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"Pirates gonna pirate" doesn't actually have to be the reality. As a society we get to choose what behaviors we'll accept and which we won't. Just because something happens "on the internet" doesn't put it beyond the bounds of what's generally agreed upon to be acceptable.Alright, fair enough. How do we enforce it as a society then?
Statements like "pirates gonna pirate" really bug me. What, just because one chunk of society does something wrong, we throw our hands in the air and say "Hey, what are you gonna do?"
Do statements like "thieves gonna steal" or "murders gonna murder" or "rapists gonna rape" sound OK to you? I hope not. I'm certainly not comparing digital piracy to rape and murder, but digital piracy IS a crime and it DOES have a negative impact on people. Like any crime, you do whatever you can to deter those that elect to pursue the crime.
You don't say, "murders gonna murder - nothin we can do about it ... just don't get too close to your loved ones, I guess" do you???
Sorry, this whole "hey man, digital piracy isn't a crime - it's my right to do what I want - it don't hurt nobody ..." argument some people have is really tiresome.
"Pirates gonna pirate" doesn't actually have to be the reality. As a society we get to choose what behaviors we'll accept and which we won't. Just because something happens "on the internet" doesn't put it beyond the bounds of what's generally agreed upon to be acceptable.Alright, fair enough. How do we enforce it as a society then?Statements like "pirates gonna pirate" really bug me. What, just because one chunk of society does something wrong, we throw our hands in the air and say "Hey, what are you gonna do?"
Do statements like "thieves gonna steal" or "murders gonna murder" or "rapists gonna rape" sound OK to you? I hope not. I'm certainly not comparing digital piracy to rape and murder, but digital piracy IS a crime and it DOES have a negative impact on people. Like any crime, you do whatever you can to deter those that elect to pursue the crime.
You don't say, "murders gonna murder - nothin we can do about it ... just don't get too close to your loved ones, I guess" do you???
Sorry, this whole "hey man, digital piracy isn't a crime - it's my right to do what I want - it don't hurt nobody ..." argument some people have is really tiresome.
So then your solution to end 'piracy' would be?
Also you just compared right clicking a digital file, choosing 'copy'. And then right clicking your desktop and clicking "paste" with out deleting the original first and/or with intent to give to someone else to Rape and Murder. I have no words.
If copyrights were completely eliminated we would see Kickstarter get a huge bump as the content producers would simply work up the money to put something out before they put it out.
Kickstarter is a for-profit business, not a public service. Handing a single company a complete monopoly on all creative endeavors would be an unmitigated disaster for creative expression and free speech.
Also, if there were no copyrights at all, indie projects that depend upon word of mouth marketing over time would cease to exist. Content producers would have to either hit critical mass before producing a project with a non-trivial budget or not produce it at all, because they could no longer hope to use subsidiary rights, foreign language rights, resale rights, licenses, and merchandizing to recoup their investment after the fact. Those revenue streams would no longer exist, and could no longer be used to attract investors.
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We don't need laws to regulate internet piracy. We need people to regulate themselves and influence the people they come into contact with. That's the idea behind any grass roots movement to change a dominant paradigm.
As the peasant railgun scenario shows...there is a lot we can do if we break our actions down to us and the people on either side of us in one round of combat.
Justifying piracy as some sort of legit punkrock move against crappy copyright legislation is sorta goofy. It's like having a sore foot and then crapping in your best friend's Nikes in retaliation to the foot that hath caused you so much pain.
We don't need laws to regulate internet piracy. We need people to regulate themselves and influence the people they come into contact with. That's the idea behind any grass roots movement to change a dominant paradigm.
As the peasant railgun scenario shows...there is a lot we can do if we break our actions down to us and the people on either side of us in one round of combat.
Justifying piracy as some sort of legit punkrock move against crappy copyright legislation is sorta goofy. It's like having a sore foot and then crapping in your best friend's Nikes in retaliation to the foot that hath caused you so much pain.
I like this and I fully agree with you.
I value ideas more than physical products and I think people who create those ideas deserve to profit from them and deserve legal protection from people who take the ideas for free. (Whether they would pay for them or not is as irrelevant as whether the burglar was going to buy himself a television if he didnt take mine).
Whether you agree with the concept of copyright/IP or anything else is not terribly important though, the broad point is that you agree to only use the PDFs for personal use when you download them. Whether you agree with IP laws or not isnt very relevant - you agree to abide by them in the case of the PDFs you purchase from Paizo.com.
