No, we don't place ridiculous prohibitions on money of the technology people us to copy it. Instead, we punish them when they do (severely). Similarly, Paizo doesn't put any ridiculous restrictions on the PDF or computer to keep someone from making copies of it. Instead, they punish the people they catch by refusing to do business with them.
I'm not saying that Paizo necessarily is.
From my standpoint, I'm saying that "no right of first sale" on the PDF is a ridiculous restriction. This is less a Paizo issue, and more a copyright issue (though, Paizo does have the option to say, unequivocally, "we support right of first sale as it applies to our digital products").
As far as Paizo's "punishment" of people, I think several people have raised a bone of contention with an inability to remediate the situation if, as a hypothetical, someone stole their USB drive.
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As far as Paizo's "punishment" of people, I think several people have raised a bone of contention with an inability to remediate the situation if, as a hypothetical, someone stole their USB drive.
Encrypt it, and if your phone/tablet has a remote-kill capability, learn how to use it. It's good standard-practice for all your stuff anyway, because it's easy for personal details to leak otherwise.
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As far as Paizo's "punishment" of people, I think several people have raised a bone of contention with an inability to remediate the situation if, as a hypothetical, someone stole their USB drive.Encrypt it, and if your phone/tablet has a remote-kill capability, learn how to use it. It's good standard-practice for all your stuff anyway, because it's easy for personal details to leak otherwise.
Or just don´t let it lie around. When I use my USB drive outside home, it is either in my pocket, or in a computer while I am at the computer as well. (And for the most part, there is no copyrighted stuff on it anyway).
Or just don´t let it lie around. When I use my USB drive outside home, it is either in my pocket, or in a computer while I am at the computer as well. (And for the most part, there is no copyrighted stuff on it anyway).
While 'not messing up' can work for some folks, the more distractable humans (like m'self) may need a leg-up. Encryption software can be free (check page one, brock linked a good one), and it is good insurance against your basic cases of human error. I wish that personal flash media encryption and data protection in general would catch on more. Flash drives are almost a ubiquitous possession anymore...it's a good idea to at least make an effort to prevent some sticky fingered Klepto from accessing your very incriminating photos from that last trip to Vegas (or Gen Con as the case may be).
While the 12 or so pages of back and forth has been interesting, my question for those who are upset about Paizo 'punishing' those whose purchases have ended up on torrent or other sites: what is your idea about what they should be doing?
While it is great to say that they should follow up on every case and not just go after the person who is named in the PDF, it seems that it would get mighty expensive to do all that legal work, and that cost will come back to the rest of the customers in higher prices.
Saying, "Sorry, Bob Smith, but we found your PDFs being shared around the world and we are cutting you off" seems fairly reasonable. Yeah, it may not be great for Mr. Smith, but I'd betcha a dollar that if you let one person off with a "my drive was stolen/computer was hacked/ninjas broke in and stole my files" excuse, every single person caught would say the same thing. Best to just set a line and enforce it rather than wade through excuses and evidence that may be rather hard to prove.
Speaking of encryption, is there a free product, like TrueCrypt, that will only encrypt a folder? That I would not mind doing for where I store my Paizo PDFs, but I am just paranoid enough to not want to encrypt my whole hard drive and risk losing it for some reason.
-- david
Papa.DRB
ps. I've searched by there are either none coming up or way too many coming up, thanks.
Speaking of encryption, is there a free product, like TrueCrypt, that will only encrypt a folder? That I would not mind doing for where I store my Paizo PDFs, but I am just paranoid enough to not want to encrypt my whole hard drive and risk losing it for some reason.
-- david
Papa.DRBps. I've searched by there are either none coming up or way too many coming up, thanks.
Axcrypt might cover it for you if you're using Windows. It can encrypt individual files, or folders. It's open source, free, and well liked by people who use it.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/axcrypt/
While the 12 or so pages of back and forth has been interesting, my question for those who are upset about Paizo 'punishing' those whose purchases have ended up on torrent or other sites: what is your idea about what they should be doing?
Realizing that any remediation plan is going to take up additional bandwidth of Paizo's staff, a couple minor suggestions:
Weigh the delta between release of the PDF to subscribers, download of the PDF of the offending entity and report of the PDF in the wild.
