the majority of the people who buy them are looking for that feature. As it is your decision to use it for something beyond what it was designed to be used for, and advertised to be, you cannot expect Paizo to have much sympathy.

    As many people have stated, the fact that they have the PDFs at all is already a major thing. You can't edit them for your own use, but you can pull them up on a laptop instead of having to carry all of the physical books, you can searches quickly, and you can do all of this stuff from anywhere without having to carry around paper weights everywhere. That to most people who use it is exactly what they need; they don't need the editing (though few would refuse it if it were included). The handful of DMs compared to the sea of players means that editing of PDFs is not and probably never will be a high priority for Paizo.

    Grand Lodge

    Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
    Gothulhu wrote:

    Because we just keep seeing it, I think it is time for everyone to acknowledge that the security on Paizo's pdfs is hindering some people. Maybe not a lot of people. But, yes, some people are hindered by them. That part of the argument is dead. It is put to rest. It is an ex-argument.

    They may be able to find work-arounds, but that is time and effort people don't want to spend on a pdf they paid for. Is that not a reasonable expectation? To use something you paid for the way you want to use it?

    No it's not. Given that some people can have intentions for the product outside of the normal span of design. I.e. you can physically bolt wings and an engine on your cadillac and fly it. But you can't sue the company when your contraption falls apart in mid air because it didn't work "the way you wanted to use it."


    LazarX wrote:
    What Paizo does with it's PDFs is not anywhere near strong DRM. Strong DRM is when you have a server dependency, such as what used to happen with the iTunes store when you had to regularly reauthorise your computer to play your purchased media. (Apple recently removed it's DRM for new purchases). Yahoo had a DRM music store which left it's customers high and dry when Yahoo shutdown the service including the DRM authentication servers. In contrast if Paizo were to shut down tomorrow, you'd still retain the same ability to read and make use of the PDFs you have now.

    That's because, as pointed out upstream by Vic, DRM isn't what's used to protect PDF's. It's just the term everyone here is using conversationally.

    Vic Wertz wrote:
    ([DRM] by the way, isn't the correct term for our security—in the world of PDFs, DRM refers to a specific server-based protection scheme that we do not use)

    Liberty's Edge

    Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
    Ernest Mueller wrote:


    Well, I'd already tried that with CutePDF and it didn't work, perhaps it will work with some other combination of software, perhaps not.

    As I mentioned earlier, opening the PDF with Foxit Reader (a free and light program) and then printing through CutePDF works.

    Liberty's Edge

    Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

    Since this subject is related to my area of research, I've increasingly avoided it on public forums of places I like. I will often respond and then delete my response immediately with a sigh of relief that I didn't go through with it, unless I overwhelmingly feel a need to respond (You know. =P) I'm throwing caution to the wind, though! I've still deleted most of my response, but here's a bit:

    I'm curious, what would y'all find compelling evidence for a given practice one way or another?


    xellos wrote:

    Since this subject is related to my area of research, I've increasingly avoided it on public forums of places I like. I will often respond and then delete my response immediately with a sigh of relief that I didn't go through with it, unless I overwhelmingly feel a need to respond (You know. =P) I'm throwing caution to the wind, though! I've still deleted most of my response, but here's a bit:

    I'm curious, what would y'all find compelling evidence for a given practice one way or another?

    Compelling evidence for me would be three things:

    1) The measurable effect piracy has on sales
    2) How DRM reduced piracy (thus reducing the impact of 1)
    3) Legitimate customers are allowed fair use


    Abbasax wrote:
    LazarX wrote:
    What Paizo does with it's PDFs is not anywhere near strong DRM. Strong DRM is when you have a server dependency, such as what used to happen with the iTunes store when you had to regularly reauthorise your computer to play your purchased media. (Apple recently removed it's DRM for new purchases). Yahoo had a DRM music store which left it's customers high and dry when Yahoo shutdown the service including the DRM authentication servers. In contrast if Paizo were to shut down tomorrow, you'd still retain the same ability to read and make use of the PDFs you have now.

    That's because, as pointed out upstream by Vic, DRM isn't what's used to protect PDF's. It's just the term everyone here is using conversationally.

    Vic Wertz wrote:
    ([DRM] by the way, isn't the correct term for our security—in the world of PDFs, DRM refers to a specific server-based protection scheme that we do not use)

    If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck... it's probably a duck.

    The content is digital. The watermark is also digital. The watermark is an attempt to protect the authors rights to that work. That is Digital Rights Management. Server side encryption is another method, but it is far from the only thing.


    Adam Jury wrote:
    Please, don't feel that way. I'm here discussing it because I _want_ to discuss it, because I think it's important to the future of publishing RPGs. We're quite open about our business -- if you haven't read our Year in Review 2010 post, check it out here: http://eclipsephase.com/posthuman-2010-year-end-review

    Thank you. It is awesome how your company has been doing. If you already had a well known pre-existing game line, do you think that there would have been as many (or more) people who bought your product after downloading it?

