I was recently introduced to Kazaa Lite, which is a file sharing program similar to napster. I've found that you can find nearly everything on there that is in a digital format, from porn to music to rpgs. Every WOTC rpg book is available in PDF form as well as a swell of D20 modules.

My first thought was that some people have far too much time on their hads to scan and PDF hundreds and hundreds of pages of product. then I started thinking about how easy it would be for someone to share an RPG that is already in PDF format.

I've always been concerned about people passing the Kayfabe PDF along to all their friends, but something like Kazaa puts a whole new spin on it because your game can be made available to anyone and be traded anonymously (as far as I can tell).

What are people's thoughts on this?

Is allowing free copies of your indy game worth the extra exposure of one more person owning your game?

Is it worth stressing over?

Note: I did do a search for a few indie games (Kayfabe, Sorcerer, Cartoon Action Hour) and they all came up with no hits. Is it a good thing that we're not being ripped off, or is it a bad thing that there isn't enough interest in our games to make them available.

,Matt G.

I'll repeat my file-sharing rant for the benefit of y'all.

It doesn't really matter.

So far, nobody is offering any of my for-sale PDFs on Kazaa. But if they did, I wouldn't be too concerned. My reasons:

1) Cost to produce 100 copies of a PDF is the same as it is to produce 1. So it's not like a book, where each one stolen cuts into your inventory (and thus your earnings per book goes down).

2) These people wouldn't buy your game in the first place. Now if they ARE into the game after downloading the pirated version, there's an excellent chance that they'll want to thank you with a few bucks (and that's how much PDFs cost so it all evens out).

3) Your game is popular enough to warrant piracy. Kinda cool. I mean, do a search of "Yodels" and a search on "Eminem" and see which pulls more hits, am I right fellas?

Actually Matt, I have been toying with the idea that making quick start rules available on Kazaa would be effective. I think any game (like TROS or Sorceror) that has a pdf set of quickstart rules that is routinely made available for free would be well served by getting those rules into Kazaa circulation. Free games like the Pool would probably also be good in this vehicle to enhance the exposure of the label. For pay games like Kayfabe or Universalis that don't have a whole lot of rules to begin with might not be so well suited...not sure.

Valamir wrote: I have been toying with the idea that making quick start rules available on Kazaa would be effective.

I would like for everyone who has a copy of a game I design to pay for it.

As much as I love to design games and write (All money made from game design goes back into the company) if I found games I designed on Kazaa or a network like that I would be forced to stop releasing the games to the public. If I could track the people and go after them I would as well.

It's sad that I have to have this position but art, layout, publishing is expensive and I can't afford for thieves to be stealing my work. Every sale I don't get is less money I have to put out a new game, not to mention it is disrespectful to the author to not compensate them.

As for the "They stole it because they wouldn’t have bought it anyway" theory I don't buy it. They downloaded it because they wanted it, and they MAY have paid for it but since they could get it for free they chose that route.

Ryan Wynne wrote: As for the "They stole it because they wouldn’t have bought it anyway" theory I don't buy it. They downloaded it because they wanted it, and they MAY have paid for it but since they could get it for free they chose that route.

Eric Flint in Prime Palaver #7 wrote:
1. The first category are the only crooks involved. These are the types -- we've all met people like this -- who just get some kind of weird kick out of cheating. They basically steal for the sake of it, not because they're really forced to by any monetary concerns.

Eric Flint in Prime Palaver #7 wrote:
2. The second category are young people. Teenagers, basically, whose income is so low than even $4 or $5 is an obstacle for them.

[ ... ]

3. The third category are people who, though not young, suffer from basically the same kind of "disability" as teenagers. Only in their case, the disability is a medical one. The biggest category here is probably people who are blind or suffer severe vision problems. As a rule, though not always, these people are also living on a very tight budget.

[ ... ]

4. The final category are people who are "handicapped" in geographic terms. Basically, people who live in areas of the world or have occupations which (for a variety of possible reasons) make it essentially impossible for them to obtain a copy for sale. Either because their income is too low and/or the exchange rate is too steep, or shipping costs are astronomical, or -- simplest of all -- there are neither bookstores nor a reliable distribution network.

John I was about to post that very thing myself. The fear of internet piracy robbing value from intellectual property is complete and utter bullshit. Not once have the major music labels sat back and thought that the reason sales are down dramatically has less to do with piracy and everything to do with people being sick of the crap they keep putting out. Some of the most down loaded music on Kazaa is obscure death metal you can't find in the local walmart CD rack.