People should be very clear that that's the undertaking they implicitly make when they get a PDF. If someone nicks your PDFs and does naughty things with them, there's a very real risk you'll lose out in the long term. Arguments over copyright laws are something of a distraction. Right or wrong, they are still the law.
Just because I've rarely had pro-sharacy people agree with me before...I just wanted to be clear that I'm contending that we can avoid piracy by not doing it ourselves, and encouraging our dear ones not to either.
And then redirecting that effort into creating a rail gun made of peasants.
And then pooping in Alexandria's shoes.
"Pirates gonna pirate" doesn't actually have to be the reality. As a society we get to choose what behaviors we'll accept and which we won't. Just because something happens "on the internet" doesn't put it beyond the bounds of what's generally agreed upon to be acceptable.Alright, fair enough. How do we enforce it as a society then?
That's easy. Just abolish copyrights and declare all IP public domain.
No more pirates. No more incentives for talented content producers to produce serious content. Just webpages of amateur photos, demotivational posters, and crappy YouTube videos as far as the eye can see. Internet memes and flame wars supplanting all of film and literature, as memes and flame wars are the easiest forms of entertainment to consistently generate and distribute for free.
"Pirates gonna pirate" doesn't actually have to be the reality. As a society we get to choose what behaviors we'll accept and which we won't. Just because something happens "on the internet" doesn't put it beyond the bounds of what's generally agreed upon to be acceptable.Alright, fair enough. How do we enforce it as a society then?That's easy. Just abolish copyrights and declare all IP public domain.
No more pirates. No more incentives for talented content producers to produce serious content. Just webpages of amateur photos, demotivational posters, and crappy YouTube videos as far as the eye can see. Internet memes and flame wars supplanting all of film and literature, as memes and flame wars are the easiest forms of entertainment to consistently generate and distribute for free.
If *I* may play devil's advocate for a moment. Some of the greatest works of art ever created were created before the concept of Intellectual Property was developed.
Just because I've rarely had pro-sharacy people agree with me before...I just wanted to be clear that I'm contending that we can avoid piracy by not doing it ourselves, and encouraging our dear ones not to either.
And then redirecting that effort into creating a rail gun made of peasants.
And then pooping in Alexandria's shoes.
points two and three might occur in either order or simultaneously
I really prefer my shoes poop-free. As a general rule anyways.
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"Pirates gonna pirate" doesn't actually have to be the reality. As a society we get to choose what behaviors we'll accept and which we won't. Just because something happens "on the internet" doesn't put it beyond the bounds of what's generally agreed upon to be acceptable.Alright, fair enough. How do we enforce it as a society then?That's easy. Just abolish copyrights and declare all IP public domain.
No more pirates. No more incentives for talented content producers to produce serious content. Just webpages of amateur photos, demotivational posters, and crappy YouTube videos as far as the eye can see. Internet memes and flame wars supplanting all of film and literature, as memes and flame wars are the easiest forms of entertainment to consistently generate and distribute for free.
There's no copyright protection in the food industry. Also, some great software has been developed open source, even operating systems, word processing software and what is currently the highest quality VOIP program available.
Some of the free music on Youtube is actually pretty good. Not all of it, but if you don't mind various forms of electronica, you'll find more than you could probably every actually listen to.
The fashion industry has very limited copyright. None that's effective on a national or international level. In the EU, if someone copyrights a shirt, you can copy it, add/remove a couple inches from the hem and copyright it again. The fashion industry accounts for more sales than movies, books and music combined.
For comparison, the video game industry did $25 billion in sales in the US in 2010.
The fashion industry did $41 billion in business in the LA region alone in 2009.
But you're probably right, no one would every create anything worthwhile if their IP wasn't protected.
If *I* may play devil's advocate for a moment. Some of the greatest works of art ever created were created before the concept of Intellectual Property was developed.
They were also created in an age when it took months to copy a book and was virtually impossible to copy a painting.
If *I* may play devil's advocate for a moment. Some of the greatest works of art ever created were created before the concept of Intellectual Property was developed.They were also created in an age when it took months to copy a book and was virtually impossible to copy a painting.
Impossible to copy a masterwork perhaps, but from what I could tell there was no shortage of artists in that time period. And hell, how long did it take to copy sheet music?
I think we need IP laws for sure, people who create content need to have sole financial benefit from that content, or invention for a reasonable period of time (Current stuff isn't reasonable, but thats another discussion) I really do believe that it can help encourage innovation. But I don't buy the idea that in a world devoid of IP law the creative output goes down to nil, or even close to it.