If we're talking "0-day" releases of new content, it would likely be a fair assumption that the release was intentional.
If we're talking the release of, say, the CRB, and the user last downloaded it a couple years ago? Chances are probably good that it was an unintentional/negligent release.
While it is great to say that they should follow up on every case and not just go after the person who is named in the PDF, it seems that it would get mighty expensive to do all that legal work, and that cost will come back to the rest of the customers in higher prices.
This, to me, would seem to be the benefit (to copyright holders) of criminalization of copyright infringement. As it's a criminal act, they need merely contact law enforcement, who should investigate reports of criminal activity.
Saying, "Sorry, Bob Smith, but we found your PDFs being shared around the world and we are cutting you off" seems fairly reasonable. Yeah, it may not be great for Mr. Smith, but I'd betcha a dollar that if you let one person off with a "my drive was stolen/computer was hacked/ninjas broke in and stole my files" excuse, every single person caught would say the same thing. Best to just set a line and enforce it rather than wade through excuses and evidence that may be rather hard to prove.
While using this as an excuse is likely true, I'd be interested to see the number of Paizo customers who have had their PDFs leaked, and I'm curious how many of these have been reported as "it wasn't me, it was the one-armed man!" to Paizo upon being blacklisted.
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I am still a bit worried, about leaking myself. I just takes one friend or relative to use my computer (or give them one of my Laptops indefinitely) to find my well hidden pdfs...
They might not even have to find it, some filesharing programms (which you can use to legally download stuff, just think of gib packages of free- and shareware, or windows 7 - which is legal to download IIRC) check your entire HD for files to upload (or so I have heard I usually watch my uploads carefully). So yeah getting worried without a very good reason might be unreasonable.
I wonder about services like Dropbox, the say that the files are encryted, but it might be better to protect them myself.
Something that hasn´t been asked before, what happens if someone hacks a paizo account and downloads all the files?
I mean getting someones Email is really easy, especially if the are active players, can paizo check the number of failed logins (hacking) or when someone on the other side of the world downloads all the new stuff?
On a similar note I can recommend this link to find the perfect password for you: http://xkcd.com/936/
A question for everyone who wants to sell their PDF. You would delete all your copies after you sold the PDF ?
I have zero intention of selling my PDFs (or selling my real books, for that matter), but, yes, as hard as that is for some folks to believe, if I sold my PDFs, then I'd delete all copies of my PDFs.
*I* am not telling you what you can and can't do—I'm telling you what US Copyright law says.When you buy a book, or a CD, or a DVD, or PDF, or a copy of Microsoft Office, or a portrait of yourself from a photo studio, you are *not* buying the copyright to it unless you're told otherwise, and so you don't get to do anything you want with it.Watch me. I'm not one of your employees, inasmuch, you don't get to tell me squat. If that's a problem feel free to not to sell anything, go broke, and find some other business that allows you to abuse your customers' most basic legal rights. For you I'd suggest government work.
I don't need to be told what the law is! I just assume the law intends to screw me over since, 9 times out of 10, that turns out to be the case.
They did not attach any caveat. You are beholden to the laws. In this case, copyright laws.Again, I haven't agreed to anything. They've attached some caveat to my purchase and have no basis for doing so.Let's turn that around. What they are saying is (in effect) "if you are intending to copy our PDFs then please do not buy them as that is not allowed". If you then buy them anyway, it's you who has been duplicitous.It isn't for them to tell me what I can do with my purchase. If they're that concerned about how people will use what they produce then they shouldn't produce it at all.
*sigh*
I'm painfully aware that copyright enforcement goons will subpoena me for violating any one of their gazillion frivolous laws. "The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it." ~Wilson
I'm only *ethically* bound to observe *ethical* laws. Legalities are a moot point for reasons I've repeatedly pointed out elsewhere in this thread; they're bought and paid for by people who can afford to coax the criminal justice system to do what they want it to. Copyright/intellectual property laws, whose flimsy justifications don't stand up to an ounce of real scrutiny, do far more harm than good; they're bad laws. If I am bound to anything it's my civic responsibility to break bad, unjust or unethical laws.
