The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

[Polycarp]

Wait just a minute.

The press release that announced the above change - and the date of that change, April 6th (the same day as the lawsuits?) - is stamped for March 6, 2009.  Are we certain this is as sudden as Paizo makes it out to be?  Or has this information been out there for a month, and the cease-and-desist emails are only a result of this policy being put into place?

If that press release really came out on the date it says it did, this situation starts to look a little different.  Was the above agreement already available a month ago, and Paizo just didn't notice/ didn't bother to check it out?

[Polycarp]

Ok, Llum, that might be the case, in which case there's no news I can find at all specifically about digital distribution.  Some clarification is likely in order!

[LD]

If that press release really came out on the date it says it did, this situations starts to look a little different. Was the above agreement already available a month ago, and Paizo just didn't notice/ didn't bother to check it out?

The same thing happened to RPGnow and the other distributors who had their takedowns appear on the same day. Apparently Wizards only gave was 24 hour notice.

I would postulate that Wizards is using piracy and legal action as an excuse to eventually sell everything through their site and Digital Initiative.

I find it odd how they are trying to restrict internet sales to shops that have real brick and mortar presence. Has any other industry established a contractual system to create such a distribution route? I am not certain that requiring all books sold online to be sold by "brick and mortar" shops is actually legal outside of contract law. I would figure the worst that Wizards could do to people who want to sell actual books (not PDFs) on the internet and who refuse to sign their contract is to not distribute the books to them from initial printing. Thus Wizards would require those people to work through a middleman ( this policy seems squarely aimed at taking revenue away from Paizo). Wizards could not stop resellers on Ebay from selling books. Could wizards stop an "unapproved" retailer from putting books up for sale on Ebay? I don't see that happening. If the retailers don't sign the contract I do not see how they can be bound?

This online selling agreement seems a bit bizarre.

I have not heard of anything like internet authorized seller agreement before except possibly in the realm of "Licensed sportswear manufacturers"... you cannot sell something that has someone's trademark.

Is Wizards going to prosecute internet retailers based on trademark infringement law?

[SDragon]

Remember, folks, don't pirate and don't encourage piracy.  If you want something for free, find someone who gives their product away for free or, better yet, make your own.

Debatable.

On a philosophical level, certainly. However, i believe he was referring to the practical level, where piracy and copyright infringement is still, unarguably, illegal.

[SDragon]

Remember, folks, don't pirate and don't encourage piracy.  If you want something for free, find someone who gives their product away for free or, better yet, make your own.

Debatable.

It is debatable in the way that anything is.  If someone wants to distribute shareware or share what they do without charging, then that is fine.  And there are, I agree, situations where an image or something is not being sold anywhere and this makes it difficult to actually purchase a particular work.
But when the product of someone's labor is being sold in such a way that the creator or their agreements are being supported by that sale, then anyone who procures this product in a manner to avoid due recompense is stealing.  I am scared to death of living in a world where creativity is stifled due to the inability of artists (like Eldo) to make a living.  
Am I missing something here?

The fact that nobody, at least in the USA, and very probably in several other countries, is forced to make a living as an artist. Worst-case scenario, they can very probably get a job at Wal-Mart or McDonald's. It may not be the most satisfying career path, but it's still money.

Personally, I would absolutely love to make a profit off of my own art. I think that would be great. However, I realize that if I were to end up living on the streets, it wouldn't be solely due to nobody buying my comics, and I probably would have to deal with issues other then piracy of intellectual property.

My point in all of this, however, is not to actually debate the issue; simply to demonstrate that is in, indeed, debatable. I don't think the point of this thread was to debate the morality of piracy, but instead to discuss the ethics of WotC's anti-piracy measures.

[Polycarp]

Well, it's probably no accident that the revocation of distribution rights given to sites like paizo and the piracy lawsuits came down on or around the same day that WotC was planning to completely re-do their policy on internet sales of their products.  Evidently concerns over intellectual property have come to a head there, and what we're seeing is a multi-pronged attempt to rethink their position on product distribution, especially when it comes to digital formats and the Internet.  It's unlikely that these decisions were made at the drop of a hat.

Was it ethical to give paizo, et al. 24 hours (possibly less) to drop everything, knowing full well that there may be people who have purchased but not downloaded their product yet?  It seems difficult to make an argument that it is.  Legal digital distributors may have been the original sources of the pirated pdfs, but I'm sure there are plenty of copies on torrent sites by now (and they've probably been there for some time).

The matter of timing aside though, I don't think WotC is doing anything terribly objectionable.  They're within their rights to re-examine their distribution methods and protocol, and they're likewise entitled to attempt to curtail piracy (arguments about how effective their methods are aside).  Hopefully we'll see what their alternative is soon, as I find it hard to believe that they are permanently nixing digital distribution of their material.

[Nomadic]

Remember, folks, don't pirate and don't encourage piracy.  If you want something for free, find someone who gives their product away for free or, better yet, make your own.

Debatable.

It is debatable in the way that anything is.  If someone wants to distribute shareware or share what they do without charging, then that is fine.  And there are, I agree, situations where an image or something is not being sold anywhere and this makes it difficult to actually purchase a particular work.
But when the product of someone's labor is being sold in such a way that the creator or their agreements are being supported by that sale, then anyone who procures this product in a manner to avoid due recompense is stealing.  I am scared to death of living in a world where creativity is stifled due to the inability of artists (like Eldo) to make a living.  
Am I missing something here?