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If *I* may play devil's advocate for a moment. Some of the greatest works of art ever created were created before the concept of Intellectual Property was developed.They were also created in an age when it took months to copy a book and was virtually impossible to copy a painting.Impossible to copy a masterwork perhaps, but from what I could tell there was no shortage of artists in that time period. And hell, how long did it take to copy sheet music?
I think we need IP laws for sure, people who create content need to have sole financial benefit from that content, or invention for a reasonable period of time (Current stuff isn't reasonable, but thats another discussion) I really do believe that it can help encourage innovation. But I don't buy the idea that in a world devoid of IP law the creative output goes down to nil, or even close to it.
I'm sure academic output would hit zero the moment copyright would be abolished.
I'm sure academic output would hit zero the moment copyright would be abolished.If *I* may play devil's advocate for a moment. Some of the greatest works of art ever created were created before the concept of Intellectual Property was developed.They were also created in an age when it took months to copy a book and was virtually impossible to copy a painting.Impossible to copy a masterwork perhaps, but from what I could tell there was no shortage of artists in that time period. And hell, how long did it take to copy sheet music?
I think we need IP laws for sure, people who create content need to have sole financial benefit from that content, or invention for a reasonable period of time (Current stuff isn't reasonable, but thats another discussion) I really do believe that it can help encourage innovation. But I don't buy the idea that in a world devoid of IP law the creative output goes down to nil, or even close to it.
=) I also am sure of that.
In most cases no, but I personally know people who do just that.Holy balls. This thread sure blew up.
So, um. Everyone claiming that they "wouldn't have bought it anyway, so it isn't stealing," I have a quick question! What if you like the pirated item so much that you decide it would've been worth the price, if you'd paid for it? Do you go back and buy it even though you've already got it? Be honest.
If you said "yes," are you, in fact, full of it? Tell the truth! ;-) And whether you are or aren't, do you think everyone else who cites the "wouldn't have bought it anyway" argument would answer the same way, if they had to come clean about it? Pirates go back and buy the products that they deem to be worth the price, after reading / watching / listening to them? Probably not, right?
Not an issue of piracy, but one of my group picked up SGG's shadow assassin PDF as a class he wanted to play, and after looking his copy over i liked it enough to purchase and get for myself despite the fact his copy purchase covered being available for the group to use. Similar enough that i'll say Yes and give toadkiller dog a +1 from me.
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but digital piracy IS a crime and it DOES have a negative impact on people. Like any crime, you do whatever you can to deter those that elect to pursue the crime.
Most of us here aren't so old that we can't remember a short time ago that it WASN'T a crime, but a civil matter, which is how it should be.
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I'm sure academic output would hit zero the moment copyright would be abolished.If *I* may play devil's advocate for a moment. Some of the greatest works of art ever created were created before the concept of Intellectual Property was developed.They were also created in an age when it took months to copy a book and was virtually impossible to copy a painting.Impossible to copy a masterwork perhaps, but from what I could tell there was no shortage of artists in that time period. And hell, how long did it take to copy sheet music?
I think we need IP laws for sure, people who create content need to have sole financial benefit from that content, or invention for a reasonable period of time (Current stuff isn't reasonable, but thats another discussion) I really do believe that it can help encourage innovation. But I don't buy the idea that in a world devoid of IP law the creative output goes down to nil, or even close to it.
LOL. No, it wont.
Most of the basic research isn't covered by the copyright laws.Literature has been produced for centuries without the protection of copyright laws, even in the age or printers.
Plenty of academical contemporary product aren't copyrighted.
So, no, academic output would not hit zero the moment copyright would be abolished.
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We don't need laws to regulate internet piracy. We need people to regulate themselves and influence the people they come into contact with. That's the idea behind any grass roots movement to change a dominant paradigm.
And, failing that, it would be nice if the laws stepped in to regulate the people who won't stop unless there is a law against it. And no, I don't mean "fine them $40,000 per copied PDF or MP3."
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We don't need laws to regulate internet piracy. We need people to regulate themselves and influence the people they come into contact with. That's the idea behind any grass roots movement to change a dominant paradigm.And, failing that, it would be nice if the laws stepped in to regulate the people who won't stop unless there is a law against it. And no, I don't mean "fine them $40,000 per copied PDF or MP3."