While I STILL agree that this is not the case here with Paizo, it is the case regarding the way those laws are being used in so many other ways and places that Paizo's restraint is comparatively of no consequence when assessing the the merits of the law itself. It's like trying to say 'the Nazis weren't all that bad because one of them rescued my kitten from a tree'.(inb4 someone tries to suggest I'm comparing Piazo to Nazis)
A question for everyone who wants to sell their PDF. You would delete all your copies after you sold the PDF ?I have zero intention of selling my PDFs (or selling my real books, for that matter), but, yes, as hard as that is for some folks to believe, if I sold my PDFs, then I'd delete all copies of my PDFs.
I'm in that boat too. I have no interest in selling them, but if I did I'd expect such a sale to include deletion of all PDFs plus removal of those from "My Downloads" section (and this makes it practically impossible to sell them, except for in a lock-stock-and-barrel fasion).
(inb4 someone tries to suggest I'm comparing Piazo to Nazis)
If you were, at least you were comparing them to the kitten-saving kind.
Axcrypt might cover it for you if you're using Windows. It can encrypt individual files, or folders. It's open source, free, and well liked by people who use it.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/axcrypt/
Thanks! I'll check it out,
-- david
Papa.DRB
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ILL. Inter Library Loan. A lot, but not all, material is available by one library loaning it to another (and hence to you). There are restrictions, of course, for rare and delicate material. And libraries are not required to loan material although most will (if you ever want to borrow material you better loan material). I haven't done a lot of that since I was a grad student though, and that's been many moons...
As far as your second question, I can't answer that.If it does, though, how does a patron of a local library access that work?
Libraries don't get the books immediately (publishers prefer to send several volumes at the same time as the paperwork for 1 and 10 volumes is almost the same) and registration of a new book isn't fast.
Then they generally have only a copy of a book, unless the publication is of special importance for that library and they have the means, space and interest to keep multiple copies.But that isn't the big problem. The problem is that big US publishers have already tried to pass legislation and force international treaties that ban fee lending of books from libraries as they will lose sales (I know, it sound as if I have a bone with them, but sadly the one trying this were US publishers).
They have claimed that as the copyright holders they should receive compensation for each book loaned.
On a tangential topic - is not a copy of every copyrighted work put into your national library by default?No—only registered works. For full legal protection of copyrighted works, registration is recommended, but copyright exists without registration, upon creation of the work.
In Italy you should send a copy of a publication to the National library and the local depot even if it is non-registered book. A non registered books can pass unnoticed but that don't exempt you from sending a copy to the national library.
I don't know what are the laws for digital material without a physical support.
I'm only *ethically* bound to observe *ethical* laws. Legalities are a moot point for reasons I've repeatedly pointed out elsewhere in this thread; they're bought and paid for by people who can afford to coax the criminal justice system to do what they want it to. Copyright/intellectual property laws, whose flimsy justifications don't stand up to an ounce of real scrutiny, do far more harm than good; they're bad laws. If I am bound to anything it's my civic responsibility to break bad, unjust or unethical laws.
It gets muddy there. I agree that the copyright laws are most probably not balanced as they stand.(The whole protests against the various law initiatives didn´t happen because people were happy with them) Still, breaking those laws will get you in trouble, no matter how unethical you find them. And defining which laws are ethical and which are not is a tricky thing, especially if you are doing it on your own. (An extreme example for differing ethical viewpoints is the death penalty. Some find it abhorrent, some feel it is justified.)
Protesting against unjust laws can take the form of civil disobedience, breaking laws that are seen to be unjust. It is practiced with full knowledge of the possible consequences and in acceptance that these consequences can hit you. In some cases, the citizen even report themselves that they broke the law. One important factor is the public nature. Clandestine copying of some files onto some filesharing system and claiming civil disobedience as justification when caught just isn´t. If somebody would find a number of like-minded people who break the law in a concerted action with a lot of publicity beforehand, this would probably be civil disobedience.
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In Italy you should send a copy of a publication to the National library and the local depot even if it is non-registered book. A non registered books can pass unnoticed but that don't exempt you from sending a copy to the national library.
I don't...
Heh, you are supposed to send six copies (of a book) here in Finland. But, as you said, there will always be print-on-demand books and other self-publications that come out under the radar, so the national collection simply cannot be "complete".
