WotC Releases Old Dungeons & Dragons Catalog As PDFs

jjohn writes "Wizards of the Coasts, holders of the TSR catalog, have released rulebooks and modules for most editions of Dungeons and Dragons through a partnership with DriveThruRPG.com. The web site, dndclassics.com, may be a little overloaded right now. Most module PDFs are $4.99 USD." The article points out that these are all fresh scans of the old books. It's also worth noting that the decision to make these PDFs available reverses WotC's 2009 decision to stop all PDF sales because of piracy fears. The only reference to this in the article is a quote from the D&D publishing and licensing director: "We don't want them to go to torrent sites. Why not give them a legal route?"

Comments

Saving Throw

[imikem]

Made vs. common sense. It must have been a natural 20.

Re:Saving Throw

[Kjella]

Considering they stopped for several years, I'm more thinking they adopted the strategy from War Games: The only winning move is not to play. Unfortunately for WotC it doesn't work quite as well for AD&D as for global thermonuclear war.

Re:Saving Throw

[alvinrod]

Probably because there was nothing stopping anyone from scanning a printed copy of the rulebook or module, converting it to a PDF, and then putting it online. Google even has an auto-complete option for PDF when I just typed in "dungeons and dragons 2nd edition" and wouldn't you know, the second link is to a torrent, and there are several other links within the top ten results to file sharing sites or other torrent sites.

Some people are going to pirate no matter what you do. However, there are a lot who will gladly pay if you give them to opportunity to do so.

Re:Saving Throw

[iHambone]

"Some people are going to pirate no matter what you do. However, there are a lot who will gladly pay if you give them to opportunity to do so." THIS is exactly it. Their previous strategy simply made it IMPOSSIBLE to be a paying customer and read PDFs. Heck, I subscribe to their monthly service, buy most of the new books, miniatures, etc. Why would they not allow me to purchase PDF of the books I already own. Fortunately the good old internet provided access to everything I needed for my digital D&D needs. Unfortunately (for WotC), they didn't get a penny. There is one key to success in sales: **You have to make it easy for people to give you their money.** Finally, WotC has come around. A little late, but congratulations.

Re:Saving Throw

[Anonymous Coward]

well, i think there is another good reason for WotC to do this. in the world of 'ancient video games' (roms) it is legal to share and download roms to and fro if they cannot be reasonably obtained by commercial means. those old 1e, 2e, etc. books could not be reasonably obtained by commercial means, so WotC could do nothing legally but watch the 'pirate' files fly by them...until now.

Re:Saving Throw

[Omegaman]

Sadly, it is only a few of their old products. Hopefully they will release more in the future.
Here is a blog post about which are the best of the few that they have released.
And it mentions there are a couple of freebies that are available.
Classic PDFs

Re:Saving Throw

[damnbunni]

Um, no. Abandonware is illegal. Flat-out, no questions asked.

Just because you can't get it commercially doesn't mean it's legal to pass around.

Abandonware proponents like to claim this, but it's just something they made up to make themselves feel better.

They get away with passing stuff around as long as no one -cares- or if they're in a country it's difficult to enforce copyright in.

But it's not legal.

Re:Saving Throw

[Anonymous Coward]

It is true that abandonware is illegal most places. But that doesn't make it unethical. Abandonware proponents have no reason to feel bad - they should rather feel good for ethically spreading culture that would otherwise languish.

Re:Saving Throw

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares if abandonware is illegal. No one. If anyone would care, it wouldn't be abandoned.

Re:Saving Throw

[AmiMoJo]

It's not illegal, it's copyright infringement that makes it possible for the copyright owner to sue you for damages. Unless you are doing it on a commercial scale it is not a crime, and the copyright owner may chose not to sue you (as is the case for, say, open source software) so it isn't automatically infringement either.

In the case of abandonware it depends if the copyright owner is around and wants to sue. If not you can copy it all day long with no legal ramifications.

Re:Saving Throw

[damnbunni]

Uh, no. What you just said is 'it's not illegal as long as no one catches us'.

Copyright infringement is against the law. Whether you agree with that law or not isn't at issue here.

There is a certain threshold that has to be passed for criminal prosecution. It's $1000 worth of copyrighted works in 180 days. The works do not currently have to be for sale for that amount; that has to be their listed value. Most computer and console games have a listed value somewhere between $30 and $60, so it wouldn't take many downloads to pass that.

The penalty for that gets as high as ten years imprisonment, though a fine is more likely.

But hey, don't take my word for it. You'll forgive me for only citing relevant bits of the code.

17 USC 506 - (a) Criminal Infringement.
(1) In general Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18 ;; (B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180â"day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000;

covers the offense. And

18 USC 2319 - Criminal infringement of a copyright
(a) Any person who violates section 506 (a) (relating to criminal offenses) of title 17 shall be punished as provided in subsections (b), (c), and (d) and such penalties shall be in addition to any other provisions of title 17 or any other law.
        (b) Any person who commits an offense under section 506 (a)(1)(A) of title 17
(1) shall be imprisoned not more than 5 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $2,500;
(2) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense is a felony and is a second or subsequent offense under subsection (a); and
(3) shall be imprisoned not more than 1 year, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, in any other case.

covers the punishment.

Of course, this is US law, but I believe most Berne Convention nations have similar provisions.

I'm not making a statement on what 'should be' or what I think is 'fair'. I'm making a statement about what the law is.

Re:Saving Throw

[Anonymous Coward]

Well,
A) He didn't say it was legal, only . . . actually he said nothing even implying anything your response would be apropos to, and
B) No, abandonware proponents like to claim that copyright, being instituted (Explicitly in the United States, Implicitly elsewhere) as a means to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" overreaches when it forbids the transmission of information that is fact being closely held and not *allowed* to "promote the progress of science and Useful Arts".

This is both a moral and a practical argument, not a legal one - and I admit I find it compelling in a way I don't necessarily find the "They're greedy and overcharging" oft used against the music cartels ( If, as the proponents of *that* argument claim, piracy actually contributes to demand, then piracy is part of the problem. The answer to which is to reduce demand by . . . not buying *and* not stealing, thus lowering demand.).

But, yes, the inability to acquire something legally at *any* price raises a valid argument even without making statements about the legality of it. Add into that the fact that it's virtually impossible to actually ascertain the copyright status and put in good faith efforts to actually lobby for something to be re-released? It becomes a very strong argument.

Pug

Re:Saving Throw

[pugugly]

Well,
A) He didn't say it was legal, only . . . actually he said nothing even implying anything your response would be apropos to, and
B) No, abandonware proponents like to claim that copyright, being instituted (Explicitly in the United States, Implicitly elsewhere) as a means to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" overreaches when it forbids the transmission of information that is fact being closely held and not *allowed* to "promote the progress of science and Useful Arts".

This is both a moral and a practical argument, not a legal one - and I admit I find it compelling in a way I don't necessarily find the "They're greedy and overcharging" oft used against the music cartels ( If, as the proponents of *that* argument claim, piracy actually contributes to demand, then piracy is part of the problem. The answer to which is to reduce demand by . . . not buying *and* not stealing, thus lowering demand.).

But, yes, the inability to acquire something legally at *any* price raises a valid argument even without making statements about the legality of it. Add into that the fact that it's virtually impossible to actually ascertain the copyright status and put in good faith efforts to actually lobby for something to be re-released? It becomes a very strong argument.

Pug
(Intended to be logged in)

Re:Saving Throw

[damien_kane]

Uh, no. What you just said is 'it's not illegal as long as no one cares '.

FTFY

GP's point is such:
If the original copyright holder is no longer around (and the rights weren't passed on either by inheritance or buyout), then there's noone who can sue you
If the current copyright holder is not pursuing legal action against parties engaged in IP/Copyright infringement, then there's noone who will sue you

This is why it's called "abandonware".
The rights holders have abandoned protecting their intellectual property.

Yes, the infringement is still illegal, but there is no penalty for the crime.

Re:Saving Throw

[pugugly]

I will note, that a quick "IANAL so I googled it" definition of the *legal* definition of Retail Value seems to imply that the law recognizes that to have a retail value something has to be openly for sale. Abandonware would, by definition, have a retail value of $0.

I have over the years seen that come up in cases - examples would be the 'theft' of documents ascribed as arbitrarily high values in the case, then found to be freely downloadable and so on; It generally does not end well for the government in such cases if that is the *sole* crime being prosecuted.

Pug

Re:Saving Throw

[Anonymous Coward]

Except there is no registry of abandoned productions, and there is no waiver on file. When it comes to criminal infringement, while you may need a current owner to call the authorities' attention to it, you don't need private industry's consent to pursue criminal action.

There's no way to know if that abandonware is truly abandoned or if the name is in some folder somewhere in a safe in some bank that now owns it because of the original company's bankruptcy.

The real problem is the wholesale theft of ideas from the public domain. When the concepts of copyright were implemented, they knew these kinds of gray areas would come about and the answer was simple: just wait until it's public domain and don't sweat it any longer. Now that nothing enters public domain anymore, there are now books, movies, programs, and ideas that are literally illegal to get ahold of in any way.

Re:Saving Throw

[Anonymous Coward]

Still illegal, just not criminal. There is a difference. Otherwise they couldn't sue you.

It took long enough

[Anonymous Coward]

for someone to make a will save vs insanity.

D&D PDFs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean all the D&D PDFs I bought before, but which were deleted out of my various paizo and drivethruRPG cloud accounts, are going to be replaced? Or a credit issued? The way they were torn out from under me by the license adjustments last time makes me remain a little leery.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[h4rr4r]

How do they steal back normal PDFs?

The format is well documented and surely you have backups.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[0123456]

The format is well documented and surely you have backups.

He said they were in The Cloud. Why would he need backups?

Re:D&D PDFs?

[SJHillman]

In case it rains. Just like paper documents under a real cloud, electronic documents fall apart if it rains in the Cloud.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[h4rr4r]

Because he cared about having the files in the future?

Trusting a cloud provider to the point where you don't have backups is one of the stupidest things I have heard today.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[Hatta]

Because they're in The Cloud.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[Anonymous Coward]

You gave them money and requested in turn they give you a product. They delivered.

They are under no obligation to provide you a credit for a valid transaction

Re:D&D PDFs?

[wmbetts]

I don't think you read what he posted correctly. He was happy when he had them then they stole them from him. It's like me selling you a car then deciding I want the car back. So I go to your house take it from your driveway and keep your money.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[grilled-cheese]

Trusting a cloud provider to the point where you don't have backups is one of the stupidest things I have heard today.

That's why I have 2 Cloud providers and replicate between them...

Re:D&D PDFs?

[Cammi]

How did your court case turn out? Surely, when your PDFs were stolen, you took them to court? If not ... that's on you.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[painandgreed]

Does this mean all the D&D PDFs I bought before, but which were deleted out of my various paizo and drivethruRPG cloud accounts, are going to be replaced?