"Microsoft is losing billions of dollars to Chinese software pirates". Bullshit again. Microsoft has over 40 billion in cash they don't even know what to do with so they started paying a dividend because they had no better use for it. Ole Bill is the richest man alive...ever. Yeah, piracy is just putting them in the poor house.

The movie industry said the same thing about VHS piracy ruining the movie biz. Once they finally got a clue the now get more money from the video market then they do from the box office AND get to collect money on old film assets that hadn't seen box office in decades. People copying video tapes and off HBO didn't cost them a cent. The fear was all just more paranoid bullshit.

"Internet Piracy takes money out of my pocket" is an Urban Myth that should be discarded along side saying Candyman three times. Utter unsupportable nonsense.

talysman wrote: however, he makes numerous good points about how the people who download those pirated copies are not necessarily bad... because those that can pay and would have payed will pay, and those that can't pay or won't pay will, at least, tell other people about the book -- and some of those other people will be people who can and will pay.

talysman wrote: so, what should you do about piracy?

- if you find obvious piracy of your game, asked that the pirate copies be removed;
- make sure your game has contact information in the text, for those who want to pay when they are able;

- don't sweat the rest.

Valamir wrote:

"Internet Piracy takes money out of my pocket" is an Urban Myth that should be discarded along side saying Candyman three times. Utter unsupportable nonsense.

I do think that some small independent RPGs could benefit from the free distribution offered by the internet. Free Quick-Start rules could possibly gain the interest of people that would otherwise have been unaware of the product.

My first copy of the rules for Vampire: The Masquerade was "free," with my subscription to Shadis magazine. Looking at my shelf, I have a dozen other White Wolf products.

Mage Knight (not an RPG, but the analogy is the same) offers the rules to their games for free over the internet. They practically shove free figures into the hands of gamers at the conventions. They have done very well with this marketing strategy.

Ryan Wynne wrote: Sorry, I wont just sit back and let people steal what I do. If they steal it then everyone loses access to my games. Sorry, that's the way it has to be.

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.

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.

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.

I'm looking forward to what Ryan has to say about all the 'three tier marketing' that Ron is always explaining. It doesn't look like he's dealt with it yet.

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

Hi Ryan,

You've presented many views on publishing, property, and profit in the last few days.

Here's my question for you: are you interested in others' views, especially those based on many years of experience, or merely in repeating your own?

If it's the former, then how about acknowledging what others have said, especially if they make sense to you. Also, please consider asking a much more focused question that shows you've looked into things - for example, an instance of actual piracy that cost a small publisher money.

If it's the latter, then perhaps you should consider another website. This is a place for people to learn from one another, not merely to announce (a) and then defend it against all comers.

Best,
Ron

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."

One other thing to think about. Internet piracy is exactly analogous to a library. The publisher is payed for one copy of his work that many people benefit from. A library buys one book that may people read. A gamer buys one game that many people play. In neither case has the publisher been deprived of any actual stock.

Bottom line: If you wish to complain about piracy and call it theft, then you must also take a stand against public libraries, or lose all your credibility.

quozl wrote:

Ryan Wynne wrote: Sorry, I wont just sit back and let people steal what I do. If they steal it then everyone loses access to my games. Sorry, that's the way it has to be.

So if everybody doesn't play fair, then nobody can play at all?

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.

Le Joueur wrote: 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.

Le Joueur wrote: 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.

Le Joueur wrote: 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..

Le Joueur wrote: 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

Paganini wrote: 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.

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

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

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.

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.

Ryan Wynne wrote: I am ignoring it.

Ryan Wynne wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: 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.

Ryan Wynne wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: This is a learning process..

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

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.

Mike, some interjections. I hope this is OK.

Mike Holmes wrote:
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.

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.

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

Mike Holmes wrote: Um, no, Nathan, lending something you own is not illegal.

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.

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

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.

Just searching through here, I realize it is three years old but I thought there was a good thought here which I could repeat. It was what I was told by three Gaming companies but I also used co-own a marketing/publishing company which published phone books. We purposely had to make sure there was over 75 pages to prevent people just going on our website and printing it out. My partner stole $10,000 and moved off and so the company fell apart. That still doesn't stop the truth:

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.

Do not post to older threads.

In this case, you've caused some serious problems, because the really old threads are not splittable.

Please start a new thread with your post; just re-type it.

Best, Ron