Now that we're talking about ILL... hmmm... I've never thought about interlibrary loans pertaining to digital material. We haven't had rights to contemporary books for long -- we do now, but that material is available only in English (and a few dozen in Swedish). Finnish publishers haven't been too eager to license their e-books to public libraries, but the negotiations are still ongoing. I think you cannot request an e-book as an interlibrary loan (even inside the same country), but I'll have to ask my colleagues to be sure.
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In Italy you should send a copy of a publication to the National library and the local depot even if it is non-registered book. A non registered books can pass unnoticed but that don't exempt you from sending a copy to the national library.
I don't...Heh, you are supposed to send six copies (of a book) here in Finland. But, as you said, there will always be print-on-demand books and other self-publications that come out under the radar, so the national collection simply cannot be "complete".
Now that we're talking about ILL... hmmm... I've never thought about interlibrary loans pertaining to digital material. We haven't had rights to contemporary books for long -- we do now, but that material is available only in English (and a few dozen in Swedish). Finnish publishers haven't been too eager to license their e-books to public libraries, but the negotiations are still ongoing. I think you cannot request an e-book as an interlibrary loan (even inside the same country), but I'll have to ask my colleagues to be sure.
My point on mentioning national libraries is that (hopefully) they will strive to preserve the same access to materials in a digital age and hence preserve electronic-only publications in the same way that they have physical copies. I believe that Kindle has a built-in method to allow loaning of a digital publication, but I don't know how many publishers authorise it.
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Here in Australia we can borrow audio files and audio books from the library. They are downloadable and have a time stamp that locks them from use on your computer when you're finished with them. You only get to borrow it for a few weeks then it locks out unless you renew the loan.
What's more, they only have one or two digital copies that they can loan. You can't borrow the digital media if someone else has it on loan.
I don't know how the digital lockout works, but it's pretty effective for the average user.
I can forsee this becoming something of the norm in the future of sales for PDF material. Software that allows cut and paste of data, but not Copy and Paste.
On that note Vic, I sent you a PM with a question, but not sure if you respond to PM's so I'll ask here as well.
How many copies of my PDF am I allowed to keep? Currently I have one of everything I've bought on my main PC, on my Backup drive and on my iPad(which is what I use for gaming). This is my general procedure for all digital data as it's notoriously easy to corrupt and destroy (unlike hard print copies). I'm asking legitimately here as this thread has made me uncomforatably aware of how easily I may inadvertantly break trust with you guys. When we buy a PDF, is it a purchase of only one copy?
Since this company provides me with amazing service and fantastic product, I'm extremely keen to make sure that a break in trust doesn't happen on my side, particularly by accident.
Cheers
Good Morning,
I don't want to beat around the bush.
I like to collect RPG books and that's why I have bought many Paizo books via subscription or amazon.
But I am not GM/DMing at the moment.
As far as I understand it, it would be no problem for me to take one or more volumes of an AP out of my shelf and give to my friend who wants to GM?
But because I love my collected books and want to keep them in a good condition I would prefer to give him the .pdfs. Is this "a problem"?
Thanks you in advance for any answers & information.
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As far as I understand it, it would be no problem for me to take one or more volumes of an AP out of my shelf and give to my friend who wants to GM?
But because I love my collected books and want to keep them in a good condition I would prefer to give him the .pdfs. Is this "a problem"?
Depending on who you ask and where you live this may or may not be regarded as legal/ethical. Certainly it's forbidden by the current understanding of the law in the US.
If the PDFs are stolen from him, or if some software on his machine (possibly a virus) uploads them to the net, you risk being banned from the Paizo site. I'd recommend printing a copy of the PDFs and loaning him the printed copy.
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*I* am not telling you what you can and can't do—I'm telling you what US Copyright law says.When you buy a book, or a CD, or a DVD, or PDF, or a copy of Microsoft Office, or a portrait of yourself from a photo studio, you are *not* buying the copyright to it unless you're told otherwise, and so you don't get to do anything you want with it.Watch me. I'm not one of your employees, inasmuch, you don't get to tell me squat. If that's a problem feel free to not to sell anything, go broke, and find some other business that allows you to abuse your customers' most basic legal rights. For you I'd suggest government work.I don't need to be told what the law is! I just assume the law intends to screw me over since, 9 times out of 10, that turns out to be the case.