How do you make unreasonable people stop doing something that they like doing without either hitting them on their wallets or restricting their freedom for a while?
Reasonable people.already do not pirate. Other people must bee shown that their actions have consequences.So, how do you show a person who illegally downloads software he didn't pay for that there are consequences for that act?
Well I may have come off a little too high concept utopian fairy tale up above. But I do think that the tired concept of "little ol' me vs the big bad unchangeable world" is decreasing in potency the more connected we all get through social media and message-boards like this.
That doesn't mean I personally want to see all IP protection laws get wiped off the books. Like Sean pointed out...there's always going to be a gaggle of insane mostly hairless apes that need more stick and less carrot. As far as an effective and/or progressive set of laws? Psh...way over my ability to conceptualize. But no matter what, there'll always be some group that thinks the law is brutish and creatively destructive and a group that wants "more cowbell."
In the here and now? I just do this when the pirates sail into port and ask if they can have one of my PDFs:
Herbo: "Sure! Here's a link! I'm pretty sure they take all major credit cards...but I'm not sure about Discover."
Pirate: "gar? Where be the download link?"
Herbo: "Just click 'Add PDF', and then you can go to click on the little shopping cart icon and it'll guide you through the rest."
Pirate: "Avast, ye be bamboozlin' poor old e-Beard! Have at you!"
Herbo: "woah hey, put the Corsair memory sticks down e-Beard"
Pirate: "GA-HAAAAAARGGGH"
Herbo: *curls up into a ball*
>Scene<
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You can let a friend borrow music but if they burn it to a drive and copy it for themselves, it is illegal. If you burn your CD and post on a file sharing site, it is illegal. If you burn a cd for a friend, it is illegal. If you do not believe me... Ask Metallica and most ever recording artist and music company out there.Sharing media is not illegal when handled the same way that you would have shared a book in the 1920's.
What people call sharing today is actually simply copying.Making something available for other people to copy is the illegal bit. Loaning someone a legal instance is legal.
That isn't necessarily true in all countries, in Canada, if a friend lends you a physical original of audio CD, and you make a copy of that, you have not actually broken the law. To balance that their is a surcharge on all media, for example blank CDs, Thumb Drives, and hard drives.
I'm not saying it is moral, I'm just saying it isn't illegal in all countries.
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I'm sure academic output would hit zero the moment copyright would be abolished.If *I* may play devil's advocate for a moment. Some of the greatest works of art ever created were created before the concept of Intellectual Property was developed.They were also created in an age when it took months to copy a book and was virtually impossible to copy a painting.Impossible to copy a masterwork perhaps, but from what I could tell there was no shortage of artists in that time period. And hell, how long did it take to copy sheet music?
I think we need IP laws for sure, people who create content need to have sole financial benefit from that content, or invention for a reasonable period of time (Current stuff isn't reasonable, but thats another discussion) I really do believe that it can help encourage innovation. But I don't buy the idea that in a world devoid of IP law the creative output goes down to nil, or even close to it.
LOL. No, it wont.
Most of the basic research isn't covered by the copyright laws.
Literature has been produced for centuries without the protection of copyright laws, even in the age or printers.
Plenty of academical contemporary product aren't copyrighted.
So, no, academic output would not hit zero the moment copyright would be abolished.
Meaning I can copy-paste Stephen Hawkings' publication and use it as if I wrote it? Gee, thanks for heads up! :)
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Plagiarism is not a crime. It's morally and ethically reprehensible, but it is not criminal offense.
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Plagiarism is not a crime. It's morally and ethically reprehensible, but it is not criminal offense.
It's not a criminal offense, but it's grounds for litigation. Stephen Hawking can't get me jailed, but he can sue me into the ground.
People often think that if something isn't "illegal" in criminal sense (read: there's no such crime in the law) then no legal harm can come from doing so. But apart from criminal "illegal" there's private law "illegal". For example, over here downloading files isn't "illegal" in criminal meaning and nobody will get you in jail for that, but it's "illegal" in private law meaning and the copyright owner can sue you over damages (or lost profit) caused by your activity.
Sure, ideas aren't copyrightable, but their expression is. Same as with games. If my idea is "commercial law could use some relaxing as regards limited liability companies" and I put it to paper, I can't sue another guy over having similiar (or the same) idea, but if does a copypasta of how I expressed my idea, it's lawsuit time. And it's possible because copyright states that an author has the right to protect his work from people who want to use it without his consent.