The fact that nobody, at least in the USA, and very probably in several other countries, is forced to make a living as an artist. Worst-case scenario, they can very probably get a job at Wal-Mart or McDonald's. It may not be the most satisfying career path, but it's still money.

Personally, I would absolutely love to make a profit off of my own art. I think that would be great. However, I realize that if I were to end up living on the streets, it wouldn't be solely due to nobody buying my comics, and I probably would have to deal with issues other then piracy of intellectual property.

My point in all of this, however, is not to actually debate the issue; simply to demonstrate that is in, indeed, debatable. I don't think the point of this thread was to debate the morality of piracy, but instead to discuss the ethics of WotC's anti-piracy measures.

Hold on... you're saying that if someone steals your work so that you don't make money off it... that the burden is on you to find another job?

[Llum]

Hold on... you're saying that if someone steals your work so that you don't make money off it... that the burden is on you to find another job?

Well technacly it is, since no one else should be forced to support you. Now I'm not condoning piracy (I actually don't pirate things :p) but just saying, saying "Oh woes is me, people keep dowloading my stuff, lets just let everyone else support me" is not cool.

[Elemental_Elf]

I think this is just another blatant power move by WotC aimed at eliminating competition so as to have a blank slate when WotC releases their own PDF store.

[LD]

>>Well technacly it is, since no one else should be forced to support you.

? No one is forcing you to illegally download and steal something?

If you only plan to listen to the music once, perhaps twice or thrice, I suppose the moral analogue would be walking and hearing a street musician or listening to the radio- there is no problem with "sampling" the music because it is not all that important to you.

But if you are the artist's "greatest fan" and listen to her music all the time, then do you not think that there is something a little wrong in that you are gaining enjoyment from what she does and she is gaining nothing? I suppose you will have her music forever (because you downloaded it). But some day she will need to retire and find another job and you will be denied all the new creations she could have made. In that fashion, piracy is not just self-centered, it is downright foolish.

[Elemental_Elf]

What I don't get is why WotC would ban the sale of previous editions of D&D. Its not like people can go out and buy 3.x (or older) material in a store these days... Wait it all makes sense now. This ploy is just a further effort to push everyone into 4E. Why allow the sale of previous edition's books when you have a new edition that you want people to buy and play? If you completely cut the masses off from any (legitimate) way of buying into your previous edition(s) then you will, in the long run, end a large portion of the anti-4E community's resistance. Either they buy into the new system or go some place else.

Seems harsh and needlessly dramatic but that's what businesses do.

[Llum]

the quote [*/quote], taking out the *. Learn it, love it :P

True no one is forcing you to download, and like I said I'm not condoning piracy, being as I don't download stuff. However, my point was that if you cannot make a living off of your "art" because people are downloading it or whatever reason, it Does fall on you to get another job that can support you.

Now not being able to support yourself because people pirate your stuff I find to be an unrealistic situation because people will buy your stuff if they like it, even if they pirated it first, if they like it enough, they will buy it.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Much as I generally disdain argument by analogy, that is like saying if your store is failing because people keep stealing stuff, not only is it somehow your fault, but you should close shop, rather than try to catch/prosecute the shoplifters.

[SDragon]

Remember, folks, don't pirate and don't encourage piracy.  If you want something for free, find someone who gives their product away for free or, better yet, make your own.

Debatable.

It is debatable in the way that anything is.  If someone wants to distribute shareware or share what they do without charging, then that is fine.  And there are, I agree, situations where an image or something is not being sold anywhere and this makes it difficult to actually purchase a particular work.
But when the product of someone's labor is being sold in such a way that the creator or their agreements are being supported by that sale, then anyone who procures this product in a manner to avoid due recompense is stealing.  I am scared to death of living in a world where creativity is stifled due to the inability of artists (like Eldo) to make a living.  
Am I missing something here?

The fact that nobody, at least in the USA, and very probably in several other countries, is forced to make a living as an artist. Worst-case scenario, they can very probably get a job at Wal-Mart or McDonald's. It may not be the most satisfying career path, but it's still money.

Personally, I would absolutely love to make a profit off of my own art. I think that would be great. However, I realize that if I were to end up living on the streets, it wouldn't be solely due to nobody buying my comics, and I probably would have to deal with issues other then piracy of intellectual property.

My point in all of this, however, is not to actually debate the issue; simply to demonstrate that is in, indeed, debatable. I don't think the point of this thread was to debate the morality of piracy, but instead to discuss the ethics of WotC's anti-piracy measures.

Hold on... you're saying that if someone steals your work so that you don't make money off it... that the burden is on you to find another job?

No. While I do feel that the inability to make money in any given job means you should have to find another job (or, y'know, not make money), that's not what I trying to say. what I was trying to say was, the point is debatable, at least on a philosophical level.

[Llum]

Much as I generally disdain argument by analogy, that is like saying if your store is failing because people keep stealing stuff, not only is it somehow your fault, but you should close shop, rather than try to catch/prosecute the shoplifters.

Trying to catch/prosecute these people is something, and if it manages to let you make a living then GJ. However, much as you disdain analogy, you have reason, because trying to track down every person who pirated your "art" is going to be ridiculous, if possible at all.

But the point still stands, if you cannot make a living off what you are doing, then it still falls on you to make a living, no matter what.