They did not attach any caveat. You are beholden to the laws. In this case, copyright laws.Again, I haven't agreed to anything. They've attached some caveat to my purchase and have no basis for doing so.Let's turn that around. What they are saying is (in effect) "if you are intending to copy our PDFs then please do not buy them as that is not allowed". If you then buy them anyway, it's you who has been duplicitous.It isn't for them to tell me what I can do with my purchase. If they're that concerned about how people will use what they produce then they shouldn't produce it at all.
*sigh*
I'm painfully aware that copyright enforcement goons will subpoena me for violating any one of their gazillion frivolous laws. "The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it." ~Wilson
I'm only *ethically* bound to observe *ethical* laws. Legalities are a moot point for reasons I've repeatedly pointed out elsewhere in this thread; they're bought and paid for by people who can afford to coax the criminal...
@OscarMike: Sometimes it's just better not to force the issue. Paizo stopping to do business with someone if they allow their stuff to be shared online is ok. They won't lose their saved pdfs, their physical books won't combust, and they can still buy all the books from other retailers.
Is that nice for someone who doesn't feel guilty or can't explain how his books came online? No, but frankly if your Laptop is stolen at a convention, and you have informed the police and paizo - they might help you.
Now thats just one company, that doesn't want to do business with you, they don't hate you, they don't believe you are terrible person - cutting of your acces and not selling you more, just means that they think you can't be trusted with the pdf product.
While everyone talks about copyright and what paizo could do to someone when their pdf appears online, they have not even tried it. It could be bad press and might be very tough to prove.. .but they haven't done so.
Right now, I see some very nice people trying to make a living from their work, since we as customers (and I dare say some 3rd party publishers) profit from their work (more stuff^^) and want them continue. It's is my best interesst to make sure, that they can continue their work.
I doubt that they think that their personalized pdf will stop piracy, but it will certainly help. If you see a pdf of a paizo product that isn't free you know that it is not legal.
Things like giving away your pdfs/paizo account in the event of your death - something I care for much more - of the right to sell your pdf - don't really care that much especially, considering the way subscriptions work, are certainly important topics.
Personally I think the issue of e-books and pdf will be sorted out at some point, my money is on amazon that it will somehow involve them. Unless the go the Steam route and every book you buy is just a rented indefinitely.
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In Italy you should send a copy of a publication to the National library and the local depot even if it is non-registered book. A non registered books can pass unnoticed but that don't exempt you from sending a copy to the national library.
I don't...Heh, you are supposed to send six copies (of a book) here in Finland. But, as you said, there will always be print-on-demand books and other self-publications that come out under the radar, so the national collection simply cannot be "complete".
Now that we're talking about ILL... hmmm... I've never thought about interlibrary loans pertaining to digital material. We haven't had rights to contemporary books for long -- we do now, but that material is available only in English (and a few dozen in Swedish). Finnish publishers haven't been too eager to license their e-books to public libraries, but the negotiations are still ongoing. I think you cannot request an e-book as an interlibrary loan (even inside the same country), but I'll have to ask my colleagues to be sure.
Here you have to send a copy to 3 different repository, but each one get only 1 copy.
Even with that limitation currently the Central Library of Florence has 120 KM of shelves, with a yearly increment of approximately 1.500 meters.For digital publications of Academical papers it varies.
Commercial publishers require a paid subscription and that allow printing a copy of the periodic but not duplicating the original file (generally you read it on the publisher server and print the article that interest you).
Some scientific publishers allow the free downloading of the PDF from registered IP. Then it is the usual muddle of which we are discussing.
Other give their papers freely and don't limit availability.
It all depend on the original publisher.
My point on mentioning national libraries is that (hopefully) they will strive to preserve the same access to materials in a digital age and hence preserve electronic-only publications in the same way that they have physical copies. I believe that Kindle has a built-in method to allow loaning of a digital publication, but I don't know how many publishers authorise it.
The problem is that the big publishing houses aren't interested in the conservation of the material, they are interested in making money from selling it, so they push for legislations that will hinder public libraries.
That proposal for a legislation that asked compensation for each book loaned by a public library was based (if I recall correctly) on the concept that loaning the last book of Henry Potter would hurt sales for the publisher, but was phrased in a way that would have hampered the loaning of Pinocchio too, and that was written in 1881.|
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Paizo stopping to do business with someone if they allow their stuff to be shared online is ok. They won't lose their saved pdfs, their physical books won't combust, and they can still buy all the books from other retailers.