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Meaning I can copy-paste Stephen Hawkings' publication and use it as if I wrote it? Gee, thanks for heads up! :)I'm sure academic output would hit zero the moment copyright would be abolished.If *I* may play devil's advocate for a moment. Some of the greatest works of art ever created were created before the concept of Intellectual Property was developed.They were also created in an age when it took months to copy a book and was virtually impossible to copy a painting.Impossible to copy a masterwork perhaps, but from what I could tell there was no shortage of artists in that time period. And hell, how long did it take to copy sheet music?
I think we need IP laws for sure, people who create content need to have sole financial benefit from that content, or invention for a reasonable period of time (Current stuff isn't reasonable, but thats another discussion) I really do believe that it can help encourage innovation. But I don't buy the idea that in a world devoid of IP law the creative output goes down to nil, or even close to it.
LOL. No, it wont.
Most of the basic research isn't covered by the copyright laws.
Literature has been produced for centuries without the protection of copyright laws, even in the age or printers.
Plenty of academical contemporary product aren't copyrighted.
So, no, academic output would not hit zero the moment copyright would be abolished.
Gorby, don't play stupid.
You have made a comment that is not true, I have pointed that out and now you are trying a strawman to show how right you are.
In the XVI an XVII century there weren't copyright laws and there is plenty of literature produces in those centuries.
You can rewrite what Stephen Hawkings wrote and claim that you discovered it. People will laugh at you but as those are theories about law of nature they can't be copyrighted. You can even cite large pieces of Hawkins works without paying him.
You can be a lawyer in the US and know your copyright law, I work in an Academy and know what academical works we register and I can assure you that plenty of published works aren't copyrighted.
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Stopping piracy will only be acceptable if it comes along with reasonable IP laws.
And continued piracy leads to less reasonable IP laws. Rampant piracy of digital media is what pushes big businesses to lobby for SOPA and PIPA. It's what leads game developers to put prohibitive DRM software into their games. And the battle between piracy and anti-piracy software escalates constantly.
Pirating digital content does not make anyone into Robin Hood or Jack Sparrow. You're not a thief with a heart of gold standing up against draconian intellectual property laws. Paizo is not Mossanto or the RIAA. Paizo isn't zealously protecting their rights by lobbying for stricter laws and harsher penalties.
It's like setting the speed limit on the highway to 25. It's absurd, and no one is going to respect it.
No one respects it at 65, either. People will always push, bend and break laws and find rationalizations to explain their actions.
If something is worth its price, and I am able to buy it, I will.
On the other hand, if I think something is not worth it...I have zero compunction with just copying it for my use.
So you get to decide the market value of items? How do you determine the value of items when free is an option?
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Meaning I can copy-paste Stephen Hawkings' publication and use it as if I wrote it? Gee, thanks for heads up! :)I'm sure academic output would hit zero the moment copyright would be abolished.If *I* may play devil's advocate for a moment. Some of the greatest works of art ever created were created before the concept of Intellectual Property was developed.They were also created in an age when it took months to copy a book and was virtually impossible to copy a painting.Impossible to copy a masterwork perhaps, but from what I could tell there was no shortage of artists in that time period. And hell, how long did it take to copy sheet music?
I think we need IP laws for sure, people who create content need to have sole financial benefit from that content, or invention for a reasonable period of time (Current stuff isn't reasonable, but thats another discussion) I really do believe that it can help encourage innovation. But I don't buy the idea that in a world devoid of IP law the creative output goes down to nil, or even close to it.
LOL. No, it wont.
Most of the basic research isn't covered by the copyright laws.
Literature has been produced for centuries without the protection of copyright laws, even in the age or printers.
Plenty of academical contemporary product aren't copyrighted.
So, no, academic output would not hit zero the moment copyright would be abolished.Gorby, don't play stupid.
You have made a comment that is not true, I have pointed that out and now you are trying a strawman to show how right you are.
In the XVI an XVII century there weren't copyright laws and there is plenty of literature produces in those centuries.
You can rewrite what Stephen Hawkings wrote and claim that you discovered it. People will laugh at you but as those are theories about law of nature they can't be...
I don't play stupid. For example, I would never argue with a lawyer not being one myself :-P
Copyright laws didn't exist in XVI and XVII century because they weren't needed yet. What happened is that good sir Gutenberg made, duh, COPYING possible en masse, and suddenly anybody could take somebody's work, slap his/her name on it and pretend it was his. Since neither Roman law nor common law could handle that using existing provisions, IP laws were born. Luckily, somebody had that bright idea that copyright should generally protect the author and not his grand-grand-grand-grandchildren or a company he established, and so public domain was born.