Yes. (According to various blogs posted on RPG.net.)

Now, download them and make backups this time.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[xaotikdesigns]

So you missed all the warnings about not downloading all your information? It's not their fault you lost anything, you didn't save them.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[xaotikdesigns]

They didn't steal anything. Piazo gave plenty of warning that they were not able to continue to offer any of the old D&D products, and that you would have to download anything you had purchased. He wasn't storing them in "the could" he was just banking on being able to download them whenever he wanted.

I too purchased may pdfs from Piazo, and guess what, I still have them all, because I saved them to my hard drive when they told me to do so.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[MagusSlurpy]

So you've never bought a game through Steam?

Re:D&D PDFs?

[davester666]

Both of which outsource to Amazon.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[Bing Tsher E]

Furthermore, in order to read the PDFs, he by necessity had to download them to his computer. Apparently he didn't keep a local copy of what he downloaded. So he deleted them himself. Nobody else is at fault.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[h4rr4r]

Not one I did not also backup and get a crack for.

What kind of fool do you take me for?

Re:D&D PDFs?

[david_thornley]

When I got my copies of the original books, I also got a promise that I could download them up to five times in the future. As an old-fashioned geek, I downloaded my copies and backed them up where they're nice and safe. Nobody's coming after me and removing them from my disks and other locations. I didn't really care when RPGNow told me they couldn't honor that promise any more, but it is something I paid for and didn't get.

However, somebody used to trusting in the Cloud might have counted on being able to re-download as promised, and in that case would not have received what he or she was promised in exchange for money. The original AC may well be in that position. (Note that being [adjective] for trusting in the Cloud should not negate the original transaction without at least partial refund.)

Re:D&D PDFs?

[Some Bitch]

The format is well documented and surely you have backups.

He said they were in The Cloud. Why would he need backups?

"Real Men don't make backups. They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it." - Linus Torvalds

Re:D&D PDFs?

[mcmonkey]

The format is well documented and surely you have backups.

He said they were in The Cloud. Why would he need backups?

"Real Men don't make backups. They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it." - Linus Torvalds

And don't call him Shirley.

Re:D&D PDFs?

[AK Marc]

I've "bought" DRM'd PDFs and had the authentication server later go down. They "stole" my PDFs from me.

The law should have in it that anything with DRM will default to "available" if the servers go down, otherwise it doesn't meet the proper definition of "published" for copyrighted material, and all copyright is revoked.

My other solution is that anything that wants copyright for more than 5 years must deliver an unencrypted/unencumbered and usable copy in master-quality to the Library of Congress. That way, when the copyright expires in 200 years, we won't be left with 190 year old DRM locked down and unsuable versions as their "donation" to the Public Domain.

Piracy

[Hatta]

The books are going to be scanned and shared whether they post PDFs or not. The only question is whether there's a legit option for those who want to pay.

Re:Piracy

[Nyder]

The books are going to be scanned and shared whether they post PDFs or not. The only question is whether there's a legit option for those who want to pay.

yep, i've had scans of all their books and modules for over 10 years, sheesh, almost 20 years. Now when I don't play D&D or AD&D anymore, they make it available legally.

Stupid.

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, I thought I'd have to make it through the entire summary for that.

But... But...

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I already downloaded everything from a P2P site because I couldn't get it any other way, now do I need to go buy everything because really I'm just another honest anonymous coward? And you know, all I really want is the complete pdf set of all hackmaster books... Hackmaster took AD&D in the right direction, but I couldn't ever afford all the various monster books, as they charged outrageous prices for short alphabetical sections of monsters....

Re:But... But...

[slaker]

Really, the Hackmaster stuff is ludicrously high quality and is clearly made as a labor of love by a bunch of people who aren't exactly going to make a fortune for their efforts. I pirated all the out of print gaming stuff too, just for nostalgia's sake. But Hackmaster is a living project and those guys deserve the attention and support.

Re:But... But...

[modi123]

Amen to that. Their new 'hack master basic' is free to download.

HackMaster Basic

Finally

[asmkm22]

I ended up pirating the entire catalog of D&D products because I couldn't find the AD&D 2nd Edition books for sale in either print or PDF form. So at least in my case, not printing them in the first place lead to piracy. Hopefully more companies get with the program.

Re:Finally

[Slyfox696]

I ended up pirating the entire catalog of D&D products because I couldn't find the AD&D 2nd Edition books for sale in either print or PDF form. So at least in my case, not printing them in the first place lead to piracy. Hopefully more companies get with the program.

Actually, it was your desire to own something which was not made available which led to piracy in the first place. Justify it how you will, but you are the one to blame for your illegal/illegitimate actions (illegitimate probably being the better word). Just because they didn't sell them, it doesn't mean you HAVE to own them.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

I got a lot of old DnD stuff laying around. I play 3.5E and haven't looked back and rejected 4th Edition.

Re:Finally

[Baloroth]

I ended up pirating the entire catalog of D&D products because I couldn't find the AD&D 2nd Edition books for sale in either print or PDF form. So at least in my case, not printing them in the first place lead to piracy. Hopefully more companies get with the program.

Actually, it was your desire to own something which was not made available which led to piracy in the first place. Justify it how you will, but you are the one to blame for your illegal/illegitimate actions (illegitimate probably being the better word). Just because they didn't sell them, it doesn't mean you HAVE to own them.

Sure, but had they printed them or otherwise made them available he wouldn't have pirated them (assuming he is telling the truth), so it was still them not making it available that lead to his piracy. A thing can have multiple causes, you know, and WotC's stupidity is partly responsible (as, of course, is his desire for them one way or the other).

Re:Finally

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I'm willing to bet shutting down the old editions was more about forcing people into the new than anything else.

Take it from someone who played pen-and-paper in the '70s, you second edition bastardized version sucker.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

ACTUALLY, it is always the split in a consumer's valuation to own and a publisher's valuation to sell that results in piracy. It is hardly unusual for people who cannot find a legit location to pay for a digital item to find it illegitimately. Either way, the publisher gets nothing. But piracy results in at least the consumer getting something. That's a net win for society.

It would happen with physical goods, if the cost of producing physical goods was essentially zero.

Re:Finally

[Thiez]

But given that they're not selling them, they don't really have a valid excuse to complain about him downloading them. Ostensibly the copyrights are there to give the authors a chance to earn money, but if they don't want to make use of that arrangement...

Re:Finally

[Intrepid imaginaut]

That's kind of the conundrum with the tabletop RPG business isn't it, buy once play forever. It's the ultimate open ended gaming experience, an endless vista limited only by your imagination. Great for players, not so great for publishers.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

I have done the same. I collect 2nd edition books and am willing to pay good money, yet I still cannot find some that once were common.

Re:Finally

[PerfectionLost]

I have many AD&D books I am looking to sell. Please PM me if you are interested.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. GP mis-spoke when he said he "pirated" them. When something isn't for sale at all, then it can't be "pirated" in the conventional sense, because 1) the author isn't being denied any revenue since they are not trying to collect any revenue and 2) society has no incentive to grant copyright monopoly to the author, since the work isn't being released where it can promote the progress of the arts.

So you've got a situation was was caused by two things happening at the same time. He wanted the files, and WotC said, "No, keep your money. We are currently experimenting with a non-revenue business model."

Now in 2013 when the idea of a "non-revenue business model" is starting to be seen as some kind of oxymoron (no, really?!) you've got a weird situation where the past copying retroactively becomes piracy. (!)

It was initially victimless since WotC wanted to avoid the money, but now they want it. Yet since the user got the files without WotC's help, he's no longer in the market and their ability to make the sale is harder than it would have been. So piracy did occur, even though a month ago we would have said it didn't. Yet in both cases, we're talking about the same action, which occurred even further back in time. How can the past ever change?

Here's how I resolve the paradox. Suppose WotC had adopted a conventional business model earlier. Let's say back in 2010 (or whenever it was) WotC instead of telling everyone "no, keep your money," they had accepted the revenue and traded the file for it, thus getting a sale. Fast forward to 2013: WotC still wouldn't be getting the sale now because they got it earlier, and the customer demand would already have been served. That doesn't mean the 2010 sale would become "piracy" of course, since it would be authorized by the rightsholder. It was still a sale. OTOH, WotC also would not have gained the experience of learning that "non-revenue business models" are less profitable than revenue-based business models! Had they made the sale earlier, they would not have learned "no, keep your money" is not the best way (from a commercial point of view) to interact with customers.

Here on Slashdot we tend to think the knowledge gained in this situation, has no value. We think it's obvious "no, don't pay us" is not good business, because tech-heads think of businesses as machines to make profit, and that a business should always want revenue. A revenue-avoiding business like an addition-avoiding computer. Seriously: does anyone here not think that? Be honest. If I say "revenue is good for business and going out of your way to avoid it is bad for business" don't you think that's so stupidly obvious, that I'm maybe a little bit stupid for saying it, in spite of (or couse) you agreeing with it?

It's just like how we think of some patents as being for obvious things; it's stupid for me to say revenue is good for business, just like how it's distasteful to see an obvious thing get patented. We all feel this way.

In the business world, though, it's not obvious at all! We have the widespread popularity of the "no, keep your money" policy as evidence that it's not obvious. If "non-revenue business models" were obviously dumb, then we wouldn't be hearing about them all the time. But we do!

Therefore, the experience of learning that telling customers "no, keep your money" is sub-optimal, has value. WotC gained an asset by being denied a measurable sale, and the value of this is approximately equal to a past sale. Thus, I would say that the past "pirate" copying shouldn't be made retroactively illegitimate.

Get it?

This way of looking at things, even works in a fractional sense as the business considers shifting toward revenue, once you have a large enough market. I'll show you...

Suppose a month ago, WotC was consid

Re:Finally

[Cajun Hell]

That's the conundrum of all "IP." You sometimes get occasional exceptions (some old people have bought Sgt Pepper on multiple mediums) but they really are exceptions. How many times have you listened to your favorite album, which you only paid once for? A thousand so far, until later this week when it becomes a thousand and one.

On the bright side, even though people only pay once, you only had to spend the time to create it, once. Don't feel bad for John Lennon if you only paid him once for Sgt Pepper. Over all those decades when you weren't paying him, he wasn't working on making the recording again, either. He was banging Jodie Foster, instead. (No wait, I think I got my entertainer history up. Which was the Beatle who shot Reagan? Huh? Who is Mike Muir?)

Anyway. The WotC guys can take pride in the great job they did on 3.5. Surely they have been up to something else since all those years ago, hopefully not involving yet another superfluous set of core rules for a FRPG.

Re:Finally

[Intrepid imaginaut]

You miss my point - tabletop RPGs are unique in that you don't just listen to the album, you can use them to make your own albums. Forever. It's not 'like' anything else, there is no car analogy here.

And not so much sympathising with publishers, just noting the nature of the beast.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the idea that an author has a right to make a work unavailable needs to be put to rest. No more of this 'Disney Vault' crap. Release, or have it released for you.