    Adam Jury wrote:

    These are the class of pirates that I consider to "not count." If they aren't going to buy my stuff no matter what I do, there's no use trying to convince them to buy it, nor try and punish them. Time spent on them is time I could be spending improving our books, making more books, or playing Pathfinder. ;P

    I have a post about this here: http://adamjury.com/2010/piracy-doesnt-matter/

    (There are a handful of other posts about piracy on my personal blog, all under the 'piracy' tag.)

    I wouldn't count the majority of those pirates either. Some would never purchase the product no matter what. One of the things that I have heard about product releases is that most of the purchases occur within the first week or month of the products release. While some people will wait for the pirated version some, given the choice of waiting a week and purchasing it right now, will just buy the product if they can't get it for free. Do you think that this buyers are a significant number of possible customers?


    Adam Jury wrote:


    Absolutely true. A bunch of our stats are in the Year End report; but we're 3 people, no office, with a release schedule of 4 print books and 8+ electronic-only releases per year. We're much smaller than Paizo, not near as diversified, much younger, we have no hierarchy. Our company is Different from many others -- and we like it that way. But we also think that other companies can also be successful with a similar model; and a lot of Paizo's practices (low PDF prices, widespread public distribution [in our case, Creative Commons; in Paizo's case, open playtests and the OGL]) are very similar to ours.

    It does sound great. I might check out the stuff (not at PaizoCon, because I don't usually cross oceans to attend conventions), but maybe I'll download it.

    Probably won't get too far playing it, though. I hardly get to play PF as much as I want to, not to mention branching out into other games.

    Come to think of it, one GM of ours has a PF burn-out and wants to try something else. I'll let him know, maybe this is something he'll want to run.

    Liberty's Edge

    Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

    Sadly you have the other side of the story, like Lone-Wolf who saw a significant sales increase once they added DRM to their products. In their experience with their software they noticed once people pirated it they never bought it, and pirating was hurting them sigficantly until they added the DRM to their products that made all the pirated ones obsolete.

    In my limited experience those who pirate PDFs do it because that is the only way they can get the PDF (all D&D books), or they just don't want to pay for it, even those that have said they will buy it later never actually did buy the PDF after pirating them.

    Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

    If you've all noticed that I haven't replied in a bit, it's because there's really very little point. It's clear to me that I'm not going to change the minds of certain posters, and I hope it has become equally obvious to them that they're not going to change our minds.

    Watermarks exist to make it possibly to identify some of the people who violate our copyrights so that we may deal with them. Our watermarks have done, and will continue to do, exactly that.

    It is true that the addition of watermarks means that people can't easily do certain things with the documents that they might want to do—although page extraction and reassembly, as has been pointed out by others repeatedly, is *not* one of those things. Of those things, the only thing that people can't easily do that I really wish they *could* do is edit the PDF bookmarks. But because we currently must choose between "allowing easy editing of bookmarks" and "disallowing easy removal of watermarks," we choose the latter.

    I don't really want to lock this thread, because some of the discussion here is interesting, but if the same people continue to beat the same drum, I will lock it.


    Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

    I'm curious, do the security settings used preclude the use of some more advanced PDF features?

    I took a look awhile ago at an Eclipse Phase PDF and I really like the way the PDF was structured. You had the option of turning off the background layers, art and other options to get clean text if you were printing something. This is something that I feel is lacking in Paizo's PDFs. Any chance of adding something similar to future PDF releases?


    Irontruth wrote:
    Abbasax wrote:
    LazarX wrote:
    What Paizo does with it's PDFs is not anywhere near strong DRM. Strong DRM is when you have a server dependency, such as what used to happen with the iTunes store when you had to regularly reauthorise your computer to play your purchased media. (Apple recently removed it's DRM for new purchases). Yahoo had a DRM music store which left it's customers high and dry when Yahoo shutdown the service including the DRM authentication servers. In contrast if Paizo were to shut down tomorrow, you'd still retain the same ability to read and make use of the PDFs you have now.

    That's because, as pointed out upstream by Vic, DRM isn't what's used to protect PDF's. It's just the term everyone here is using conversationally.

    Vic Wertz wrote:
    ([DRM] by the way, isn't the correct term for our security—in the world of PDFs, DRM refers to a specific server-based protection scheme that we do not use)

    If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck... it's probably a duck.

    The content is digital. The watermark is also digital. The watermark is an attempt to protect the authors rights to that work. That is Digital Rights Management. Server side encryption is another method, but it is far from the only thing.

    Sorry I wasn't clear. The intent was to show that PDF "DRM" is not the same type of DRM that used for music, and that the two do not necessarily equate well for comparison.


    Ernest Mueller wrote:
    1. But what is the value of me having to jump through all those hoops? None to me, and, as I've demonstrated, none to Paizo.

    You haven't really demonstrated this. As Vic Wertz pointed out (subsequent to this post of yours, though I'm pretty sure the point was made earlier):

    "Watermarks exist to make it possibly to identify some of the people who violate our copyrights so that we may deal with them. Our watermarks have done, and will continue to do, exactly that."

    They are clearly deriving value from the practise and you recognise their right to do so. It seems reasonable to me for you to express your desire for them to abandon such things, but insisting that it's not in their interests is just not something you're able to know.

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