Kazaa, Piracy & Your PDF game

[Matt Gwinn]

As much as I worry about money lost from my game being distributed for free, I guess I can't really complain about Kazaa.

I recently downloaded the PDF of WOTC's "Savage Species" supplement.  I promptly bought the hardcover 2 days later for $30.  I think that pretty much sums things up for me about whether or not it's hurting WOTC's business.  

So, why download the PDF in the first place?  I like having the actual books, but having the PDFs as well allows me to easily print pages for reference rather than making photocopies and possibly damaging the spine of the book.  It also allows me to make copies of stuff when I don't have a photocopier available.

For game designers that are particularly concerned about piracy, I have a suggestion.  Make your game bigger.  A high page count is likely to deter most pirateers.  Without a cable modem downloading would be bad enough, but printing out a 100 or 200 page PDF is pretty cost prohibitive to most people aswell.  I have access to a laserprinter and can print pretty much any number of pages for free, but I consider printing, hole punching and binding 200+ pages to be too big of a pain in the ass to bother with.  The time and effort saved is worth the 20 bucks to go out and buy the professionally printed version.

As far as smaller, easily printed, games like Kayfabe, Paladin and Octane, there really isn't a way to stop piracy.  We'd lose more money hiring a lawyer than from the lost sales.  In the end, I suppose it really doesn't hurt us much.  We all know that making a living doing indie game design is pretty much a pipe dream.  Most of us just want our games played and to make enough money to pay for production.   Would I like to have that extra $6.95 in my pocket?  Sure, who wouldn't?  But I'd rather have someone pirate my game than not play it at all.

,Matt G.

[Ryan Wynne]

That's a bit uncalled for.

Listen, Ryan only just started his company; he's probably incredibly busy right now.  I think its far too early to make permanent policy judgements about things he probably knows too little about (marketing, competition, copyright, trademark, exposure).

It's also too early to give him such a hard time.

 They can give me as much of a hard time as they like.  I am ignoring  it.  I am running my company like a businesss (and I know a great deal about marketing, competition, etc).

He's got his opinions; he's entitled to them.  They may be strong.  (What's wrong with passion at this point in his carreer?)  They'll probably rub some people the wrong way; the only way to learn how to give a good public 'face' is by falling on it a few times.  He obviously can't have figured everything out.

 Actually, any money made bu designing games goes right back into the company.  I make my money elsewhere, thus allowing us to publish more games.  As for the "Publuc Face" comment I haven't said anything that I would consider insulting to anyone.

Let him learn on his own, because 'telling' him all this stuff is just turning into an argument.  He'll make his own decisions; and profit by them if they're good.

This is a learning process..

 Exactly.  Just because they give me advice doesn't mean it is the correct advice.

For now, let's just let the 'I won't allow pirating' 'everybody else does' argument go down as a pair of opinions and agree to disagree.  There is nothing to 'prove' here.

Fang Langford

 Exactly

[Ryan Wynne]

Hey everyone,

Before I say anything else, I want to make it clear that Valamir is exactly, provably correct. Urban Myth is a good way of putting it. This matter isn't really one for debate anymore. But I've noticed something that may explain why Ryan and everyone else seem to be talking past each other. Ryan is hung up on the idea of people "stealing" from him. The fact is, internet piracy is not theft. It's duplication. This is why it isn't financially harmful.

Here's a little bit deeper explanation. The definition of theft requires deprivation. One has to be able to point to something and say: "I had this, but now he has it and I don't!" Citing potential lost funds due to piracy is not valid. You never actually had those funds. It's all "might have... maybe... possibly."

 Right, and  it is a bunch of maybes that the person wouldn't have bought the game anyway if it wasn't available for free.  So there are alot of maybe/couldbe's.

  As for me I am publishing one .pdf game and the rest (hopefully) will be in book form.  The page counts for the books are going to be high (they were going to be anyway) so hopefully that discourge scanning them and putting them on networks like Kazaa.

[GMSkarka]

I really don't want to get into yet ANOTHER flame about this--I just got through hellfire about this very topic over on RPGnet. Given the fact that the Forge doesn't permit flames to erupt, I feel safe in posting this position here, though.

Speaking as an experienced publisher and designer:  duplication is theft.  There is a reason that it's called Copyright.  It is the RIGHT to COPY.  You do not have that right, unless it's expressly given.