Re:Finally

[Slyfox696]

I ended up pirating the entire catalog of D&D products because I couldn't find the AD&D 2nd Edition books for sale in either print or PDF form. So at least in my case, not printing them in the first place lead to piracy. Hopefully more companies get with the program.

Actually, it was your desire to own something which was not made available which led to piracy in the first place. Justify it how you will, but you are the one to blame for your illegal/illegitimate actions (illegitimate probably being the better word). Just because they didn't sell them, it doesn't mean you HAVE to own them.

Sure, but had they printed them or otherwise made them available he wouldn't have pirated them (assuming he is telling the truth), so it was still them not making it available that lead to his piracy. A thing can have multiple causes, you know, and WotC's stupidity is partly responsible (as, of course, is his desire for them one way or the other).

No, it was his sense of entitlement that because it wasn't provided he should still have it anyways which led to the piracy. There are many things which are not sold that I could find a pirated copy of, but still do not obtain illegitimately.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

I ended up pirating the entire catalog when I purchased their PDFs from RPGnow.com then found out they pulled all the PDFs back off the market; I was told I had one last chance to download them before a certain date. At that point, I said f*** WotC.

Re:Finally

[xaotikdesigns]

No, that's the problem with Wizards of the Coast. They made everything completely different, both with the worlds and the rules, with each new version.

Palladium updates the rules that need updating, and advances the story with each new version. This means that I can still play with all the books I currently have. I can buy the new ones since the new Rifts core rules has new classes, new equipment, updated looks for old equipment, and has setting information to bring it up to date with all the other modules.

Not to mention all the other books that they've released for every other country and different dimensions.

Wizards expects you to buy everything new because they said so. Palladium expects you to buy new products because they have improved upon the old while allowing you to use all your old books as well.

Re:Finally

[MagusSlurpy]

What if it's something you, as the artist, decide shouldn't see the light of day? The Disney Vault was created to drive up the cost, not because Disney thinks their films are crap and no one should be exposed to them.

I bet Asimov wrote some stories in high school to which he would have been ashamed to have his name attached.

Re:Finally

[MagusSlurpy]

Which is why WotC should have busted ass on bringing affordable subscription services to their fans instead of pumping out half-assed 4E supplement after supplement that no one bought.

My friends and I waited years for the digital tabletop to be released to DDI, only to watch WotC push it further and further back, only to (apparently) drop the idea forever. After that, we said fuck it, bought a high-end webcam, and now play 3.5E over Skype, using the webcam to share the board when necessary.

Re:Finally

[cpt kangarooski]

Then the author shouldn't publish them. In fact, he should destroy them if he feels so strongly about it. But just because the author doesn't like it is no reason to enable the destruction of a work that has already gotten loose by means of copyright. The world is better off, the more works we have, even if the author is upset.

Virgil wanted the Aneid destroyed, Emily Dickenson wanted her poems destroyed, Kafka wanted all of his works destroyed -- and we are all much better off for having totally ignored their wishes.

(And Disney does keep some works, most notably The Song of the South, locked up due to their negative PR value rather than a desire to make money)

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

The world is better off, the more works we have, even if the author is upset.

Clearly you've never read Twilight.

Re:Finally

[readin]

Stealing is wrong because it deprives others of something. In this case he did not deprive anyone of anything, so there was no theft. He gained information, but he didn't deprive anyone else of that information. We do have copyright law so that people will be encouraged to produce information because they can sell that information. Gaining the information without paying for it thwarts the good purpose of the copyright and is therefore wrong. But if the people owning the copyright are not selling the information, then the copyright law has already failed. What then is the harm of copying the information? Copyright law was not created for the purpose of making information secret.

Re:Finally

[dissy]

What if it's something you, as the artist, decide shouldn't see the light of day?

Well in that case, the artist would probably try to keep that something from seeing the light of day, I would imagine.

Unlike WotC, who not only Wanted it to see the light of day, but wanted the ass load of money they made from those books by publishing them.

On one hand, copyright is there to ensure the work belongs to the public, so the artist really can't make that call now that copyright is forced upon everything.

On the other hand not long ago it was a choice, a deal in fact. You could purchase a monopoly period where you were the only one able to sell that work, and all it cost you was that the public owned it at the end of that period.

It sure was nice back then when we had that choice and the government didn't force it upon us like they do now. However the reality of it is, today, it is forced on every work of art the moment it is created, thus the public nor the artist have any say so in the matter. The artist gets a monopoly period by force, and the public owns that work afterwards by force.

Even WotC feels that monopoly period is over, as they took the books off the market.
Clearly downloading a copy of the books is not going to change the $0 that WotC expected, nay demanded they now sell for.

Re:Finally

[Bold_Cucumber]

I ended up pirating the entire catalog of D&D products because I couldn't find the AD&D 2nd Edition books for sale in either print or PDF form. So at least in my case, not printing them in the first place lead to piracy. Hopefully more companies get with the program.

Actually there is a plethora of old D&D stuff on ebay, mostly going for prices less than original retail. I've been amassing a pretty large collection of everything I can find from the very beginning through 2e. So far I have about 130 individual rulebooks/modules/sourcebooks/etc, and about 150 issues of Dragon. The nostalgia is so sweet.

Re:Finally

[Bold_Cucumber]

I can't figure out how to send a PM on /., you got a list?

Re:Finally

[Ginger Unicorn]

You say "sense of entitlement" as if this guy is being selfish and greedy, when all he wanted to do was read a book, and was more than happy to pay the copyright holders to do so.

because it wasn't provided he should still have it anyways

answer me this - why shouldn't he have it?

Re:Finally

[Slyfox696]

Stealing is wrong because it deprives others of something. In this case he did not deprive anyone of anything, so there was no theft. He gained information, but he didn't deprive anyone else of that information. We do have copyright law so that people will be encouraged to produce information because they can sell that information. Gaining the information without paying for it thwarts the good purpose of the copyright and is therefore wrong. But if the people owning the copyright are not selling the information, then the copyright law has already failed. What then is the harm of copying the information? Copyright law was not created for the purpose of making information secret.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this isn't "information", this is fiction. Information would include nonfiction facts, this is complete fiction, the brainchild of some writer(s). Exactly what right does anyone have to another person's fantasy? The answer is none. The fact the creator originally made his fantasy for sale shouldn't deprive him of the right to sell it again later, and by pirating this fantasy content, it lowers the value of the content when it is decided to be sold again.

Re:Finally

[Slyfox696]

You say "sense of entitlement" as if this guy is being selfish and greedy, when all he wanted to do was read a book, and was more than happy to pay the copyright holders to do so.

because it wasn't provided he should still have it anyways

answer me this - why shouldn't he have it?

If all he wanted to do was read a book, I can suggest many books he probably has not read which are free and in the public domain. He didn't want to "read a book", he wanted to read this book, regardless of how it affected anyone else. Why shouldn't he have it? Because it's not his. Why shouldn't I get to have your direct deposit paycheck? It's every bit as nonexistent as this content, but I doubt you'd believe I deserve to have it just because I want it.

If you want to say that content creators should release their products to the public domain after they no longer sell it, feel free. I support that 100%. But if they don't want to, it's not your place to tell them how they should handle their content, or to deprive them of its value if they decide to sell it later on.

Re:Finally

[modi123]

Agreed.. Unsure how to 'pm' but I would be interested in the list.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright gives the creator the exclusive right to produce copies. Downloading is crating a copies, therefore an infringement on the exclusivity granted to the copyright holder.

Note that Copyright does not tell you who can or cannot sell a copy, merely who can and cannot produce additional copies.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

I ended up pirating the entire catalog of D&D products because I couldn't find the AD&D 2nd Edition books for sale in either print or PDF form. So at least in my case, not printing them in the first place lead to piracy. Hopefully more companies get with the program.

Lies. You didn't want to pay eBay prices and didn't want to take the time to search the used bookstores for years so you took the easy way out.

Re:Finally

[PerfectionLost]

My bad, PM's dont exist. You can use this form: http://perfectresolution.com/?page_id=565

Re:Finally

[PerfectionLost]

My bad, PM's dont exist. You can use this form: http://perfectresolution.com/?page_id=565

I'll have to dig them out of the box in storage to figure out what I have. probably around 10-15 class and race books, and a binder of monsters.

Re:Finally

[PerfectionLost]

My bad, PM's dont exist. You can use this form: http://perfectresolution.com/?page_id=565

I'll have to dig them out of the box in storage to figure out what I have. probably around 10-15 class and race books, and a binder of monsters.

Re:Finally

[modi123]

Aight.. sent.

Re:Finally

[PhotoJim]

You could have bought used copies. For many D&D books and supplements, they are readily available.

Re:Finally

[AK Marc]

Nah, in some places it's legal. It's "illegal" as in not allowed, but the punishment is related to the loss, and if they aren't selling it in the market, then it's verifiable that there's no loss. So they can sue you, and the most they can collect is $0, and it's not a crime. So, what is something if it's "illegal" but not a crime and explicitly written in law that there is no penalty?

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you considered ebay or a second-hand book store? There are plenty of hobby shops that sell original editions. (Does anybody remember Cyberpunk 2020?) I found original boxed sets in prime condition on both ebay and an online hobby/games store. (Sorry, I don't have the URL for the hobby store. It was a couple of years ago when I made the purchase.) I have also seen multiple auctions for anything D&D (insert random title here) on ebay, with many of them as complete sets. Around the same time I made the Cyberpunk purchase, I also purchased more Rifts game books than I thought I could ever own. My point being, those original edition prints are out there. (I'm a collector of classic table-top games, though I doubt I will ever play any of them again, sigh.)

Any report on pdf quality?

[mark-t]

Are these pdf's clean copies, and not just scans of an aging rulebook or module?

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[sdnoob]

"fresh scans" tells me that they're well, scans.. where's the original quark or pagemaker files or whatever was used in pre-press?

reference materials need search, scanned-to-pdf does not allow that without a serious round of ocr first.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[jandrese]

I'm hoping that they're doing the OCR work on these. If you're charging $5 for material as old and obsolete as this you had better be putting at least the minimum amount of effort into it.

My guess is the originals are either lost or sitting in a box in a storeroom somewhere on ancient backup tapes in some unsupported format and it's easier to just find an old copy of the books and scan them in.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of these pre-date desktop publishing!

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[cusco]

Hey, we never had any search function with the dead-tree copies, I don't see a problem with not having it in the online version. I knew more or less where things were anyway, if I opened the Monster Manual and Kobold was on the page then I had to go back a page or two for Kirin.