If I get it correctly, Paizo is even more lenient than that. They will stop the sale of PDF, not the sale of the physical products.
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Paizo stopping to do business with someone if they allow their stuff to be shared online is ok. They won't lose their saved pdfs, their physical books won't combust, and they can still buy all the books from other retailers.If I get it correctly, Paizo is even more lenient than that. They will stop the sale of PDF, not the sale of the physical products.
That seems fair, of course the greatest damange would be chaused by subscriber pdf.
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A relevant story to this discussion.
"This is the first U.S. case to tackle the question of whether legally purchased digital media files can be resold, and it strikes "at the heart of the future business models of creative industries," says Jason Schultz, a digital copyright expert at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Unlike previous subjects of the music industry's ire, such as Napster, he believes ReDigi has a fair chance of winning in court. "
The scary part of that article was at the end where libraries were being charged at regular time intervals for use of e books.
If that is the way digital software goes, then I think I'd rather see it all stop and return to hard copy only.
Imagine having to pay a toll every time you referenced a book in a roleplay game. Ouch.
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The scary part of that article was at the end where libraries were being charged at regular time intervals for use of e books.If that is the way digital software goes, then I think I'd rather see it all stop and return to hard copy only.
Imagine having to pay a toll every time you referenced a book in a roleplay game. Ouch.
And someone ask me why, as a librarian, I am against digital format only books.
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The scary part of that article was at the end where libraries were being charged at regular time intervals for use of e books.If that is the way digital software goes, then I think I'd rather see it all stop and return to hard copy only.
Imagine having to pay a toll every time you referenced a book in a roleplay game. Ouch.
And someone ask me why, as a librarian, I am against digital format only books.
Well if the conted distributors wanted to, the could just as well print with an ink that becomes unreadable after a set period of time^^
EDIT: Not that this would be any less wrong.
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Yep. Wedding photos. A professional wedding photographer who actually knows what they're doing will tell you in their contract whether or not you're purchasing the copyrights as well. Many professional photographers offer copyrights as an option for a higher price, and many don't offer the option at all. That industry does include many small business and individuals who operate without a full understanding of copyright law, and don't even realize that copyrights don't transfer by default—but it's absolutely true: if they don't specifically *tell* you they're transferring the copyright to you, they retain the copyright.
Pretty certain it's actually the opposite. Wedding Photos are work-for-hire. You own the copyrights on those just like Paizo owns the copyrights to all the art they purchase for their books. Most wedding photographers have a clause in their contract to claim ownership of the copyright though and you can find photographers who don't. They do not have to specifically release it though.
Or you can just do what my mom did and put a disposable camera at each table.
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Pretty certain it's actually the opposite. Wedding Photos are work-for-hire. You own the copyrights on those just like Paizo owns the copyrights to all the art they purchase for their books. Most wedding photographers have a clause in their contract to claim ownership of the copyright though and you can find photographers who don't. They do not have to specifically release it though.
Most wedding photographers have a clause in their contract asserting ownership of the copyright on the images simply to avoid arguing with people who think they understand copyright law.
In the absence of a signed agreement from the photographer releasing copyright, you do not have any reproduction rights on the images.
In particular, it's only 'Work for Hire' if you have a signed agreement from the photographer to work under those conditions.
Note that this also applies to those disposable cameras your mom puts on the tables. In the absence of a contract, the person who took the images owns the copyright. They might have difficulty exercising it - they don't necessarily have the right to retain possession of the camera or memory card - but that doesn't mean your mom has any rights to those images. This will rarely be tested, of course, but that's the legal situation.
But my question is how much of all this is actually talking about Paizo vs. copyright trolls, for example?
Seems to me like Paizo is doing completely valid and legitimate things to protect their intellectual property. The same can't necessarily be said of many others out there.
And, once again, someone disagrees with someone, and labels them trolls.
The most important rule: Don't be a jerk.
You seem to be reading my post as "everyone who's not Paizo is a copyright troll." Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Don't be a jerk? Hmmmm.....
You seem to be reading my post as "everyone who's not Paizo is a copyright troll." Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Don't be a jerk? Hmmmm.....
