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.
:)

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 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

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

Enlighten me.
:)

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.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: 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.

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

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.

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

joshua neff wrote:
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.

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.

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.

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.

madelf wrote: 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.

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.

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.

The big conceptual leap with regard to the value of copylefted work is the separation of price from value. Most widely advertised goods are overpriced, because their sale prices go to pay for a great deal of, well, wide advertisement. People know that, so when the opportunity comes to obtain an overpriced product for a lower price--or free--they tend to sieze on it.

But people do know the value of a product, and they're willing to pay a fair price for it even when they're not being forced to do so.

Given the choice between paying twenty bucks for a CD of which they've only heard one radio single and paying nothing to get some of its tracks off Kazaa, smart people are going to go with the mp3s. The RIAA sees this happening and, because they know their (terrible) business model is threatened, try to demonize the "pirates" who take the mp3s. "Look!" they say. "Given the choice between paying a fair price and paying nothing, these horrible people always choose to pay nothing!" Well, no. They're smart customers who will always choose to pay the price that is closest to fair.

Meanwhile, after hearing some free music from an indie band, and given the chance to pay $10 for a higher-quality CD with cover art and stuff, those smart customers will pay up. The emerging model is that $10 is the value of a good CD, if you know you like it and know half is going to the artist; $20 isn't, especially when you've only heard one song and the artist is only getting ten percent.

For a non-music example, I could read my favorite webcomic (Checkerboard Nightmare) three times a week for free, if I wanted. Instead, I give ten bucks every month, because it's worth that much to me. Actually, it's worth more--I would probably pay twenty bucks if I had to. But I pay what I'm comfortable with paying, and its author keeps producing content. He'd keep doing so even if I stopped, but I want to keep doing it, because I have a little money that I want to invest in things I like.

If you put your work out there under a loose license, then yes, some people are going to take it and not pay you. If your work is good and popular, most of those people would pirate it anyway, even if you'd put it under the strongest copyright lock and key you could.

But the majority of your potential customers aren't just algorithms out to find the lowest possible price; they're people who want to invest some money in a hobby, because they think that hobby has value. If your work is good (and I have no doubt that it is) and people like it, they'll try it and pay for it, because they'll realize it has value too.