Summary says "most editions", I wonder if they'll have the original three softcover books that came in the white box with a couple of dice. That was the set I first learned on. Haven't seen those anywhere since about 1983. I remember they always smelled smokey, because Stan kept his pipe in that same box.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[nedlohs]

There is not a chance they still have originals.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[tilante]

Quark or Pagemaker files? You do realize that a lot of this dates back to the '70s and '80s, right? I doubt any of it before the late '80s was done with any sort of desktop publishing software. They may have been using professional publishing software, like And, of course, until writable CD drives became reasonably affordable in the mid-90s, they were probably storing any files they were creating on floppies, then later on Zip drives. Chances are good that all the early stuff only existed in dead-tree format before they started scanning it.

At a guess, I'd say that all the original D&D, the first two versions of Basic D&D, and most of the first edition AD&D materials would be in that boat.

I just downloaded the free one they have, though, and the scan is very clean - clean enough that I'm sure they've gone to the trouble of cleaning it up. They've also OCR'ed it at the least, since I can do text searches in it. The module in question is B1, "In Search of the Unknown", with a copyright date of 1981.

Oh... and they are watermarking the PDFs, with the purchaser's name and the order number at the bottom of every page.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

PageMaker and Quark weren't around in the 70s- there is no original file.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[Talderas]

I could do without text searching. After all we don't have it for dead tree editions. What I would like is for these PDFs to have bookmarks.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

What's obsolete? These aren't computer games, they're as useful today as when they first came out.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[jandrese]

Yes, but any new material (monster manuals, adventure packs, etc...) coming out will not be compatible. That's how gaming products become obsolete.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[mark-t]

No... but troff was around for almost all of the 70's, and after 1977, TeX.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Ah now a good weekend will have any setting converted to another system, and it takes even less time within the same system. That's if you don't just build on your system yourself, hacking this stuff is one of the great pleasures of TTRPGs for me.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[MartinSchou]

Besides, one of the more fun things to do in any offline type of encyclopaedia is to go to a random page and read something, be it in a skill tree, monsters, Encyclopaedia Britannica or Wikipedia.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[pthisis]

The first 3 books (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual) weren't originally digitally typeset, but WotC has already gone through the process of doing that for the "1e premium" releases and they're in InDesign, so there should be clean text available without OCR.

In case you aren't aware, the files for the original printing don't exist. In fact, there were never any files. The books were created long before the advent of the personal computer and its introduction into the publishing industry. When the original books were put together, they were put together "old school" style. Paste up, stats, Rubylith, and hand-building each and every page. Sigh . . . I remember those days fondly.

http://wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dreye/20120704 has more info on the premium releases.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[painandgreed]

"fresh scans" tells me that they're well, scans.. where's the original quark or pagemaker files or whatever was used in pre-press?

For most of this, there was no pre-press files. They were tape and wax board affairs.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[painandgreed]

I'm hoping that they're doing the OCR work on these. If you're charging $5 for material as old and obsolete as this you had better be putting at least the minimum amount of effort into it.

That is hardly "minimum amount" of effort. That is a great deal of effort. They did that for the 1E books they reprinted, and I know and have talked to the guy that did it. He said it was the hardest thing he has every worked on. OCRs need to be reviewed and practically rewritten again, especially if trying to get the same or similar layout. Stuff from the opposite side bleeds through so all artwork has to be manipulated and have about as much work put into it as the original artist took to draw it (and you still loose detail). Add in the non-standard layouts and margins they used back then and it became a lot more work to make the stuff even look close to what it originally did than it would have been to write and layout a new book from scratch.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[painandgreed]

reference materials need search, scanned-to-pdf does not allow that without a serious round of ocr first.

I have not seen them, but although they are scans, reports on rpg.net is that they are "indexed and searchable".

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[blueg3]

You know, you don't need the new materials.

There are only two valuable things in tabletop RPG books: the ideas and the mechanics (or fluff and crunch, if you prefer). The ideas can be translated to any system, regardless of the one they were written for, as long as there are some mechanics to back it up. Most of the really useful ideas aren't strongly bound to any mechanics, anyway. Translating mechanics is certainly doable, but is a lot more work to do well.

But you don't need to even do that. You could have enjoyable tabletop games for a decade using only old published modules and rulebooks.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[MagusSlurpy]

I have no doubt that it's tiring work, but how many man-hours is that to do? If WotC sells 100,000 copies of the PDF, that's half a million dollars in their pockets (ignoring DTRPG's take, probably 1/3), for paying (just a guess) two guys $30K to work on that PDF for six months.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully you can just refer your friends to the friendly torrent copy of said books to get (free) watermark free editions!

I don't condone piracy, I just also don't condone watermarking materials which have been out for longer than the beancounters that decided it should be included :)

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[tilante]

The first 3 books (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual) weren't originally digitally typeset, but WotC has already gone through the process of doing that for the "1e premium" releases and they're in InDesign, so there should be clean text available without OCR.

For those three books, yes. That still leaves all of Original D&D (eight books), the other books of first edition AD&D (nine books, if I'm remembering right, though the last couple may have been typeset), the 1980 Basic and Expert sets (they probably re-typset the '78 Basic Rulebook when they reissued it for the Silver Anniversary), and the adventure modules for Basic/Expert and 1st edition AD&D. Some of the later modules might have been digitally typeset, but the pre-1985 stuff most likely wasn't.

Of course, for those truly interested in the history of the game, it would be nice to have different editions of the books available - and I don't mean their marketing editions. The "first edition" AD&D core books, for example, went through multiple editions, with various corrections made along the way. So did original D&D - the early editions of it make references to ents, hobbits, and balrogs, for example, which were later changed (to treants, halflings, and 'type vi demons') under legal threat from the Tolkein estate.

WotC probably isn't interested in that, though, and might not even have copies of all the various editions of each book any more.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[jandrese]

Or you could build an entire system yourself from scratch. If someone has unlimited time they could do whatever they want. Converting stuff between systems is extra work, sometimes quite a lot when the mechanics of one thing don't mesh well with the rules of a different system. There's nothing stopping you from running old systems and modules, they're perfectly fine, but you will be stuck in the past unless you're willing to do a lot of work to convert new modules over to the old system.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[pthisis]

They also did a premium edition of Unearthed Arcana (which is the first-ever edition to include all the published errata). But, yeah, trying to get Chainmail and Eldritch Wizardry and all that stuff would require a lot of work.

The ents and balrogs (and the Elric and Cthulu stuff from the original Deities and Demigods)probably can't be republished for the same reason it was removed in the first place--Tolkein, the Lovecraft estate, Moorcock, etc still have interests that would make legal threats probable.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[painandgreed]

I have no doubt that it's tiring work, but how many man-hours is that to do? If WotC sells 100,000 copies of the PDF, that's half a million dollars in their pockets (ignoring DTRPG's take, probably 1/3), for paying (just a guess) two guys $30K to work on that PDF for six months.

100k is more than the current new rule books sell. The RPG industry, even for D&D, is a pretty niche product market and hardly sells that much. Then there is that business is rarely that simple as just throwing a couple of FTEs at a problem. Not in the least being that if they were really wanting to make money, they could make more for less work by producing a new 4E book rather than providing things from the old library. for that matter, they could probably make a better ROI by skipping D&D altogether and doing something else, something that their owners, Hasbro points out to them occationally. They let WotC continue to work on D&D which is mostly a hobby so long as they continue to bring in the real money with Magic the Gathering.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[david_thornley]

If we're talking about the original books, the first three of which were published in 1974, there was almost certainly no computer and hence no files involved. TSR, at that time, got its money from publishing miniature wargames rules, which never has been a path to riches, so it was cheap printing by 1974 standards.

Re:Any report on pdf quality?

[tilante]

Well, in fairness, I'm not sure that any beancounters decided that. They're using DriveThruRPG (with a customized site for their products), and from what I remember, DriveThruRPG's system watermarks everything you download from them automatically. Even stuff that's free as in beer, under a Creative Commons License, whatever - it's just something their back-end does, and they don't seem to have an option for vendors to select to turn it off.

Of course, there's a good chance that they consider that a feature rather than a bug, but it isn't anything that anyone at WotC specifically requested that DriveThruRPG do. It's just the way their stuff already worked.

Pirates will still run rampant

[smooth wombat]

"We don't want them to go to torrent sites. Why not give them a legal route?"

Because no matter how low the cost, the number of people who will not pay for the product by using torrents will far exceed the number of people who will pay for the product simply because they can. They're lazy and cheap, expecting everyone else to do the work but not get paid for their effort.

Guaranteed, within 15 minutes of the first download you will be able to get this stuff for free, thus legitimizing the comments from producers the world over about pirates hurting their business and the need for DRM.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[darkwing_bmf]

Even if everything you said is true, they could still make more money from paid legal downloads than if they didn't give that option.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[jandrese]

Some people will always pirate the stuff. That's true. But by providing a legal route for the PDFs, you're giving an option to all of the people who were only turning to the torrents because you gave them no choice. Clearly a lot of people are buying the books (and killing the servers), so this was overdue. You won't need 15 minutes to find a torrent of the PDFs of those books. They've been around for years already.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[Fned]

Because no matter how low the cost, the number of people who will not pay for the product by using torrents will far exceed the number of people who will pay for the product simply because they can.

On the other hand, the number of people who WILL pay is quite a bit larger than the number who would pay for your out-of-print product that's not available electronically, which is zero.

I'm glad that people are starting to wise up that counting the people who do pay is always, always wiser than counting the people who don't; for so long, so very many copyright holders have been no smarter than that Aesop dog that dropped his bone in the lake.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[h4rr4r]

People are lazy and cheap, which is why if you make it cheap enough they will be to lazy to pirate it.

I don't pirate anything now that netflix and amazon have made it so easy and cheap to get more entertainment than I want. The safest and laziest way to pirate would still be to sign up for netflix and copy dvds and blu-rays.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[Kjella]

Guaranteed, within 15 minutes of the first download you will be able to get this stuff for free

Which was also true 15 minutes before the first download. If you don't want to distribute the eWay, only pirates will distribute the eWay. I'm still waiting for HBO Nordic to get their head out of their ass and deliver something better than SD quality with stereo sound, unless you own a Samsung product in which case you can get HD with surround sound. I'll get my shows where I'm a first class citizen, thank you very much.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[Hatta]

You can already get all this stuff for free. Refusing to offer a legit, paid download has no appreciable positive or negative effect on illegitimate downloads. It does have a direct negative effect on legit, paid downloads.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[nedlohs]

You could already get it all for free prior to them doing this, so 15 minutes is just a tad of an overestimate.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[Enderandrew]

The music industry said the same thing about iTunes. They said no one will ever bother legally paying for digital music when it was freely available to pirate.

iTunes became the number 1 retailer of music. Your argument suddenly seems very flawed.

Right now, these books can already be pirated, but they couldn't be legally purchased before. Putting them up for sale will increase revenue from zero. That's a win for everyone.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[tilante]

So, your argument is that getting money from zero percent of the potential market is better than getting money from a small percentage of the potential market?

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[Talderas]

They always have a choice.

Pirating or going without.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[Quirkz]

Right now, these books can already be pirated, but they couldn't be legally purchased before. Putting them up for sale will increase revenue from zero. That's a win for everyone.