How about this:
Don't accuse ANYONE on this website of being a troll. Flag the post if you think someone is trolling, and keep your troll comments to yourself.
Pretty simple, and it pretty much falls under the "Don't be a jerk." rule.
You seem to be reading my post as "everyone who's not Paizo is a copyright troll." Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Don't be a jerk? Hmmmm.....
How about this:
Don't accuse ANYONE on this website of being a troll. Flag the post if you think someone is trolling, and keep your troll comments to yourself.
Pretty simple, and it pretty much falls under the "Don't be a jerk." rule.
As I read it he wasn't calling any individual on this site a troll. He was saying, imo, that some people were talking about the behavior of Paizo and other people were talking about other companies behavior ("copyright trolls")...
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If the PDFs are stolen from him, or if some software on his machine (possibly a virus) uploads them to the net, you risk being banned from the Paizo site. I'd recommend printing a copy of the PDFs and loaning him the printed copy.
The problem is that the Paizo policy is so broad and there is no recompense. I had a PC stolen, not a laptop, someone broke down my back door and stole my desktop. If they were to post any of my Paizo material on-line, then I would be in trouble.
The amount of security you use on your computer has to be balanced versus how much of a PITA it makes your everyday life. A laptop is one thing, but a desktop in a private house with no roommates is another story. How many people would be prepared for a burglary, with an inventory of all your PF books/miniatures/etc, when you bought them and what you paid?
stuff
I think you are taking it a bit too far here. If you take reasonable security measures on you home PC, you should be all right. Reasonable should be keeping protection software up to date, not installing filesharing software that crawls over the whole machine to look for "shareable" files (this kind of programming is probably illegal anyway), and reporting any illegal activity about your property first to the police and then to the companies like paizo, to warn them beforehand that some stuff bearing your name might appear somewhere, that should be ok. You can´t be expected to take extreme measures to protect your property.
As an analogy, locking your apartment with a good lock should suffice, there is (usually) no need to install a locked grate in front of every door and window.
A customer gets "punished" for not keeping an eye on his stuff and probably being lax about copyright issues in the first place, if things happen to end up at some filesharing database.
Axcrypt might cover it for you if you're using Windows. It can encrypt individual files, or folders. It's open source, free, and well liked by people who use it.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/axcrypt/
To complete the loop on this.
I use Axcrypt for a single file on my laptop (forgot), but I updated to the newest version, and it works fine for single files. I copied my Pathfinder sub-directory and Axcrypt encrypts each file, rather than the whole sub-directory. That is highly annoying and not good.
I took a closer look at Truecrypt and it has an option to create a "container", ie. a file, which it encrypts. You can then mount the file, providing the password and it works like a champ. So I have moved all my Pathfinder PDFs to this container and secure erased them from the normal Pathfinder sub-directory. It is a one time mount after I boot up the machine so this seems a reasonable and easy solution.
Thanks all for the advice,
-- david
Papa.DRB
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/devils advocate
Good you put that one in there. Otherwise, I might have been tempted to flag your post, as it could been read as advocating piracy.
Yeah, well, sure, you don´t need to worry if the illegal files you have are copied illegally one more time - unless somebody catches you and you get sued to hell and back, with every incident being counted against you.
I honestly don´t know how common it is to get files hacked from your computer without you noticing at some time, even if using only standard security measures, not even encrypting files. I somehow doubt it happens as often and as quick to justify calling marked pdfs a time bomb. Again, locking your car should suffice, no need to build a fence around it any time you leave it. As soon something rests within your responsibility, be it books, files, knives or cars, it is your duty to see that these things are not abused, no matter if you bought, rented, loaned or downloaded them in the first place. You would not expect the owner of a rental car to check on it every time you leave it if it is locked, either. So why should some company be responsible for that with files?
The right of first sale is indeed not satisfactorily ruled currently regarding data. If that keeps you from buying data, it is your loss in first place, and could result in trying to get legislation changed. That takes time and needs in this case some sort of technical development to make it secure, but sometimes things just don´t work the way we would like them to.
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If the files are already out there, then buying from Paizo is just giving them money to take on risk, and no other benefit that piracy doesn't already provide.
Then buy the PDFs, never download them, and instead use the pirate version. You've paid your share; you have your 'risk free' PDFs. Problem solved - it may even be legal depending on where you live.