In an industry with margins as low as those in the RPG biz, with companies that are run by either a single person or a handful at most, each sale lost to a pirated download is critical.

The arguments about "trying before you buy" are I'm sure true in some cases, but more often than not are merely justification trotted out by folks who want to avoid accountability for their actions.   Nobody wants to be the bad guy, after all.

Unfortunately, we appear to have created a generation that doesn't think that duplication and distribution without permission is wrong...that it's somehow not theft.  

Some publishers and designers also take the "good publicity" position as well--that being pirated is somehow an honor or a sign that you're popular.   I'm sure that's all well and good, but I didn't devote a third of my life to this business to be "honored" that way.

GMS

[Mike Holmes]

This issue is more complicated than either side wants it to be.

First, Nathan, libraries do pay for their books, and do not copy them. Nobody has ever complained about people loaning their single copy of a book, CD, or game to anyone. As long as it's not duplicated. Because duplication and distribution of that duplicate could be seen as a loss of income. And, this is, in fact actionable in court. See Napster.

That said, the question is not whether it's technically legal or not (it is not), but whether or not publishers actually do lose money. And the other side is right about that. That is, no criminal ever intends to pay if they don't have to. They may shoplift the game from the FLGS if it's a book. Just because lifting a PDF is any easier does not mean that this makes people any more likly to act in criminal way. Those who feel they can afford it will pay. Those who cannot will not, or will wait til later to pay when they can. Those who cannot pay, would not get the game if it was not in a format that allowed them to do so.

So who is it that's taking the game and not paying when they can afford to? What group are these people?

Is this unethical? Yes. Am I saying that, since lots of people do it, that it's OK to do it? No. Should we encourage people not to do this? Yes.

The question is not a moral one, but one of pragmatism. If you legally persue a case like this I garuntee you that it will cost you more than all the losses from criminal theft of the game (do you have any idea what court costs are like?). Probably cost you more than all the profits the game will ever make. And all you stand to recoup is the cost for whatever losses you can prove occurred. And you can't. Worse, stopping one individual who is providing this illegal service does not diminish the supply, and hence it will pop up again. Actioning won't solve the problem.

So, how is that good business? It might make sense as an ethical crusade, but it's definitely not good business. Give me an example of one company that persues individual theft of product on a more than "on site" basis. TSR went bankrupt trying to stop what it saw as internet infringment of it's copyrights. Now they encourage it, and are making money again.

And if you're saying that you'd go after sombody just to try and scare people off, this doesn't work. Even if you're dead serious, people won't care, and won't believe you anyhow. If you were WOTC, and had Hasbro's deep pockets, then maybe. The TSR campaign did slow things for a while. But only at the loss of the business to the owners.

This all comes down to legal theory that is, interestingly based on game theory. And that is that certain laws should exist, if at all, only as instructive devices. That is, enforcement of certain laws is just not a good policy because the costs of enforcement are higher than the costs of allowing the infringement. This has been debated by better minds than ours here, and will not be resolved here.

That said, given the lack of provable loss, the cost of action, and the fact that there may be upsides to the problem, why fight an impossible crusade? Why not instead figure out how to leverage this effect to best advantage?

If it were not illegal to copy and distribute other peoples games, would you still make new ones? I would. Because fear of the law is not what prevents people from not stealing in the majority of cases. People are moral by nature. If it became legal to kill people tomorrow would you go out and start killing folks?

The law can inform, but it does not enforce.

So, if you want to make more money figure out a practical way of doing it. Find a new way to make your prouct proprietary. Take computer games like Myth for example, which only allow a single copy of the game to work through the online server at a time. This sort of value added seems to be a good way of ensuring that those who can pay at some point will do so as soon as possible to get these extra features.

What we should be discussing is what sort of things of that nature that we can do as publishers.

Mike

[Matt Snyder]

First, for Indies, I don't think this is a measurable problem. For WotC and other D20 folks, sure. But the popularity "excuse" has some merit. We could do worse than being popular enough to warrant file sharing.

But I think concerns about theft are the vestigal limbs of a publishing world leaping into a digital culture without letting go of its control life-vest. Simply put, you CANNOT stop this from happening, even if you consider it a crime against humanity. If Sony can't stop it with billions and lawyers, we sure as hell can't.