Well, as long as the profits made from sales are higher than the cost of scanning the books and setting up the store to sell them. In theory the vendor *could* lose if they spend more than they make back. Not that I really think it'll be an issue in this case.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[Dishwasha]

It is if 1 person can buy the high quality digital content for $5 and distribute it to the rest of the world and cause significant drop in profits in their published books market. Of course, ultimately that ends up signifying which format most people prefer or at least the delta in cost to benefit ratio.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[Enderandrew]

There are services that will scan books for $1.

Assuming they sell a single copy at $5, then they've turned a profit.

And even if this venture isn't massively profitable, you're better off converting pirates to customers so you can reach out to them for future products. There are benefits to purchasing digital goods legally (no fear of malware/virus, not waiting for someone to seed old RPG PDFs, being able to re-download from the service, etc) that might encourage future sales.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[mike.mondy]

Because no matter how low the cost, the number of people who will not pay for the product by using torrents will far exceed the number of people who will pay for the product simply because they can.

On the other hand, the number of people who WILL pay is quite a bit larger than the number who would pay for your out-of-print product that's not available electronically, which is zero.

I'm glad that people are starting to wise up that counting the people who do pay is always, always wiser than counting the people who don't; for so long, so very many copyright holders have been no smarter than that Aesop dog that dropped his bone in the lake.

The folks over at gog.com (once called Good Old Games) also proved that people will pay reasonable prices for old stuff. However, not unsurprisingly, when they first started gog.com, it was apparently a struggle to get vendors to agree to sell DRM-free versions of their out-of-print games.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[Monkey]

My question is who is getting the money for these PDFs. If the original authors are getting a percentage, great. If it's just going into Hasbro's general revenue, screw them. It's just a last ditch attempt to monetize assets that otherwise have little value to the company, many of which they didn't even produce.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and we have a choice, accept that copyright is a worthwhile law to follow or not.

If it was still based around 14 years, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[jsepeta]

at $18 per pdf, they're definitely pushing folks to use torrents

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[fwarren]

Work for hire. Like a cartographer drawing a map for someone.

You pay them "X" to produce a work for hire. I guess the theory here is lack of creativity. You look at the land and draw a usable map. Pretty much any map maker could draw the same map. As opposed to an author writing stories and dialog that would be almost the same.

If they were hired to do write these "manuals", they may not have any rights to profits. I also agree that Hasbro has finally figured out there choice was to cash in on the PDF market or continue to let pirate downloads be the only source for PDF's.

I swear sometimes corporations are like prostitutes that want marriage outlawed because they are against anyone getting sex for free on general principle.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[smooth wombat]

Thank you for proving my point.

How dare those evil corporations make money off of something they own! That's a travesty and injustice because I demand they give me what I want for nothing or else I'll go find a way to get it anyway so I don't have to pay for it.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[tilante]

Except that they can't, because none of the books that WotC is putting up in digital format is being sold physically. They're only putting out old stuff that they no longer have in print. So there is no "published books market" of this content to cut into.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[plover]

Hasbro gave a sack full of money to the people who owned Wizards of the Coast, in order to own the rights to the books. WotC gave a sackful of money to the people who owned then owned TSR, in exchange for the rights to the books. TSR was founded by Gary Gygax and his friend Don Kaye. Gygax was one of the original authors who owned the rights to the books (near as I can figure out Dave Arneson, the co-author, was paid for his work but was not a shareholder in the company.) But writing a book does not immediately turn into money, which they needed to produce the game, so they brought in a third shareholder, Brian Blume, as an investor. When Kaye died, Blume's father bought out his shares for a sackful of cash, and later transferred those shares to his other son. Those shares represented the assets of the company, which were primarily the rights to the books. So again, the rights were transferred in exchange for a sack of cash. Eventually the Blume brothers and Gygax parted ways, in exchange for another sack of cash. Note that everybody who transferred their rights got their payday when it happened.

So the original owners wrote the books, made some money (and names for themselves), then SOLD the rights to the books. Every time the ownership of the books changed, the new owners paid the old owners for the privilege. The old owners got their payday for a sum that considered some future sales (which is why the buyers are willing to pay the money.) That transfer doesn't take away the value the books have to the current readers or to the future purchasers, which means that if the books have more than zero value to you, it's not ethical for you to make a copy of them -- regardless of the owner of the rights.

And your last sentence doesn't even scan: "last ditch attempt to monetize assets that otherwise have little value to the company"?? That's kind of the point of purchasing assets, which is to make money off them. They have exactly as much the value to the company as the company can make from them. It's interesting that you even acknowledge that the rights to the books are assets.

Now, if you don't like Hasbro for whatever reason, (maybe you had a traumatic experience as a kid with a G.I.Joe action figure,) then don't give them your business. But you have no right to copy from them without paying the price they're asking. Not only is it the law, but it's fair.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[Dishwasha]

You might want to check out your facts before you claim them.

http://www.dndclassics.com/product/110211/Dungeon-Delve-(4e)?src=FrontPage
http://www.amazon.com/Dungeon-Delve-Edition-Supplement-Adventure/dp/0786951397/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358959369&sr=8-1&keywords=Dungeon+Delve+(4e)

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[tilante]

Interesting - no one had mentioned so far that they were putting up 4e products as well.

Note, though, that they only have nine products listed for 4e - all of which are older products from the line, but which doesn't include any core products. Unfortunately, Wizard's site doesn't give in-print/out-of-print status for their books, but I'd be willing to bet that all nine of those products are ones that Wizards is no longer producing in print. In that case, while there may still be copies in the supply chain, there's no more money flowing to Wizards from print versions of them - so, again, they would have no print sales to risk by putting out electronic versions.

Re:Pirates will still run rampant

[tilante]

Further note, after looking through everything being offered on dndclassics.com - they have the 1981 Basic Rulebook available there... but they don't have any of the "core three" from any edition of AD&D. Back in 2000, when Ryan Dancey was talking about what Wizards had discovered by looking through TSR's sales records, he mentioned that the perennial best sellers were the three core AD&D books, and that the Player's Handbook was the best selling of those. (Which makes sense, as there are a lot more players than DMs.)

Wizards has already released new in-print versions of the core three for 1st edition AD&D, and announced it for "3.5". My guess is that they're going to release print versions of the 2nd edition core books as well, and that's why they're not putting up PDF versions of those. As for Basic... well, the Basic Rulebook only covers levels 1-3 anyway, and Basic/Expert/etc. was never as popular as AD&D. If they're going to re-release a book in print there, they'll probably do the D&D Cyclopedia.

WoC should make their OWN torrents!

[Danathar]

Case in point, their site has crashed due to load.

Provide official torrents instead of trashing torrents in general.

Re:WoC should make their OWN torrents!

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Where do you put the meter?

Re:WoC should make their OWN torrents!

[Binestar]

How do you watermark Torrents? These PDF's are watermarked.

$5 seems high

[slaker]

Yale-educated artist and porn star Zak Sabbath's DiY D&D site (with occasional exposed nipples art or links to his girlfriend's tumblr and therefore not safe for work) should be required reading for RPG nerds. He's very big on RPG theorycraft, quick rules of thumb and stepping away from canned adventures like those used in many of the prepackaged modules. Having followed his blog for a while, I really see where he's coming from.

It's probably worthwhile to take a look at that stuff, if only to see the historical basis for a lot of role-playing tropes, but any seasoned player can't exactly look at "Tomb of Horrors" with fresh eyes and newbies probably don't want to do the work of converting old stuff to new systems. In the end I suspect that all this stuff is only worthwhile as nostalgia or for historical purposes. Given that, I'm not sure why the price per document is even as high as it is. I understand that this is content that probably shouldn't be free, but I can't see spending $5 on a 32 page PDF that maybe has one or two good ideas to incorporate into a living game.

Re:$5 seems high

[slaker]

Goddammitsomuch. Link fail. Here.

and the hot girlfriend's tumblr, as my penance.

Re:$5 seems high

[Aaden42]

There is *no* penance great enough for the pun at the top of his blog:

Playing D&D With Porn Stars:

. . . there are several large chests in this room . . .

Re:$5 seems high

[Anonymous Coward]

One,
Old School Rennaisance is a gamer movement of folks wanting to play the old stuff.
RetroClones of the Basic, Advanced and 2nd edition game rules have all been built, some of them are free under the OGL. So we have people wanting to play the old rules, old rules available and a market for their old content now exists.

Right now WotC need as many people playing D&D as possible to keep the market viable for D&D Next.

Re:$5 seems high

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Zak posts a lot over on therpgsite.com as well, he has a lot of interesting ideas.

Re:$5 seems high

[cusco]

I suppose it's better than 'there are several large packages in this room' . . .

Re:$5 seems high

[Anonymous Coward]

, but any seasoned player can't exactly look at "Tomb of Horrors" with fresh eyes and newbies probably don't want to do the work of converting old stuff to new systems.

New systems??? AD&D stops at 2nd edition. Why mess with what was already perfect?

3rd+ edition (just how many are there now anyhow) revamping of rules and mass production of guide after guide was simply a money grab by WoC.

I've been playing 2nd edition for 20 or 30 years and I dont see the point of screwing with what works just fine.

Re:$5 seems high

[Ransak]

You've been pardoned!

Wot, no Kindle?

[Orleron]

Because I'm too lazy to find a good PDF reader for my tablet that organizes the PDF books like the Kindle Reader app does.

Re:Wot, no Kindle?

[h4rr4r]

The kindle reader app can handle PDFs, so why not use that?

Re:Wot, no Kindle?

[Orleron]

I can read them with the Kindle App, but it doesn't stick the PDF's into my main library. I keep having to dig through the file system to select the PDF to open in the app. Inconvenient.

Re:Wot, no Kindle?

[chispito]

Because PDFs on the e-ink Kindles are painful.

Re:Wot, no Kindle?

[h4rr4r]

He is talking about the app, so that is not the issue here.

E-ink has a lot of short comings and that is one of them. I still don't understand people's love for it, but to each his own I guess. If 10 hours of looking at a monitor does not hurt me, I am not worried about the backlight on a tablet.

Re:Wot, no Kindle?

[slaker]

I have a strong preference for Aldiko, among the Android e-reader apps I've tried.

Would be stupid not to

[nedlohs]

The retro clones have taken off (in relative terms, this is a niche product obviously) in the last few years. All the old TSR stuff is available on torrents and file download sites anyway. WotC might as well try and get some of the money.

Luckily, no loss occurred

[Overzeetop]

Luckily, since they weren't for sale there was no loss on the part of the content creator. Copyright was set up to ensure remuneration for the work of the creators of intellectual property. By not offering these for sale in any form, I see no moral dilemma in obtaining a copy from an alternate source.

Re:Luckily, no loss occurred

[nabsltd]

Copyright was set up to ensure remuneration for the work of the creators of intellectual property.

