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No More D&D PDFs, Wizards of the Coast Sues 8 File Sharers
An anonymous reader writes "On April 6th, Wizards of the Coast took all of their PDF products offline, including those sold at third-party websites like RPGNow.com. From the RPGNow front page: 'Wizards of the Coast has instructed us to suspend all sales and downloads of Wizards of the Coast titles. Unfortunately, this includes offering download access to previously purchased Wizards of the Coast titles.' Wizards of the Coast also posted a press release to their website that states they are suing eight file sharers for 'copyright infringement,' and WotC_Trevor posted a short explanation about the cessation of PDF sales to the EN World Forums."
Step 1: Point gun at foot and pull trigger.
Step 2: Open yourself up to lawsuits for breach of contract.
Step 3: Ignore all evidence and make assumptions in an effort to piss off both the users and the publishers.
Step 4: Lose all profits!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
So instead of making still LOTS of money off of legal PDF sales, now EVERYONE who wants PDFs will find them on torrents. This will make the torrenting of them more prevalent.
Now the only avenue of ownership for their digital content is unsanctioned file sharing.
All future unsanctioned copies will bear the same (at least) 8 watermarks losing TOS abusers in a sea of anonymity.
Best viral marketing move for an RPG ever.
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And just when you thought they 'got it'...
Unfortunately, this includes offering download access to previously purchased Wizards of the Coast titles.
Why do these arrogant companies think they can take back what they've sold without compensation? This is ripe for a lawsuit.
Trying to take things off the internet is like trying to take piss out of a pool.
The sooner companies learn that, the better.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
If your demographic is largely weighted towards nerdy type males, a demographic whose mantra is 'free the information!' and who live for finding new and interesting torrents, it's probably not a good idea to put your bread and butter product in the digital domain. Just saying...
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I think a lot of us were. All the online tools they talked of in D&D insider. The collaborative game space program that would let you play D&D with your buddies who've since scattered to remote parts of the world. I know there are programs for this but all the ones my group has tried haven't worked very well. Just try not to let the douchebag actions of WoTC ruin the game for you.
The more starsystems will slip through your fingers.
and I was going to buy about $300 of 1e pdfs. oh well, guess I'll torrent because I CAN'T GET THEM ANYWHERE ELSE NOW.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
They are not bankrupt, but what they are doing is shattering their core userbase into many different groups. This is not the same as 1st ed vs 2nd ed players, or the players (like me) who still play 2nd and 3e.
Hasbro/WotC completely dropped support for their OGL that they developed with 3rd edition, but many people still use that. There are many other new, creative RPGs that can easily give D&D a run for its money, and the old powerhouses like Palladium are still going strong.
It's funny that everything you mention about 4e is in the sense of a dumbing-down or simplifying. WotC has always been obsessed with that concept but it is just not in sync with reality. Gamers love complexity and they want a system that has rich options. Why do you think WotCs attempts to turn RPGs into a kids oversimplified boardgame always fail, and the system inevitable ends up becoming more and more complex?
As for the actual content, well WotC will never be able to top the greats of 2nd edition; that is when there was true creative talent in the AD&D universe, with settings like Planescape, Dark Sun and Spelljammer as well as the more "traditional" fantasy settings on Toril, Krynn and Greyhawk. WotC has just been living off those great masterminds and reprinting books of lists (feats, skills, equipment, classes, whatever), not creating anything of its own.
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Manufacturers can tell retailers to cease and desist from selling their products - electronic or otherwise. If they had a contract which said "Retailer is paying WoTC in advance for 100 licenses of our material for X dollars" then the retailer could say "sure we will stop selling it, but we only sold 20 so you owe us the cost of 80". Otherwise they have no recourse. Yes someone could come up with a lawsuit "I spent 40,000$ creating an ecommerce site specifically for your product which you no longer allow me to sell...you owe me money". But it all depends on the contract they signed. If WoTC had in their contract "we can tell you to stop selling our products at anytime without recourse then you must do so and you can't sue us" well it sucks for the retailer. It all depends on the contract - but to say "that is crap...." without knowing the contract is baseless.
I love it when people scream "sue" without knowing the facts.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Or that they've realized they could be selling the downloads directly for the same price and pocket the difference of selling through a middle-man.
Hey Publishers! (all of them!)
You have a problem with piracy? Perhaps it's because all of you sell the PDF at pretty much full cost of a real book. Why do you do that?
PDFs don't have printing costs. We know you can sell them for less.
It's handy to reference a book while playing. It's still kind of cumbersome to reference a PDF while playing... the PDF is less valuable to us.
If you greedy BEEP would sell good quality PDF files for say.... $3, I'd drop $100 right now. If you would make old books available, I'd drop another $100 right now.
No Way am I paying $25 for a FILE.
You brought it on yourselves.
-Tony
an int of lower than 3 or corporations.