If we're going to be producing fully digital products, then duplication and sharing is absolutely inevitable. If you make your game in PDF format, it will be copied and used by more than the people you sold it to.

Consider: Most folks think it A-OK that Bob buys a PDF game, then shares that with his personal, face-to-face group (We could neverpossibly stop them even if we didn't agree with it!). Fine. But then, Charlie, who did not buy your game but now has it on his hard drive moves away, returns home from college, whatever. He starts or joins a new group. He shares the file with that group, and they play merrily. You could never stop this from happening because it need not occur on the Internet. And it doesn't seem too unlikely to happen.

In fact, it's happening right now! In your state! ;)

But then we go online, and now it's a theft. How is this different? Well, for one folks don't know each other (but they HAVE voluntarily shared the files, so it's even murkier).

What I'm saying is this: We must shed our notion of what "publishing" is. Copyright should apply, but in practice it's totally unenforceable. The whole system is unenforceable.

Complaining that "these kids today" don't respect intellectual property ignores the fact that the battle's already lost. The kids "get it." They've already had a first taste, and they're never going to change their minds, not as a whole. The folks holding the money don't get it. How the hell are you going to stop "these kids"? You can't. People -- and their cheap digital technology -- will find a way.

True, technology will also help prevent this from happening, but it's a finger in the dike, not to mention that RPG publishers will never have the money to afford such security. But such technology is just enforcing the old school way of thinking. It's protecting analog ideals in a digital world. It'll break, eventually.

We as publishers can either pack up and go home, steering clear of the digital products that make our existence possible, or we can embrace the technology and figure out a new way of thinking. We MUST do this to survive, especially if we ever get to the point where our products are popular enough to make this "piracy" matter.

I have only a pretty early and vague idea of what that means. I haven't got all the answers. But I do know that Everything You Know Is Wrong. The music industry's biggest problem with Napster is that they didn't understand the new way of thinking. Had they figured it out earlier and shed their precious sacred cows of commerce, then they'd in a whole new market. A whole new ball game.

Let's get in that game.

[iago]

If copying an electronic work is theft...

Is it theft if someone puts a copy of an electronic publication they've bought on more than one machine?

How about printing out more than one copy and passing those copies around their play-group, in a manner that is certainly producing more copies than the analogous "I bought X hardcover, and my group shares it"?

I ask this partly because I asked some related questions of Rogue Publishing when I bought The Collectors, and got a response that said they were OK with the limited distribution of the game within my group, as it was analogous as described above.

This is particularly interesting because I think several of my group would have simply bought their own electronic copies if this policy weren't in effect, so that would seem to demonstrate at least some loss of money...

For me, at least, this provides some illustration of the gray-area shading here; I realize it may not be central to the topic at hand, but it seemed at least sufficiently "real world" as to be an interesting example.

[Le Joueur]

I am ignoring  it.

No, what you are doing is responding to every single comment directed at the issue.  (Few have been directed specifically at you.)  What you may be missing is that all these, every single one, is an opinion.  No one can prove piracy takes money from your pocket or not; why?  Because no one has pirated from you (no money lost = no proof).

He's got his opinions; he's entitled to them.  They may be strong.  (What's wrong with passion at this point in his carreer?)  They'll probably rub some people the wrong way; the only way to learn how to give a good public 'face' is by falling on it a few times.  He obviously can't have figured everything out.

As for the "Public Face" comment I haven't said anything that I would consider insulting to anyone.

I'm sad to point out to you then, that you have a very supercilious tone and as one of your potential customers, I'm 'turned off' by it.  You seem really motivated to prove that you can be ripped off, not that it has happened, is happening, or will.  That kind of 'money first' talk does little to interest potential customers; I'd argue that kind of tone is off-putting.  That's my opinion.

This is a learning process..

Exactly.  Just because they give me advice doesn't mean it is the correct advice.

Sorry, Ryan, this is a learning process for everyone.  You must agree that no one has all the answers; not you, nor me.  There is no "correct advice" (so stop trying to 'correct' everyone).

Fang Langford

p. s. Are we done now?

[contracycle]

IMO... technical developement contains an implicit tendency for the rate of profit to decline.  The rate of profit in publishing is declining very fast because of electronic media.  Thats all.