No, it wasn't. It was set up to encourage creation of content that would "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".

The key point is that the "progress" part is what was considered important and desirable, and the "limited times" was key to this, while the "exclusive right" was just a deal with the devil to achieve the greater goal of increasing human knowledge.

Since we no longer have "limited times" as far as an individual is concerned (as the current law is such that a person will be encouraged to add only one thing to the pool of knowledge and then fight to keep making money on it until they and their children die), there is no reason to require people to keep the "exclusive rights" part of the bargain.

Re:Luckily, no loss occurred

[LordLucless]

That's true, but his point still stands. If a creator isn't offering their creation for sale, then they aren't contributing to the progress of science or useful arts, and copyright should not apply.

If it had a snowball's chance in hell of being accomplished, I'd be advocating for changing my countries laws such that it only applies to works available within my country: let a work go out of print, or refuse to sell it in one location, and your work becomes free game.

Previously, this would be far too onerous, but with digital distribution being what it is, the cost of making a digital copy of pretty much any creative work available is trivial.

think about it

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously. do you REALLY think the original Chainmail was laid out on a pre-press program in 1971? If you aren't that dense, do you REALLY think the original layout is still around?

Re:think about it

[mark-t]

You know that troff existed in 1971, right?

Computerized typesetting isn't exactly new.

Re:think about it

[plover]

You know that troff existed in 1971, right?

Computerized typesetting isn't exactly new.

No, but in 1971 it wasn't exactly common, either. As I recall (unverifiably, as my originals were decades ago 'loaned to a friend'), my copy of Chainmail was lithographically printed from typewritten originals, so it was never originally typeset. The AD&D boxed set was typeset, but back then it was far more likely set in lead than with a digital typesetting machine. Some small print shops back then were still hand setting type, as they could not afford those fancy Linotype machines. The digital machines were far more expensive still.

Re:think about it

[tilante]

You know that almost no one outside of academia actually used troff, right?

He didn't say that computerized typesetting didn't exist then. He said the original Chainmail almost certainly wasn't laid out with it. Do you have some evidence to indicate otherwise?

Hope they add some of the missing stuff

[Orleron]

I see a lot of things missing there, like the "Complete Handbooks", and all the boxed sets. I know it's a challenge to scan in a boxed set with off of its maps and other stuff, but that would be something I'd like to see. I'm jonsing for some Spelljammers. It's such a shame 4e has to suck. I'd still be playing D&D if I didn't have to convert all this cool stuff to those inane 4e rules. Pathfinder is the way to go these days, IMO.

Re:Hope they add some of the missing stuff

[SirGarlon]

There are a *lot* of books and products for D&D, and I would be surprised if they could scan everything before they uploaded anything. Other game systems that have have taken considerable time to get their entire catalogs online.

An interesting challenge

[SirGarlon]

This presents an interesting challenge for the D&D design team. They're working on a new edition of D&D (it's in open playtest as they develop it).

Now, the new edition will have to compete for sales against D&D's own back catalog. If their upcoming product doesn't appeal to fans of First Edition AD&D, or Second Edition, Third,or Fourth, then people will just buy and play the old stuff. The next edition will have to compare to the classics or it will fail in the marketplace.

This is a victory for the consumer, who gains real choice.

Re:An interesting challenge

[Anonymous Coward]

AD&D was second edition, numnuts.

Re:An interesting challenge

[letherial]

There is no reason to call this person a name, everyone cannot know everything all the time and that mistake is so abysmally small it makes me wonder what is wrong with you that you need to call someone you don't know names like that; well besides the fact that your just trolling.

Seems to me SirGarlon is the one using his brain, he made a reasonable argument with sound logic, and your response was neither helpful or thoughtful

Re:An interesting challenge

[blueg3]

Is this some vague attempt at a version war, are you just trolling, or do you really not know that there's a 1st Ed. AD&D?

Re:An interesting challenge

[SirGarlon]

Thanks, but replying to Anonymous Cowards who are trolling just encourages them. :-) For the record, there were both a First and Second Edition of AD&D, which I played, and also simultaneously "plain old" D&D in the boxed sets: beginner, expert, etc.

Re:An interesting challenge

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, 1st Edition also had AD&D, numnuts.

Yes, appear to be clean.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Yes, these appear to be clean.

I just downloaded the (free) B1 "In Search of the Unknown" module and it looks great - even has bookmarks.

Re:Yes, appear to be clean.

[MisterLiddle]

Sweet! Thanks

AKA: Hemmoraging money...

[Anonymous Coward]

They finally figured out that they REALLY screwed up with 4E, and Pathfinder was eating their lunch. Last-ditch effort to turn the ship around before 5E.

Re:AKA: Hemmoraging money...

[letherial]

I was looking at 4E and it had a bunch of wierd battle cards and what not, i wasnt sure if i was looking at a dnd game or a magic game. I give props for them trying, but they went so far off of the typical dnd feel that i dont know why they called it dnd

Should be, some stupid card game with dice

Re:AKA: Hemmoraging money...

[tilante]

You obviously didn't look at it much. The 'battle cards' you're referring to are simply cards that list different abilities and what they do, to make it easier to keep track of what your character can do, instead of looking up the ability in the books all the time. They're no different from the spell cards that were produced for earlier editions - the difference is that instead of only spell-casting classes getting interesting abilities, everyone does in 4e.

The underlying mechanics are still the "d20 System" that was used in 3.x, with an extension for handling group tasks.

Ah, these books

[P-niiice]

I remember cutting lawns for the old 2nd edition books. I loved the smell of them.

Re:Ah, these books

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, there's nothing so nice as the smell of a freshly mown lawn.

Re:Ah, these books

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially if you're a lesbian, and 'mown lawn' is an analogy :)

Captcha was 'polishes'.

I can do better...

[Charliemopps]

I know a guy that owns the majority of the original artwork and what-not that the books were printed from. He'd routinely travel to ex-TSR employes homes to make purchases. Most of it's sitting in wal-mart quality bookshelves in his spare bedroom. The guy made millions trading books and game stuff like this on ebay and eventually his own business. he's a jerk though, half the books he started with he stole from my basement. But whatever... his money makes him completely in-tolerable. You show up at his house and hes all like "Lets ride around in my Mazzaradi and talk about me" Can't stand that.

Did I mention the most ironic part? He never really played D&D. The few times he did he played a chaotic evil mage and spent most of his time greifing the rest of us by "playing his alignment" I think he made it all the way through 2 modules before we stopped inviting him over. Life's funny.

Re:I can do better...

[mattack2]

Umm, if he stole stuff from you, you called the cops, right?

Damn You WotC!

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn you WotC. The only reason my wife let me keep all my original AD&D manuals is because they were not legally available in PDF format!

Sigh.

Scans

[kdogg73]

FTFA: "The scans are good quality, and best of all, the PDFs are searchable."

I was curious if they had re-set the type for a slimmer PDF. I would expect 320 pages of the Dungeon Master's Guide (even at 1-bit) may be hefty, but maybe not. Certainly more economical for a lost art.

download, schmownload

[Quirkz]

I've still got physical copies of the core books from both first and second edition. Plus a big handful of companion books. The monsters in my Monster Manuals are even colored in. Who's going to have that in a PDF?

Though considering I've moved those books about 17 times over the years, maybe a PDF form factor would be slightly more convenient.

Re:download, schmownload

[Anonymous Coward]

Though considering I've moved those books about 17 times over the years, maybe a PDF form factor would be slightly more convenient.

At least you still have yours. Mine were all stolen on the move from London, including the Deities and Demigods I had, complete with the Cthulhu mythos later redacted due to copyright. Whatever you do, stay away from Sterling Movers.

Re:download, schmownload

[Quirkz]

Ouch, that hurts. I've had to move myself every time. So, no stealing from myself, but that only increases the burden faced by an avid book collector and chronic mover.

Go invent the Cresent wrench...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to invent a single cool thing and profit from it your whole life, then you need to invent things in the physical world. To me, your logic shows its flaw best when applied to dance instructors, who get nothing for subsequent dances after your classes have ended. And yet there are still dance instructors.

In the content world, you need to keep coming out with new cool stuff all the time. As your audience grows you have to split your efforts between "stuff" that is good for the newbs, and stuff that is good for the advanced players. It is a hard game to play right, and TSR did it for quite a few years.

If you were looking for reasons beyond the publishers business acumen, it seems pretty inarguable that computer-based adventures stole away quite a bit of the player base. Half-Life was as adventurous as all but a few AD&D games I ever played.

Re:Go invent the Cresent wrench...

[Intrepid imaginaut]

To me, your logic shows its flaw best

That's not logic buddy, it's observation of the facts. Facts which are unique to TTRPGs due to their open ended, player created nature.

If you were looking for reasons beyond the publishers business acumen, it seems pretty inarguable that computer-based adventures stole away quite a bit of the player base. Half-Life was as adventurous as all but a few AD&D games I ever played.

Roleplaying: you were doing it wrong. If you were just rolling dice and maneuvering miniatures around a battlemat, you were wargaming. Roleplaying is a much more visceral and imaginative experience, the best games use neither mat not figures IME. Computer games may have co-opted the name, but they aren't the same thing by a long shot.

Not to say anything bad against computer games, they are great at what they do. It just happens to be something completely different to RPGs.

Re:Go invent the Cresent wrench...

[AK Marc]

For roleplaying, a number have decided that periodic magazines or minor rule changes/item introductions from purchasable modules was a good way to continue income from a saturated market. White Dwarf magazine, Uncle Al's Auto Stop and Gunnery Shop, and others did that.

How long before they stop all PDF sales again?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.

Get your binge on

[cstec]

This is the perfect excuse to read up, get your fix, then hop into D&D Online and get some tabletop action come to life. The client and a decent amount of content is free, and the DM voiceovers rock.

NOTE: This is Dungeons & Dragons Online, not WoW. There be TRAPS in dem dar dungeons, and they can and will kill you very dead!

Re:Get your binge on

[seebs]

DDO is really very different from most other MMOs, and yes, it really does reflect D&D's feel a lot more than the other MMOs do. It's not perfect, but it's got some very nice implementation choices.

WotC

[Anonymous Coward]

WE ordered the cash
you paid we ran away laughing

Any of the Mystara stuff there?

[CronoCloud]

By that I mean the 83-87 Mentzer revisions of the D&D Basic and Expert sets (and Companion, Master and Immortal sets) or better yet the Rules Cyclopedia, and the Gazetteer series, Wrath of the Immortals, Dawn of the Emperors, Champions of Mystara and Hollow World sets. Had a bunch lost em in a flood.

Re:Any of the Mystara stuff there?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Voyage of the Princess Ark, ah them were the days...

Re:Any of the Mystara stuff there?

[Anonymous Coward]

B6 is by Zeb Cook and has a heavy basis in Mystara (detailing a major city, though not in quite the same way as it'd appear in the Mentzer days).

B10-B11 are also set firmly in Mystara.

