Strategy of Copyleft?

[madelf]

In this thread...
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=13676
... I posted my current personal views of the flaws inherent in copyleft licenses and asked for a convincing argument in the hopes of learning more about why many people feel copyleft is a good business decision.

Unfortunately it seems to have been poorly worded, and in the wrong place (as Ron rightly pointed out). My apologies. I do want a discussion, not really an argument, and I am simply offering my current view as a starting point, not as flamebait. So let me try again in a more appropriate place and with a better explanation of intent.

What is the reasoning behind using Copyleft? What are the benefits, and how will it help a business, promote more sales, etc? How is Copyleft a good strategy for the indie creator?

Enlighten me.
:)

[contracycle]

What is the reasoning behind using Copyleft? What are the benefits, and how will it help a business, promote more sales, etc? How is Copyleft a good strategy for the indie creator?

I think those goals are probably at odds with CopyLeft.  CopyLeft is designed to maximise distribution, not sales.  The only distinction between CopyLeft and putting something in the public domain is the provision that prevents someone re-selling the product as if it were their work.

CopyLeft arises from a long-standing criticism of IP quite common in some computing circles.  Information wants to be free and all that.

[Roger]

I think some people look at it as a classic "razors and razor blades" situation.

The basic concept behind that is that you can afford to sell razors very cheaply, or even give them away for free, if you have a monopoly on compatible razor blades that you can then sell to the customer.

Similarly, some publishers may essentially subsidize the core rules with sales of expansion books.



Cheers,
Roger

[GaryTP]

In this thread...
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=13676
How is Copyleft a good strategy for the indie creator?

Enlighten me.
:)

Depends on the indie creators end goals.

Is it to have the creation widely-used but freely given?
Is it to just put something out there an see what happens?
Is it to prove a point?
Is it to sponsor and promote evolution of roleplaying?
Is it to draw in future customers for later money-making possibilities?
And on and on. Most of these don't have money at the heart of it. That is why large, successful companies and creators (mostly) take the other path. They want to be able to create, and have the creation be a means of earning a living.

Again, all are valid directions for a creator to go. Again, depends what your end goal is and your own beliefs.

Gary

[Clinton R. Nixon]

The idea that "copyleft" = "not making money" is ridiculous. According to my last sales figures, I'm selling 10+ copies of The Shadow of Yesterday each week. And it's online for free, with full commercial rights for anyone, which means someone else could have formatted it as a PDF and sold it by now.

My reasoning is moral, rather than economic, though. I decided to give away my games for free online knowing that it would improve my bottom line, though. My reasoning is clearly stated at http://www.anvilwerks.com/creative_commons.html. If you don't feel like clicking, here it is, restated:

---

All of my games are licensed under a Creative Commons license of some sort. What this means for you is that you may feel free to reproduce them as much as you like, as well as create derivative works from them. (Some of my works allow commercial uses of them, and others do not. Read the license on each game to see which applies.)

Note that all print and PDF versions of my games contain artwork licensed to the original artist, which cannot be reproduced.

Why do I release my games this way? Two reasons:

* As a hobbyist first and publisher second, I'm interested in seeing as much support material for my games as possible. The best way to do this is to let you write it.
* Secondly, and more important, I hold firm to the following beliefs. Information is power, and applied information is wealth. By sharing information of any sort with others, you empower them, and that is a Good Thing.

[GaryTP]

The idea that "copyleft" = "not making money" is ridiculous. According to my last sales figures, I'm selling 10+ copies of The Shadow of Yesterday each week. And it's online for free, with full commercial rights for anyone, which means someone else could have formatted it as a PDF and sold it by now.

My reasoning is moral, rather than economic, though. I decided to give away my games for free online knowing that it would improve my bottom line, though. My reasoning is clearly stated at http://www.anvilwerks.com/creative_commons.html. If you don't feel like clicking, here it is, restated:

---

Why do I release my games this way? Two reasons:

* As a hobbyist first and publisher second, I'm interested in seeing as much support material for my games as possible. The best way to do this is to let you write it.
* Secondly, and more important, I hold firm to the following beliefs. Information is power, and applied information is wealth. By sharing information of any sort with others, you empower them, and that is a Good Thing.

Clinton,

All your reasons are good, valid reasons (as I stated when I first posted). They reflect your beliefs. I only disagree with the money aspect. And that's okay, too. Your book, btw, is a fun read.

Gary

[J B Bell]

Gary,

I'm puzzled why you disagree with "the money aspect".  Among the things Clinton has said is that his new game is selling well; also, he has stated elsewhere that his game business pays his rent most months.  This says to me pretty strongly that the money aspect is working out.  Would you mind clarifying how you disagree?  I'm not seeing it.