[Paganini]

Mike, some interjections. I hope this is OK.

First, Nathan, libraries do pay for their books, and do not copy them. Nobody has ever complained about people loaning their single copy of a book, CD, or game to anyone. As long as it's not duplicated.

True, they pay for one copy. But someone also paid for one copy of the pirated material... the one the scans were made from. I appreciate the distinction you're making between queued viewing (library) and simultaneous viewing (piracy), but it doesn't detract from the original point: That the publisher only recieves compensation for one copy that many consumers benefit from.

With respect to your claim that loaning is acceptable, this is downright false, IME. I've quite often seen authors on usenet and elsewhere who complain about people loaning books. Electronic game publishers are often *extremely* against game loaning. You're not supposed to loan your video game cartridges to your buddy... cos then he can play the whole game without paying for it. Etc., etc., etc. Same goes for PC software. There is even an organization of authors devoted to fighting libraries.

These people just haven't grokked that such exposure is actually good for sales. Of course, there are also authors and game publishers who have web-sites devoted to other side: that piracy and libraries contribute favorably in a financial sense. Please understand, I'm talking about practical effect, not moral or legal implications.

That said, the question is not whether it's technically legal or not (it is not), but whether or not publishers actually do lose money.

Exactly. That was the point I was arguing, with an addition:

The law is not consistent - libraries should also be illegal by this reasoning.

I don't pirate many RPGs, myself. The pirated games I have tend to be out of production, like the old TSR Conan. As a rule, people will pay for games they feel are worth paying for, regardless of whether or not the game is already in their posession. I pay for games to support authors who I feel deserve it. The same goes for libraries. People read books at libraries. If they liked the book well enough, they'll buy a copy for themselves.

Further, Matt is spot on with his comments, all the way through. Ilegal or not, piracy in general is not practicaly actionable, because (in addition to the expense points you made) the market will always find some way to propagate piracy, as long as piracy is profitable. I.e., Napster being replaced by peer to peer network services. In other words, the industry can spend billions an lawsuits, but nothing will really change. If publishers want to discourage piracy, the distribution paradigm needs to shift.

The way (IMO) to discourage piracy is twofold: On the one hand, everyone needs to chill out about it. It's gonna happen, so there's no sense freaking out. On the other hand, if you are seriously indanger of being adversely financially affected by piracy (extremely difficult to prove and predict), make it more difficult and more expensive to pirate than it is to consume. Frex, SVGames has a bunch of old TSR modules and rulebooks in PDF format for under $5. It's way easier to just go there and get reliable downloads than it is to try Kazaa, IRC, and other ilegal distribution channels. I spent about $20 at SVGames last month.

Sure, I *could* go on usenet, IRC warez channels, Kazaa, undergound sites, and so on, and probably track the material down eventually, but the effort involved costs way more than the $4.95 SVGames charges for each product.

The equivalent in music is to charge a few dollars to download single tracks. Which would you rather do... go to www.sonyclassical.com, pay three bucks and have your favorite song in under 5 minutes, or spend a couple of hours searching the music underground?

Edit: Something to keep in mind here is that, as a game designer I'm unpublished. But, I'm on the inside of the issue in another way: as a professional musician. I'm a performing artist. My concerts are regularly recorded. My orchestra has produced several CDs.

[Mike Holmes]

Um, no, Nathan, lending something you own is not illegal. As the good Mr. Skarka points out it's a COPYright, not a LOANright. Only copying said material is illegal. Think about it for a minute. If loaning were illegal, then you couldn't let your buddy read from your RPG manual when playing. You couldn't give books as gifts (you may have read it before giving them away!). You couldn't even sell your property if it was copyrighted, then, as by that logic you'd be profiting from the sale of a copyrighted object. Once you buy a document it's yours to do what you will with except that you cannot copy it in whole or in part and profit from the redistribution of the object.

Oh, they'd like to make it illegal. The recording industry led by such brilliant lights as Garth Brooks has tried to even make resale of musical media illegal including banning resale stores.

This is, of course ridiculous. I should have said, that nobody but crazy people mind people loaning stuff. And fortunately they've been unable to cause a change in the law. This would be so unenforceable as to be plain silly. Further, it's not a right, nor should it be. Hell, I'm only so sure that copyright law as it stands makes any sense at all.