And if you would kindly start to read my posts exactly as they are written, I was talking about copy-pasting, not rewriting.
Theories and ideas are not copyrightable. Their expression however, is. The line is fine and a lot of big money is made on arguing whether something is "a redesign of a common idea" or "a blatant rip off somebody's work". However, if somebody takes my work and publish that under his/her name, he or she surely would ridicule him/herself and be subject to scrutiny in academic circles, BUT ALSO that would be a breach of my personal rights (copyright, in this case) and I would have the grounds to sue that person into kingdom come. Regardless if under my (Polish and EU) or American laws (some countries, like China, are tricky with that due to their lack of legal attention to IP laws).
Copyright exists regardless of any registration, it's automatic. Copyright appears the moment you create some work. You don't have to fill any papers and register anything anywhere to be able to claim your authorship of work. Patents require registration, trademarks can be registered in order to obtain stronger protection, but copyright is independent of any regulatory provisions.
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Gutenberg lived in the XV century. By the late XV century printing was a powerful industry.
And copyrights are, literally copy rights. Most of the material we produce can be freely copied, that is the argument of this thread.
You introduced plagiarism that is another thing.
You claimed that the absence of copyrights would stop academical works. Academical works have been produced for centuries after the advent of Gutenberg printing press while copyrights were non-existent or very weakly protected.
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Gutenberg lived in the XIV century. In the XV printing was a powerful industry.What can I say, legal sciences have the speed of a turtle after multiple heart attacks.
I cited the wrong century, Gutenberg worked in XV century, but for the late XV there was a big production of books.
A single printer (albeit a important one), Manunzio, published 130 titles alone between 1490 and 1515. Often the authors were paid in printed copies of the books that they could sell and generally received nothing for successive printing of the material.
There is a strong difference between "academic output would hit zero" and "academic output will be copied and palgiarized".
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That's actually wrong. In the US, before filing a lawsuit, you must register your copyright with the US Copyright Office. To quote from the US Copyright Office Circular One, Copyright Basics.
"If made before or within five years of publication, registration will establish prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate."
"If registration is made within three months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney’s fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner."
1. It's for federal courts only, and does not apply to foreign copyrights. Also, US copyright laws fall under the "undefended is unprotected" doctrine which makes IP laws lawsuits a bit of different beast than in Europe.
2. The registration does not "create" copyright, it merely gives you the power to claim it before a specific range of courts. I'm sure you will find a country or two with a similar system, but they're an exception, not a norm - IIRC every EU country does not require you to register a copyright in order to use it before a court. And that's, errr, 99% of courts I deal with :)
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Paizo's policy is to declare all rules content as Open (only limiting stuff in the Product Identity section, which includes proper names, art, and so on). That is generosity, and should not be glossed over.Abso-frickin-lutely.
People think just because the OGL exists Paizo MUST share everything freely dancing, singing, and tossing flowers into the crowd. Not true. Paizo throws us flowers cuz they're effing cool.
From my understanding, technically, Paizo hasn't needed to make anything open content since the Core Rulebook (which was largely based on open content itself) and the monsters in each of the Bestiaries that come from the SRD or the Tome of Horrors. And even for stuff that is open content, that doesn't give them any obligation to have it freely availible like they do in the PRD.
Paizo's policy is to declare all rules content as Open (only limiting stuff in the Product Identity section, which includes proper names, art, and so on). That is generosity, and should not be glossed over.
Uhm, dunno if this has been brought up previously, but what about sites like the PF SRD or Golarion Wiki?
Paizo's policy is to declare all rules content as Open (only limiting stuff in the Product Identity section, which includes proper names, art, and so on). That is generosity, and should not be glossed over.Uhm, dunno if this has been brought up previously, but what about sites like the PF SRD or Golarion Wiki?
The PF SRD is part of that generosity. The rules are open content. Paizo is under no obligation to offer them for free on a website.
The wiki is another beast entirely, putting protected content into a wiki is only possible with paizos consent.
IceniQueen's concerns are not unfounded, it would really suck if somehow you ended up violating the policy unintentionally! I don't think anyone here (least of all the PostMonster) thinks that it is not a risk whatsoever. I can think of a number of scenarios where I might have unknowingly lost control of my PDF access (who hasn't left a thumb drive in a classroom?!) but luckily nothing bad seems to have happened.