That's mostly it from the initial. release.

Re:Any of the Mystara stuff there?

[Culture20]

also B3 and B4. No Gazetteers which is what I really want.

Re:Any of the Mystara stuff there?

[CronoCloud]

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale about a fateful trip
That started from Sundsvall's port, aboard a flying ship.
The mate was a mighty Cleric man, the Admiral Brave and sure.
100 crew set sail that day on a 3 year tour, a 3 year tour.

The magic started getting weak, the flying ship was tossed
if not for the courage of the fearless crew the Princess would be lost, the princess would be lost.

The ship went aground on the shore of this uncharted Hollow World
With Talasar....Haldemar too.
Ramissur and Ashari.
Abovombe
Xerdon and Raman,
Here in the Hollow World.

Or:

We come on the Princess Ark
Prince Haldemar and Me.
Around Mystara now we do roam
Flying all night, we get into fights.
Oh I feel so broke up I wanna go home.

So hoist up the princess's sails, sae how the mains'le sets
Send an away team ashore, let me go home.
let me go home, I wanna go home
Oh I feel so broke up I wanna go home.

Well Ramissur he got drunk, and broke in Haldemar's bunk
Xerdon had to come and take him away.
Leo the Gnome, why don't you leave me alone
Oh I feel so broke up I wanna go home.

Re:Any of the Mystara stuff there?

[CronoCloud]

Yeah, the Gazetters, I wants them. And the Creature Crucibles (I only had The Fair folk one...Sidhe are badasses)

Bullshit

[Overzeetop]

No, it was to ensure remuneration. Just because the words of the statute don't mention it explicitly doesn't mean that it was not the driving force. If it weren't for the money, we could just skip the entire debate. Nobody (of statistical significance) expends substantial effort to author a creative work with the sole intent of never showing or distributing it.

Copyright protects the livelihood of the creators of works of knowledge or creativity to ensure that they may do so with the knowledge that they will receive just remuneration for their effort. Without that basic tenet, only those of independent wealth would have the means to create and we would lose an entire segment of professional creative people. In a way, its no different than the ownership of real property - you can't pick up real property and move away with it, and anybody can walk on it. Neither are like personal property, and there are special laws to deal with ownership and transfer for each kind - both of which are in existence to preserve the monetary value.

Re:Bullshit

[DoomHaven]

No, it was to ensure remuneration. Just because the words of the statute don't mention it explicitly doesn't mean that it was not the driving force. If it weren't for the money, we could just skip the entire debate.

No, it was to promote science and useful arts. Ensuring renumeration by offering a limited monopoly is the means to this end but most certainly not the end unto itself.

Copyright protects the livelihood of the creators of works of knowledge or creativity to ensure that they may do so with the knowledge that they will receive just remuneration for their effort.

Maybe once, originally.

In a way, its no different than the ownership of real property - you can't pick up real property and move away with it, and anybody can walk on it.

No, it is completely different than the ownership of real property. Copyright is a temporary monopoly on an intellectual work so a creator can temporarily receive just renumeration, but then said work is surrendered to everyone so that everyone can use it, improve upon it, refine it, for additional profit and to give society as a whole a greater wealth.

Meanwhile, "real property" is something that is owned for as long as the owner wishes, to be used for whatever the owner wishes.

Re:Bullshit

[Card Zero]

No, it was to ensure remuneration.

Remuneration yes, to creators no. Copyright law was developed to protect the livelihoods of publishers by granting a limited monopoly on the means of reproduction (i.e. printing presses).

Re:Bullshit

[cpt kangarooski]

No, copyright doesn't ensure remuneration. Most works have a copyright related economic value of zero. And there are many which are flops that never recover their cost. Remember Green Lantern? Or Pluto Nash?

Copyright at most provides a chance at turning a profit, but it is no guarantee, and in fact, it's fairly unusual that it works out.

Re:Bullshit

[EdZ]

Without that basic tenet, only those of independent wealth would have the means to create and we would lose an entire segment of professional creative people.

It's such a shame that, prior to the Berne Convention, there were no career musicians or painters in the world, and certainly none who were not also independently wealthy. Nope, none at all. Never happened.

palladium books

[Anonymous Coward]

they crowd source to make there stuff then they sell on that same site as wotc.
i have not bought a single WoTC book since they started the 3rd edition.

i made code for a browser based mass combat.....

[Anonymous Coward]

i made code for a browser based mass combat basic edition game that uses the events and dominion rules.....
wotc told me i could as long as i dont make money
so i thought about it and never bothered to finish it.

and its never going to happen 1977 then 2013 now
36 years both authors passed on and im not creating for it for free....sorry...

Abandonware is a valid concept...

[trims]

To a certain extent, you're correct.

However, part of the social contract that exists to support Copyright, is the implicit agreement that "We (society) allow you to protect your item, and in return you make more of them so we can use them". Failure to live up to that implicit contract (i.e. sequestering I.P.) on the content provider's end voids the social contract (i.e. consumer's promise to respect Copyright).

I'm not a big fan of many of the justifications for copyright infringement, but in cases of "lost" authorship or abandonware or failure to publish or deliberate removal of a product from market, the I.P. author has effectively forfeited any rights they have.

Re:Abandonware is a valid concept...

[Slyfox696]

I'm not a big fan of many of the justifications for copyright infringement, but in cases of "lost" authorship or abandonware or failure to publish or deliberate removal of a product from market, the I.P. author has effectively forfeited any rights they have.

Use parts of this story as an example though. While this publisher did not make this property easily available for sale for long periods of time, they've chosen to do so now. The person who originally pirated all of the content he did is no longer looking to purchase the content he/she already owns. The copyright holder has now lost compensation for their work.

Obviously not everything is as neat and simple as my quick example, but to say a copyright holder should lose their rights simply because they do not market the product for an arbitrary length of time just doesn't make sense to me. In an ideal world, once a copyright holder has decided they no longer will make money from their content, they would release it free to the hardcore enthusiasts who would still be interested in the content. But if they choose not to, it's not okay to pirate the content simply because you think you are entitled to it.

Re:Abandonware is a valid concept...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell not?
It isn't as if selling movies, music or tv shows shouldn't be easy on a world wide basis now we have the internet.
By putting this an as a rule, you will compel them to do world wide releases, which is in the spirit of the original agreement.

Since it is trivial to do a world wide release (compared to getting data moved 1/2 way around the world by ship and setting up a print run in different county)
The length of copyright should be shorter.

Re:Abandonware is a valid concept...

[AK Marc]

Obviously not everything is as neat and simple as my quick example, but to say a copyright holder should lose their rights simply because they do not market the product for an arbitrary length of time just doesn't make sense to me.

It does to me. If I can't buy it new, then they have no losses if I "steal" it. Not even theoretical losses, as they aren't selling it. I would say that if there is a period of 1 year where the product is not available for sale, new, from the publisher, that all copyright reverts to the original author, or released to Public Domain if the original author is deceased. Use it or lose it seems reasonable to me.

In an ideal world, once a copyright holder has decided they no longer will make money from their content, they would release it free to the hardcore enthusiasts who would still be interested in the content. But if they choose not to, it's not okay to pirate the content simply because you think you are entitled to it.

Sometimes the world is better if we force, via law, what people should do without it. If you don't make it available, then you have no loss if it is pirated. If you have no theoretical loss possible, then it causes no harm, and thus should be legal.

Oh, and if the "creator" is listed as a corporation, then I'd expire all copyrights at 5 years, no matter what. They have the resources to push through a release (copyright starts at publication, as it does now), and 1 year for a very long movie run and 4 years home rental/sales is more than enough inventive to continue book and movie production.

Re:Abandonware is a valid concept...

[Slyfox696]

It does to me. If I can't buy it new, then they have no losses if I "steal" it. Not even theoretical losses, as they aren't selling it. I would say that if there is a period of 1 year where the product is not available for sale, new, from the publisher, that all copyright reverts to the original author, or released to Public Domain if the original author is deceased. Use it or lose it seems reasonable to me.

Sometimes the world is better if we force, via law, what people should do without it. If you don't make it available, then you have no loss if it is pirated. If you have no theoretical loss possible, then it causes no harm, and thus should be legal. Oh, and if the "creator" is listed as a corporation, then I'd expire all copyrights at 5 years, no matter what. They have the resources to push through a release (copyright starts at publication, as it does now), and 1 year for a very long movie run and 4 years home rental/sales is more than enough inventive to continue book and movie production.

Could you please provide me with your bank accounts? I would like to monitor the money in them. Any money you choose to not spend after one year, I will go ahead and take. After all, use it or lose it seems reasonable to you. And if you work at some kind of corporation, then I'm going to drop the time frame to six months. After all, that money came to the corporation from consumers partaking in the economy, it needs to be put back into the economy to help it grow. 6 months is plenty of time to spend that money .

My guess is your "use it or lose it" philosophy doesn't apply when it's your money, does it? It's always easier when it is someone else who has to lose out, isn't it? The problem with your theory, aside from its obvious hypocrisy, is you assume the reason the content is no longer made available for release. Actually, and this is even worse, you ignore the reason it's not available for release. For example, and I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you could not figure out yourself, the laws of supply and demand are well known and if I provide content, and then withhold it, by the fact of human nature, that content will become more scarce. Once the content becomes more scarce, I can then sell the content again, for a price higher than what I could charge before. Disney does this all the time.

You're not entitled to content just because you want it. And let's face it, that's pretty much the entire crux of your argument. You want it, it doesn't hurt YOU to have it, so it's okay to pirate the content. I have no problems with reducing the length of copyright, though 5 years is entirely too little time for anyone/anything. Wasn't the last copyright length something like 25 years? I think that's a fair length. But to say something becomes public domain just because it's not offered for sale is beyond ridiculous. There are many reasons to withhold content, financial reasons or otherwise. And no one should be entitled to someone else's work simply because the creator chooses to reserve their right to sell it at a later time.

But here's a solution I think we could both get behind. After an arbitrarily set amount of time (15 years, for example), if you still wish to sell your content for commercial use, you have to renew your copyright registration. Maybe every year, every other year, I don't know, I haven't worked out the details. But anyways, this would avoid commercial products from being copyrighted in perpetuity and would automatically grant "abandonware" (or whatever you want to call it) to any content not renewed. If the copyright holder wishes to retain the ability to sell the product, then they can continue to renew the registration.

A win/win, right?

Re:Abandonware is a valid concept...

[AK Marc]

Could you please provide me with your bank accounts? I would like to monitor the money in them. Any money you choose to not spend after one year, I will go ahead and take. After all, use it or lose it seems reasonable to you.

I'm making money from all my money in bank accounts, so your analogy is false. You may collect change in the couch if you can prove it's been there more than one year.

My guess is your "use it or lose it" philosophy doesn't apply when it's your money, does it?