Mike

[Paganini]

Um, no, Nathan, lending something you own is not illegal.

Oops. Sorry Mike, big misunderstanding. I didn't mean to imply that lending books / games is not legal. I meant that there are authors and publishers who are against loaning, and libraries, for the same reasons that they're against piracy. I've encountered authors who say "please don't lone my books to others, as this discourages sales." I know I've seen the same thing at least once with respect to console games, and numerous times with respect to PC games.

Your comments about the music industry make me think we're on the same page, just crossing wires. :)

[Ryan Wynne]

I have been reading this thread and I have made decided my position:

 It would be too costly to pursue a thief in court, and couldn't hope to recover any money so I would not pursue a thief in court.

  If I find any of the games I have designed on a network like Kazaa, etc I will stop releasing games to the public (as someone said, if everyone doesn't play fair then no one plays).  I know it sound rough but I have to do what I have to do.

  That is my position and that is basically all I have to say about it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello Ryan,

I would very much like to see some acknowledgment of my post to you earlier in this thread. In fact, I'd like to see any indication on your part, even if you disagree with someone, that you have read and understood their points, as opposed to quoting bits and pieces in order to argue.

Your unsupported opinion, bluntly, is not welcome here - because it is only opinion. No one's "opinion" (meaning gut-reaction and value judgment) is welcome at the Forge, ever. This site is dedicated to discourse and the shared understanding, even among those who disagree.

Please revise your approach to interacting here. This is non-negotiable, and I'm making it public so that everyone understands that the basic principle applies to them too.

This thread is closed, with apologies to Matt.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Ryan, your business, you can do as you like.  But since you said above that you wished to run it like a business, please consider the following 3 options (using simple numbers for the sake of illustration).

A: You have a pdf product.  It cost you $500 and 1000 manhours to create.  You sell 25 copies a month for 4 months at $10 apiece getting $1000 and netting a $500 return on capital.

B: As above, but after the first month of 25 copies you find that some asshole theif has put your work up on Kazaa.  As a result you only sell 10 copies a month for the next 3 months and 15 copies a month  are ripped off by downloading theives.  As a result you only sell 55 copies and get only $550.

C: As above but after the first month when you discover the theft you yank your product from the public on the theory that "if everyone doesn't play fair, no one plays".  That doesn't stop the 15 thieves every month from distributing the already stolen copy.  But it does prevent the 10 sales a month you would have made.  As a result you only sell 25 copies make only $250 and don't even break even.


The point is this, even if you are right.  Even if the theft is taking money out of your pocket with lost sales as in example B above...your solution of simply stopping releasing games to the public does absolutely nothing to the thieves and hurts only you (and the 30 legitimate players who would have liked to play your game but now can't).  In otherwords...your proposed solution doesn't make any business sense at all and I hope for your sake (cuz it doesn't really effect me one way or the other) that you reconsider.

I also suggest you consider option D below.

D. As above, but after the first month of 25 copies you find that some asshole theif has put your work up on Kazaa.  15 people in the second month decide to download your game for free rather than pay for it.  10 go ahead and pay.  Of those 15 people 5 wind up paying for the product anyway because they really liked it and want to support you.  This pattern continues for the next 2 months so that after 4 months you've sold 70 copies.  However, the free copies that are floating around out there are being copied and copied and copied again until there are potentially 100s of people who have your game on their computer.  Copies of your game are reaching people who'd never even HEARD of you or your game, and never once frequent any of the sites where you regularly promote your game.  These are people you never would have ever reached anyway.  And some of them are interested.  Some of them start paying for a legitimate copy and start playing with their friends who buy legitimate copies.  Even if only a fraction of the total number of thieves actually wind up paying, in the end you will likely sell MORE copies not less.  Sure, there are a lot of people who got your game for free....the bastards.  I hate 'em too.  But so what.  You came out farther ahead.

As Nathan points out above, there is significant evidence that option D is FAR more likely to happen than option B.  Before you allow your righteous (and completely justified) anger at being ripped off to actually hurt your own business, I hope you'll seriously concider doing some heavy research into the matter yourself.  Starting with the experience of Baen is a good jumping off point.