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If the files are already out there, then buying from Paizo is just giving them money to take on risk, and no other benefit that piracy doesn't already provide.Then buy the PDFs, never download them, and instead use the pirate version. You've paid your share; you have your 'risk free' PDFs. Problem solved - it may even be legal depending on where you live.
Pirated files aren't risk free. They're a favorite for those happy little munchkins who spread viruses. I think I'll take my chances with Paizo. Even if there was no risk to pirated files I prefer to pay my share...
Chief Technical Officer
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How many copies of my PDF am I allowed to keep? Currently I have one of everything I've bought on my main PC, on my Backup drive and on my iPad(which is what I use for gaming). This is my general procedure for all digital data as it's notoriously easy to corrupt and destroy (unlike hard print copies). I'm asking legitimately here as this thread has made me uncomforatably aware of how easily I may inadvertantly break trust with you guys. When we buy a PDF, is it a purchase of only one copy?
We don't limit either the number of downloads or the number of devices you choose to store them on.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Pretty certain it's actually the opposite. Wedding Photos are work-for-hire. You own the copyrights on those just like Paizo owns the copyrights to all the art they purchase for their books. Most wedding photographers have a clause in their contract to claim ownership of the copyright though and you can find photographers who don't. They do not have to specifically release it though.Most wedding photographers have a clause in their contract asserting ownership of the copyright on the images simply to avoid arguing with people who think they understand copyright law.
In the absence of a signed agreement from the photographer releasing copyright, you do not have any reproduction rights on the images.
In particular, it's only 'Work for Hire' if you have a signed agreement from the photographer to work under those conditions.
Note that this also applies to those disposable cameras your mom puts on the tables. In the absence of a contract, the person who took the images owns the copyright. They might have difficulty exercising it - they don't necessarily have the right to retain possession of the camera or memory card - but that doesn't mean your mom has any rights to those images. This will rarely be tested, of course, but that's the legal situation.
JohnF is right on all counts.
And our contracts with artists certainly do spell out the transfer of copyright. We don't usually buy the original artwork (except for Wayne, whose originals will grace Paizo's halls), which they can sell if they choose. (So if you buy original Pathfinder art from an artist, it *can't* include copyright, as the artist has already transferred copyright to us!)
The whole problem with the doctrine of first sale when applied to electronic product is that you can make a copy before you sell it and retain full use of it. Whether that means it doesn't apply at all or not is still being sorted by the legal system. However, the situation you describe doesn't satisfy all the requirements, as I see it.
The retention of a copy is the bit that hasn't been fulfilled - you wouldn't be deprived of the PDF you "sold" the way you would be deprived of the ability to use the digital device you sold which contained it. Being deprived of one particular copy is a meaningless distinction, since the copies are identical - there's nothing you can't do with the retained copy which you otherwise would have been able to.
From my sketchy reading, even the advocates of "right of first sale for electronic products" acknowledge that the onseller mustn't retain any copies of the redistributed product.
... the copy of the PDF stored on that device was created with the copyright holder's permission..
The copy was only made with their qualified permission - "for personal use" not for resale.
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The scary part of that article was at the end where libraries were being charged at regular time intervals for use of e books.
If that is the way digital software goes, then I think I'd rather see it all stop and return to hard copy only.
Imagine having to pay a toll every time you referenced a book in a roleplay game. Ouch.
Yes, that is true, and over here the publishers have said that by their calculations an average library book circulates approximately 20 times during its lifespan. Ergo, libraries should repurchase each e-book after it's circulated for 20 times, and on top of that the prices of e-books are currently about the same as for printed ones. Okay, it's fine with material that gets checked out once or twice a year, but what about really popular titles? I've seen books that had circulated around 150 times and were still in a readable shape. And speaking of popular titles, only a single copy can be checked out, for the price of a printed book? Not to mention the licensing fees, or the fact that all the digital licenses I'm aware of do not allow ILLs.
In Denmark the public libraries are using a system called eReole, and if I've understood correctly, they pay a certain sum every time an e-book is checked out. They don't have to repurchase e-books, but it's still looks to be an expensive system, if you ask me (however, considering that not all books circulate equally, the overall costs might be lower for less popular titles).