--JB

[joshua neff]

It should also be pointed out that SF author Cory Doctorow has published his novels under a Creative Commons license, and while a major book publisher has published his novels, he has also had them available from his website for free download. And he's had terrific sales and a large number of downloads.

That being said, there's no real financial motivation for publishing with a Copyleft or Creative Commons license--as Clinton said for himself, it's really ideological. I can't think of any money to gain, but there's no real substantial money to lose either. At least as experience has shown so far. I can't see that it would promote sales as such, but it doesn't look like it hurts sales either.

[GaryTP]

Hi, J B Bell.

It's a matter of scale and the definition of what constitutes "making money" or "success". The fact that his sales are 10 a week are great. Way above mine of 2 a week. But the point is, its a matter of prospective that's all. Is your definition of success on of covering your expenses, exceeding it by 2, 5 or 10X, or more. At which point do you assign the moniker "success" to an issue? That is a personal decision on the creators part and everyone here will have a slightly different take on it.

As for Copyleft, I will argue devil's advocate for a moment though. There's a unique book out there, "Purple Cow" about new ways to market. I recommend it! The gentleman put his book out on the web for free and got ton of downloads. Then he got people writing him to please make a print copy of the book. (I love this story.) He's now very wealthy and goes around on tour talking about it. Anyway, this CAN work. But that's the exception from my vantage point, and not the rule. (And my point of view only works for my personal definition of success.)

I believe this takes the post off topic, since it's about Copyleft. I don't want to infringe upon Forge rules. It's been the most well-run forums I've ever come across. And I think it works because of its rules.

And if I've unintentionally brought up a sore point, I heartily apologize. I know that the Forge is about freedom of information, evolution, and collective innovation. It's a great place to think and share ideas. Most thinktanks are people by highly intellegent, giving people who love evolving, questioning and building upon ideas, and that's the way I'll try to post.

Gary

[Clinton R. Nixon]

That being said, there's no real financial motivation for publishing with a Copyleft or Creative Commons license--as Clinton said for himself, it's really ideological. I can't think of any money to gain, but there's no real substantial money to lose either. At least as experience has shown so far. I can't see that it would promote sales as such, but it doesn't look like it hurts sales either.

Josh,

The reason it promotes sales is that people know what they're getting. I'm not in stores. You can't go down to GameWorld and flip through The Shadow of Yesterday. If you look at the big-ass thread on RPG.net about the game, though, you'll notice one thing: people checking it out online and then buying it. My free version is really easy to use, but ugly. By allowing people to read it for free, I definitely increase my sales.

Now, by allowing anyone to use it for any purpose, including commercial ones, I don't really get any promotion besides "Hey - that Clinton R. Nixon is a hoopy frood and we should buy his games." That happens more than you'd think. It's also the way I ended up on Slashdot recently, which was a major sales boost.

[joshua neff]

Yes, you're right, Clinton. That had completely slipped my mind. That, and the "this is really cool, I want to give the author money" factor. I could have easily converted the on-line version of TSOY into a PDF or something. In fact, I did some months back when it was still in the testing stage (& the vulfen still existed as part of the main game). But I wanted to give you money, not to have the book you printed in my hands (although I really do like the book) but because I wanted to contribute to the Clinton R. Nixon Game Fund.

But yeah, being able to see a free preview of the entire work is a big bonus. That's certainly the argument of artists who put their music on-line for free download.

[timfire]

This thread reminds me of a couple of articles I've read about the whole Napster/Kazaa/File-sharing thing. Though the big music companies complain that file-sharing cuts sales; many, many indie bands claim that when they release their music on Kazaa, their sales increase. It's counter-intuitive, I know, but I think the issue is about exposure. For small guys, it's all about exposure. By releasing their stuff for free, more people hear about it, which in turn increases sales.

This phenomonon probably only works to a point, and that's why the big companies - who operate above that point - claim it hurts sales. But for little guys who operate below that point, this strategy works.

[madelf]

Ah, much better response.
:)

I've really been trying to see the other side of this, because I see this stuff being done (in slightly different ways by a number of different people - and not all of them small time indie guys), and I see it working (or at least seeming to work)... I just have trouble figuring out how.

Even the OGL (and as cool as I think it is that the biggest company in gaming was the one to do it) boogles my mind. I ask myself how the heck they're not shooting their sales in the foot, when everything you need to play is free online. But they sure don't look like they're hurting for sales.

Other companies have done similar things even if they don't use the OGL (Clinton puts his stuff up with a creative commons license, Hinterwelt has the text for all their core books on their website, there's Fudge, Fate & Fuzion... there are certainly others but I can't think of them all off the top of my head) and none of them seem to feel it's hurting their business. At least some feel it's helping.

And things like WotC's OGL suggest that it isn't a bad model for large businesses either. If they can make freely available games work, then it would seem to logically follow that anybody in the rpg industry could make it work. So the scale of the business doesn't seem like that much of a factor either.