It does. I have no money sitting in a vault degrading as insurance to block other people from spending similar amounts. The patent chests and copyright vaults exist for the sole purpose of impeding progress of the useful arts and sciences, so any law that defends them is unconstitutional. I don't sit on my assets for the purpose of harming others (including the general public).

But here's a solution I think we could both get behind. After an arbitrarily set amount of time (15 years, for example), if you still wish to sell your content for commercial use, you have to renew your copyright registration. Maybe every year, every other year, I don't know, I haven't worked out the details. But anyways, this would avoid commercial products from being copyrighted in perpetuity and would automatically grant "abandonware" (or whatever you want to call it) to any content not renewed. If the copyright holder wishes to retain the ability to sell the product, then they can continue to renew the registration.

The original term for copyright was 14 years (renewable), right? But now, we can spread content much faster than in 1787. I think that things should make it into the public domain within a generation, not in multiples thereof. 5 years with two 2 year extensions, and any trademark, copyright, or patent on something covered by any of the others cancels all other protections. You may not trademark and copyright Mickey. Pick one and stick with it, not use both and sue under the most convenient.

It's insane when a song written in 1893 is still copyrighted. My grandfather was born after that, lived 90 years, and is 20 years dead and would have had no chance to improve/alter the song because the never drew breath when it wasn't copyrighted. The point of copyright isn't to guarantee profit, but give the minimum protection necessary to encourage works to enter the public domain. But when they never do, we'd be better offf with no copyrights at all, more would enter the public domain.

Re:Abandonware is a valid concept...

[Slyfox696]

I'm making money from all my money in bank accounts, so your analogy is false.

But you're not putting it to use. By the same token you collect interest payments (or however you're making your money), the copyright holder collects interest (as in desire) in his/her work, so if they do decide to release it later, they can make more money from it.

Use it or lose, that's what you said. If you're not spending it, you're not using it, so feel free to give it to me.

The patent chests and copyright vaults exist for the sole purpose of impeding progress of the useful arts and sciences, so any law that defends them is unconstitutional.

That is some of the most asinine logic I've ever heard. How exactly is WotC not releasing PDF files for sale before impeding progress of useful arts and sciences?

Don't confuse patents and copyrights. If I write a book or compose a song, and decide to not sell it, it's not impeding anything at all. Your logic is completely wrong.

The original term for copyright was 14 years (renewable), right? But now, we can spread content much faster than in 1787. I think that things should make it into the public domain within a generation, not in multiples thereof. 5 years with two 2 year extensions, and any trademark, copyright, or patent on something covered by any of the others cancels all other protections. You may not trademark and copyright Mickey. Pick one and stick with it, not use both and sue under the most convenient. It's insane when a song written in 1893 is still copyrighted. My grandfather was born after that, lived 90 years, and is 20 years dead and would have had no chance to improve/alter the song because the never drew breath when it wasn't copyrighted. The point of copyright isn't to guarantee profit, but give the minimum protection necessary to encourage works to enter the public domain. But when they never do, we'd be better offf with no copyrights at all, more would enter the public domain.

Well, I'm not going to quibble over arbitrary time frames for an idea neither one of us has the power to implement. We do seem to agree on the basic idea.

At the end of the day, you're not entitled to someone else's work, legally or morally, just because you want it and it's not offered. If the content creator wishes to make it publicly available, then celebrate that person. Donate a small amount of money to that person to encourage the attitude of providing content to the public. But to argue that someone deserves to lose the right to make money off the content they create, simply because they choose not to sell it for an arbitrary amount of time, speaks to a sense of entitlement, an attitude I'd expect from a 5 year old, but not an adult.

Re:Abandonware is a valid concept...

[AK Marc]

But you're not putting it to use. By the same token you collect interest payments (or however you're making your money), the copyright holder collects interest (as in desire) in his/her work, so if they do decide to release it later, they can make more money from it.

I am using it. I'm renting it to a bank for a fee. I'm not going to continue your analogy. It's obviously false, and you will continue to twist it to "prove" your false assertion with an obviously false analogy.

Don't confuse patents and copyrights.

They are based in the same law. They are both IP. That your arguments fall apart when you broaden them to more types of IP doesn't mean I'm the one with the flawed arguments.

At the end of the day, you're not entitled to someone else's work, legally or morally, just because you want it and it's not offered.

That's different than what you said before. When you put it that way, yes, I am.

I moved out of the US because it's a failure of a country, filled with contentions people like yourself that are happy to throw the baby out with the bathwater just to make sure nobody else got use from the baby or bathwater. Where I moved to, I am explicitly legally entitled to someone else's work because it's not offered. If they don't sell it here, then they *can't* have even a theoretical loss if I steal it, so there's no harm. They can sue me and win, but the maximum judgment is, by law, $0.

So, on that point, like all others you've made, you are 100% wrong. I'm sure you'll come back and tell me how it's all me wrong, but you can't argue with reality. Reality always wins.

Re:Abandonware is a valid concept...

[Slyfox696]

I am using it. I'm renting it to a bank for a fee. I'm not going to continue your analogy. It's obviously false, and you will continue to twist it to "prove" your false assertion with an obviously false analogy.

I don't blame you for wanting to quit my analogy, when it so obviously shows your hypocrisy. It's okay for someone else to lose out on value, as long as it's not you. You can gain interest on your work, but content creators cannot on theirs. Keep trying to justify it, I actually laughed this time. The more ridiculous you become in trying to defend it, the more I laugh.

They are based in the same law. They are both IP. That your arguments fall apart when you broaden them to more types of IP doesn't mean I'm the one with the flawed arguments.

They are not the same thing. At all. I can see where you would argue that certain types of patents stifle "progress of the useful arts and sciences", but you just sound like an idiot when you say WotC not making PDFs available for sale do the same thing.

That's different than what you said before. When you put it that way, yes, I am.

Then I'm entitled to your paycheck. Please give me your bank accounts and passwords. Thanks.

I moved out of the US because it's a failure of a country, filled with contentions people like yourself that are happy to throw the baby out with the bathwater just to make sure nobody else got use from the baby or bathwater. Where I moved to, I am explicitly legally entitled to someone else's work because it's not offered. If they don't sell it here, then they *can't* have even a theoretical loss if I steal it, so there's no harm. They can sue me and win, but the maximum judgment is, by law, $0. So, on that point, like all others you've made, you are 100% wrong. I'm sure you'll come back and tell me how it's all me wrong, but you can't argue with reality. Reality always wins.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

I literally laughed out loud. This entire conversation has been based 100% on United States concepts/law, since we're talking about a company whose headquarters are in the USA (or at the very least, a country where the same general ideas and concepts apply). I don't give a flying fuck where you are now, because it's completely irrelevant. By the way, if you really moved from the USA because of our IP laws then...well, then I guess we're both happy. You did what you felt was right and we got rid of one more stupid person.

Let me see if I can sum up your argument:

1. I want it, I should get it.
2. If it's not legal, I should get it anyways.
3. I don't mind depriving some one else the value of their work, as long as no one deprives me of mine.
4. Patents and Copyrights are the same thing.
5. If I don't get my way, I'll take my ball and go...somewhere else.

Yeah, given the sheer ridiculousness you're resorting to, I think it's safe to say it's not longer a good idea for me to continue to converse with you. I'm afraid if I talk to you much longer, I'll suffer some kind of cognitive impairment from having to slam my head into a wall. So feel free to continue saying stupid things, I may even read it and laugh at you for it, but unless you say something worthy of my response, don't plan on reading more from me.

Re:Abandonware is a valid concept...

[AK Marc]

you just sound like an idiot when you say WotC not making PDFs available for sale do the same thing.

You just continue to lie about what I'm saying to make yourself feel better about your obviously false opinions. When you can quit lying (especially to yourself) long enough to hold a conversation, let me know...

1st Edition, all the way!

[Anonymous Coward]

old? Please.

1st edition is where it's at. A couple of things in 2nd edition were worthwhile, but, overall, it wasn't great. The rest (i.e. 3.x and beyond) were merely TSR/WoC's attempts to get us to (a) buy more crap without delivering any new improvements, and (b) change AD&D to look like some sort of MMORPG on paper. Virtually all the later editions are attempting to emulate the online RPG experience, which is exactly wrong, in the opinion of the vast majority of people who played RPGs before computers. A paper RPG is much more interesting and creating than a computer one, and to change the paper RPG to use the computer model is asinine.

Hell, I'm still writing heavily expanded 1st edition stuff, and there's a vibrant modded-1st edition community out there. Don't waste your time on the later stuff - the original (with improvements from the various on-line rulesets) is far, far superior.

watermarked is not clean

[Anonymous Coward]

./

Re:watermarked is not clean

[Deltaspectre]

How are watermarked PDFs hindering you?

Well, it's still useful.

[Anonymous Coward]

At least I can now buy inspirational material for my Pathfinder games. Good idea, WoC.

THAC0

[kenp2002]

It isn't AD&D if you aren't rolling THAC0. 2nd Ed FTW!

let's see

[argStyopa]

http://www.dndclassics.com/product/17158/B2-The-Keep-on-the-Borderlands-(Basic)?it=1
Keep on the Borderlands, module B2. Originally printed 1979 - 34 years ago.
Selling for $4.99 as pdf.
I bought that module at Jolly's Games in Southtown, Bloomington MN in the summer of 1980, for, as I recall, about $5.

Yeah, SURE that's going to work, I'm certain of it.

Private Note to WotC: FUCK YOU YOU REMORSELESSLY GREEDY PIGS.
Seriously? You *first* re-engineer the rules for what, the FIFTH time in 15 years(?), expecting your "fans" to buy new rules and supplements, and now you want to sell ancient crap for the same price it sold for 30+ years ago? Seriously?
"We don't want them to go to torrent sites. Why not give them a legal route?"

Too late. Personally, I've probably dropped well over $2000 on D&D products over the decades, not to mention 4 Gen Cons (UW Parkside 2x, Milwaukee 2x). You come out with NEW content, I may buy it. Keep trying to squeeze blood from old, ancient content? I'll buy it for $1 from the used-game bins at the gameshop down the street.

Re:let's see

[Koutarou]

USD 5 in 1979 works out to USD 16 today, give or take.

Re:let's see

[tilante]

You do realize that they are not forcing you to buy any of it, right? Do you really think that just because you don't want it, they shouldn't make it available at all?

Car Analogy.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like buying a series of robotic arms, conveyor belts, etc to MAKE the car.

Coincidentally, how many times does the robot manufacturer get paid?

Oh right, only ONCE PER ROBOT.

Hahaha *shove* Nerds.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that sums up the cops opinion on somebody stealing a nerd's D&D supplies especially in the late 70s through 80s.

Assuming they didn't read (Jack) Chick Flicks, in which case they would probably have gotten a warrant and figured out a way to arrest you for involvement in some sort of occult gathering.

What about the originals...

[portwojc]

Thanks WoTC. I doubt my collections value, what little there was, will hold now.

Please re-print Mox's now for game play.