It's scary, but if this is the policy that Paizo needs to keep their PDF system in place, then so be it. We all need to be careful with our data.
I am grateful that Paizo manages to combat privacy in their way without inconveniencing the user. I buy the PDFs from Paizo knowing that I get convenience in downloads and security for my money. Pirate PDFs would have to be redownloaded if my hard drive failed, and I have easy access to the official stuff at home and work.
Of course, we should all be the type of people who would do the right thing anyway, but I think it is very smart of Paizo to have incentivized the right behavior. I often curse my fate when dealing with services that take a more intrusive approach to anti-piracy. "Why can't this be more like Paizo?" is something I am often heard to say in those situations!
EDIT: And also, who needs to pirate when you have the PRD? Seriously.
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Paizo's policy is to declare all rules content as Open (only limiting stuff in the Product Identity section, which includes proper names, art, and so on). That is generosity, and should not be glossed over.Uhm, dunno if this has been brought up previously, but what about sites like the PF SRD or Golarion Wiki?The PF SRD is part of that generosity. The rules are open content. Paizo is under no obligation to offer them for free on a website.
The wiki is another beast entirely, putting protected content into a wiki is only possible with paizos consent.
Wiki is ina bit of a grey area. Statements of fact are not copyrightable and the wiki is statements of facts as pertains to a fictional universe. Not every franchise likes having a wiki out there, but I have not heard of any of them brought down over it yet.
I was under the impression you can not create closed rules content underthe OGL and that only Wizards could do that. Have other 3PPs ever done closed rules content?
And continued piracy leads to less reasonable IP laws. Rampant piracy of digital media is what pushes big businesses to lobby for SOPA and PIPA.
Really? So explain why copyright was extended to ridiculous terms prior to digital media (and the piracy thereof) becoming anywhere near widespread (or, even possible).
Corrupt politicians taking buy-offs from copyright holders leads to unreasonable IP laws, nothing else.
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"Pirates gonna pirate" doesn't actually have to be the reality. As a society we get to choose what behaviors we'll accept and which we won't. Just because something happens "on the internet" doesn't put it beyond the bounds of what's generally agreed upon to be acceptable.Alright, fair enough. How do we enforce it as a society then?Statements like "pirates gonna pirate" really bug me. What, just because one chunk of society does something wrong, we throw our hands in the air and say "Hey, what are you gonna do?"
Do statements like "thieves gonna steal" or "murders gonna murder" or "rapists gonna rape" sound OK to you? I hope not. I'm certainly not comparing digital piracy to rape and murder, but digital piracy IS a crime and it DOES have a negative impact on people. Like any crime, you do whatever you can to deter those that elect to pursue the crime.
You don't say, "murders gonna murder - nothin we can do about it ... just don't get too close to your loved ones, I guess" do you???
Sorry, this whole "hey man, digital piracy isn't a crime - it's my right to do what I want - it don't hurt nobody ..." argument some people have is really tiresome.
So then your solution to end 'piracy' would be?
Also you just compared right clicking a digital file, choosing 'copy'. And then right clicking your desktop and clicking "paste" with out deleting the original first and/or with intent to give to someone else to Rape and Murder. I have no words.
Despite your feigned shock and forced righteous indignation, I think we all know I did not imply they are the same thing (I even said as much in the post ... "I'm certainly not comparing digital piracy to rape and murder, but digital piracy IS a crime and it DOES have a negative impact on people.")
I was simply making a point and I suspect everyone reading my post understood that ... including you
I was under the impression you can not create closed rules content underthe OGL and that only Wizards could do that. Have other 3PPs ever done closed rules content?
The only content that Paizo is required to leave open is open content that they used and distributed.
They are under zero obligation to spread MORE open content.
And, yes, MANY 3PPs have done closed content. I've looked at the OGL statements for several books, and the only open content in them is the open content they leeched for their product.
Paizo's policy is to declare all rules content as Open (only limiting stuff in the Product Identity section, which includes proper names, art, and so on). That is generosity, and should not be glossed over.Uhm, dunno if this has been brought up previously, but what about sites like the PF SRD or Golarion Wiki?The PF SRD is part of that generosity. The rules are open content. Paizo is under no obligation to offer them for free on a website.
The wiki is another beast entirely, putting protected content into a wiki is only possible with paizos consent.