-1 Redundant
That which does not kill us makes us... st
I can't make an argument against this attitude that is anywhere near as eloquent as Eric Flint posted on Jim Baen's free library site.
http://www.baen.com/library/
Jim put his money where his mouth was, and GAVE AWAY book, after book, after book. More, if you happen to be disabled, you can contact Baen Books, and they will give to you NOT ONLY the books from their free library, but their mainstream books that are in print.
Baen books had a lot of money at stake on this gamble. But, they PROVED CONCLUSIVELY that giving stuff away free MAKES MONEY for them. Every time they released a title that had been out of print, sales of that book skyrocketed.
Over at Baen, the author has to approve his title for the free library, and some authors don't seem to use it. Those authors who have jumped aboard the free library enjoy an increase in income.
Baen books puts the lie to all the DRM crap, and proves the corporate lackeys to be totally wrong.
In the case of D&D stuff - if they had any brights at all, they would allow the stuff on P2P to continue, but add some cool stuff that is NOT readily downloadable via P2P. Any intelligent individual can come up with schemes for that. In fact, it would be a small step to release P2P ready material that at the very least promotes the non-P2P, and possibly even DEPENDS ON other non-P2P material.
It constantly amazes me that lackwit idiots run the corporate world.
Traveling salesmen and tinkers learned this lesson before electricity was discovered, for God's sake!!!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Actually, market competition pushes price toward the marginal cost of production. At least that's the theory, and it's part of the justification for copyright. In practice it seldom works out that way. In any case, they have have a copyright monopoly, so they have complete control over supply and they don't have a whole lot of worries about competition.
What we have here is copyright failure. Copyright was created solely for the benefit of society the public. (At least that's the case in the U.S.: other countries have moral rights. But in this case we have work-for-hire for a company legally required to place profit above all else, so the moral rights issue is moot.) Here we have copyright working to do the opposite of what it is intended to do. Copyright failure.
Mind, with illegal filesharing their control over supply is illusory. They're acting as though they had a monopoly, but they don't. Which, as so many have pointed out, is why this is so stupid.
The REALLY insane thing here is that they've pulled even old edition stuff. I think pulling 4E stuff was also an insane move, but it at least has the illusion of making some small kind of sense.
But to pull older out of print stuff is just removing a revenue stream. I was actually going to buy several classic adventures sometime soon (and at $5 a pop I could afford to get a bunch), and use them as inspiration for my first run at DMing a game. Now? Well I can't get them legally anywhere, so I guess I might as well hunt down torrent copies. It'll be a bit more work, but if that's the only way to get them it's what I'll probably do.
I'd also point out that I have pirated copies of some of the first few core books. I got them initially to see if I thought I'd like the new system. I determine I would and immediately went out and bought the PHB, DMG, and MM. I've kept the PDF's because the search-able PDF's are a quick way to look up rules etc, but I still want the physical book for other things, like longer reading sessions to make sure I fully understand the rules etc. I have since bought, in hardcover a couple more books, and have considered buying PDF's of some of the other books (mostly splat-books) I'd likely use less but still might want.
Maybe they do want people to move on to 4th edition, but this isn't going to make people do it. This is just cutting off a revenue stream for them.
WOTC gives customers something that they want, in a relatively open format and it is still shared around by stupid dumbass pirates. Not only do they threaten to ruin the software industry, but now they are coming after my tabletop games as well. What a great digital world we live in!
What are you bitching about?
Are you telling the rest of the fine gentlemen here on /. that if WotC had only released three books, the PHB, DMG, and MM, you would have been perfectly happy with their actions?
I can't imagine how them writing extra books is really spoiling this for you. It's not like they're going back into the PHB, and writing in the Table of Contents, "Avenger: Coming soon! Druid: Coming soon! Chapters 11-23: Too bad, you don't own them!" It's not like they've pulled some Han-shot-second bullshit and altered permanently something you used to love. The sanctity of the first three books has not been spoiled: They are, as every other base set in the history of mankind, a complete set that needs nothing else besides dice and dudes to turn it into a game.
I have many problems with WotC and there are many of their features that I choose not to support them in. Their online subscription (which provides a digital magazine plus backcopies), their shitty dice (fully functional) or their badly painted minis (that match all the fluff) don't appeal to me. There are many of their practices that I think are either counterproductive for the fostering of the community, or just vindictive, like the elimination of the SRD and the lack of PDF backcopies that this thread concerns.
But I'm not going batshit because they published a game that, in its most basic form, is completely self-contained. The expectancies for book-ownage these days are even less than they were in 3.5. Nobody has any class features that requires them to browse the Monster Manual, as a completely normal Druid, Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Ranger, or Paladin was expected to in 3.5. Nobody that takes an item-crafting feat or prestige class has to look in the DMG any more to find out what, exactly, they can actually do with them. To get the full picture on your campaign setting, there are two books (not eleven!) available for your perusal.
Let's be clear: You own the full set. You purchased it. They have your money, and you have your complete game. Everyone should be happy about that transaction, and I'm going to hold you to it because you just told me you would have been.
Why does the fact that they released books that you don't need and apparently don't want make you so angry? By your own admission, you got what you came for.