It's just freaking weird.
Maybe I'm just overthinking it, and I should just accept that it does work and forget worrying about why.

I believe this takes the post off topic, since it's about Copyleft. I don't want to infringe upon Forge rules. It's been the most well-run forums I've ever come across. And I think it works because of its rules.

I agree. This is a pretty civil forum & I know Ron works hard to keep it that way, so I'll bow to his discretion on what he thinks is off-topic if he should choose to weigh in. But for my purposes, the downsides (along with the benefits) of copyleft, or alternatives, as well as at what point in various definitions of success it might cease to be a viable... are all things I'm certainly interested in discussing.


In closing I'll mention one thing I've realized, while considering this subject, that using a copyleft model does do very well. It gets attention. When WotC released the OGL & it's SRD, it rocked the gaming world. When Clinton released Shadows of Yesterday with a Creative Commons license, it got me (and others) looking at it and talking about it. Heck, I'm talking about it right now. I've probably also heard of nearly every single rpg that's done something similar, though I'm sure there are hundreds of games I've never heard of. So obviously that game, that game designer/company who has the audacity to do something like this... stands out from the crowd. And that alone would be incredibly valuable.

It's starting to make more sense now, I think.

[ryand]

Even the OGL (and as cool as I think it is that the biggest company in gaming was the one to do it) boogles my mind. I ask myself how the heck they're not shooting their sales in the foot, when everything you need to play is free online. But they sure don't look like they're hurting for sales.

Because nobody but WotC can make a player's handbook and call it "Dungeons & Dragons".  

For new RPG players (the target market for D&D), the brand is more powerful than the content of the rules.  On the other hand, D&D has to compete for your entertainment dollar against much bigger and well known brands in many different kinds of categories - which means it needs to keep getting better over time or it stagnates, loses its value, and dies.  

WotC could pay a thousand developers to create and publish D&D material of every imaginable kind based on little more than intuition and whim, see what the market responds to, and then arrow in on that material as guideposts for future development except that:

A)  It would dilute the D&D brand and make the first sentence in my response less valuable

and

B)  It would cost thousands of times more than the current budget does and would almost certainly turn a money making business into a money losing business

Instead, WotC lets the free market do that work for it at very little cost and very little risk, and with a reasonable belief that the work itself will increase the value (and thus the sales) of D&D.

And things like WotC's OGL suggest that it isn't a bad model for large businesses either. If they can make freely available games work, then it would seem to logically follow that anybody in the rpg industry could make it work. So the scale of the business doesn't seem like that much of a factor either.

Here's where your analysis is incorrect.

A part - a big part (perhaps the overhwelmingly big part) of the value of the D&D brand is the number of other people you are able to play D&D with.  That's an argument about scale.  Open source your brand new RPG, and you have a network value close to zero - the open source aspect is adding almost no value because almost nobody is playing it (or contributing to its development).  Open source D&D however, and 1.5 million people a month just got the keys to unlock their creativity in a nearly unrestricted environment - and each person who does adds value to the other 1,499,999 people in that network.

On the other hand, let's assume that purely by luck there's a lady out there who has the tools (creativity, writing skill, etc.) to write the best possible scenario for your new RPG that could be written.  Without an amazing series of coincidences, you are unlikely to meet, qualify, and hire that lady - and if you did there's no telling what you might have to pay her to do the work.  However, there's a finite, but non-zero chance that she sees your game, takes a passion in it, writes the scenario >for free< and publishes it.  The value of your core RPG book has just been enhanced at almost no cost to you.  It gets enhanced even more if you see that work (which is vastly more likely than that you'd find the lady in the first place, because she's likely to let people know her work exists in a forum you are likely to participate in), and now you can begin to leverage the existance of that work to sell your core RPG - or maybe hire the lady to write more content since she's a proven winner.  That's an example of how taking a leap of faith with open content can help an RPG even without a player network.

Ryan

[madelf]

Thanks Ryan,

Those are some good points. (and who would know better?)

I think my feelings about scale is not so much that it is irrelevant, but that it seems to do little to no harm (and may help) at any level. The OGL isn't hurting WotC's sales and the Creative Commons license isn't hurting Anvilwerk's sales. If anything it seems to be helping.

It was suggested that it would not work as well for large companies. I think WotC proves that wrong. It also seems other systems such as Action!, and Fuzion have gained something from being open in one way or another. Clinton maintains that it's working for him. So it seems to work for everyone.

Can WotC leverage the concept more effectively? They very likely can. But it still seems to function at some level (though perhaps in different ways) at both ends of the scale, and (most importantly, especially for the smaller company) doesn't seem to do significant harm regardless of scale. Which is what I was trying to say.

Now exactly how it works... that I'm still working on wrapping my head around.