What I don't understand is: if you sum up PRD, PF SRD and Golarion Wiki, you basically have the full content of all Pathfinder books; alright, maybe a little less, and not ordered as in the book, but still you have rules, flavor, setting and pictures all for free; so, apart the fact that having this all for free makes it nearly pointless to pirate the .pdfs, what's really the difference between having them pirated or not, for the company?
I mean, it's as if I sell prints of art I've made and allow high quality photoes of them to roam free on the net, but complain if someone pirates a print. Or did I miss something?On a side note, I thought Paizo loved pirates...
Despite your feigned shock and forced righteous indignation, I think we all know I did not imply they are the same thing (I even said as much in the post ... "I'm certainly not comparing digital piracy to rape and murder, but digital piracy IS a crime and it DOES have a negative impact on people.")
I was simply making a point and I suspect everyone reading my post understood that ... including you
I think everyone understood quite clearly that you said you didn't make such a comparison when you quite obviously did.
I mean, seriously? "That comparison I just made? I'm not actually making that comparison. For reals."
Paizo's policy is to declare all rules content as Open (only limiting stuff in the Product Identity section, which includes proper names, art, and so on). That is generosity, and should not be glossed over.Uhm, dunno if this has been brought up previously, but what about sites like the PF SRD or Golarion Wiki?The PF SRD is part of that generosity. The rules are open content. Paizo is under no obligation to offer them for free on a website.
The wiki is another beast entirely, putting protected content into a wiki is only possible with paizos consent.What I don't understand is: if you sum up PRD, PF SRD and Golarion Wiki, you basically have the full content of all Pathfinder books; alright, maybe a little less, and not ordered as in the book, but still you have rules, flavor, setting and pictures all for free; so, apart the fact that having this all for free makes it nearly pointless to pirate the .pdfs, what's really the difference between having them pirated or not, for the company?
I mean, it's as if I sell prints of art I've made and allow high quality photoes of them to roam free on the net, but complain if someone pirates a print. Or did I miss something?
Without selling stuff, they could not set up free things. And they could not produce more stuff.
Without selling stuff, they could not set up free things. And they could not produce more stuff.
Of course, but at the current state of things, websites and pirated .pdfs are two faces of the same "free stuff" coin.
I'd have no problem understanding (altough I'd be sad, of course) if they allowed only a limited amount of things to be available on websites, because that would mean "you can get A, B and C for free, but you must pay for the rest of the alphabet" and pirating "D to Z" would have an obviously different meaning. But as things are now, I really don't understand (I do understand the money drama, but I don't understand the policy of allowing one form of "free" while despising the other).
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Despite your feigned shock and forced righteous indignation, I think we all know I did not imply they are the same thing (I even said as much in the post ... "I'm certainly not comparing digital piracy to rape and murder, but digital piracy IS a crime and it DOES have a negative impact on people.")
I was simply making a point and I suspect everyone reading my post understood that ... including you
I think everyone understood quite clearly that you said you didn't make such a comparison when you quite obviously did.
I mean, seriously? "That comparison I just made? I'm not actually making that comparison. For reals."
Good point! I probably could have been more clear ...
Hopefully it was clear that I was comparing those things in order to show that stating a given crime or 'wrong act' is going to happen and there's nothing one can do about it so you might as well not worry about it is a terrible way to operate. We don't think this way for other crimes, why think this way about digital piracy?
I certainly was not implying that the severity or grievousness of digital piracy comes anywhere close to that of murder or rape! That's what I meant when I said "I was simply making a point and I suspect everyone reading my post understood that ... including you"
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Without selling stuff, they could not set up free things. And they could not produce more stuff.Of course, but at the current state of things, websites pirated .pdfs are two faces of the same "free stuff" coin.
I'd have no problem understanding (altough I'd be sad, of course) if they allowed only a limited amount of things to be available on websites, because that would mean "you can get A, B and C for free, but you must pay for the rest of the alphabet" and pirating "D to Z" would have an obviously different meaning. But as things are now, I really don't understand (I do understand the money drama, but I don't understand the policy of allowing one form of "free" while despising the other).
There is considerable added value in the PDF. It's a standardised format, meaning that you can put it easily onto a phone or tablet device and access it off-line. There is the phenomenal artwork. There is the bookmarking and search capability. All of this requires the considerable expertise of the digital products folks at Paizo. That's what they are asking for some cash for, even though the rules text is identical.
Fair enough, isnt't it? A couple of quid for someone doing all that work for you?