All of which, it should be noted, is illegal, unless you have Fanpro and/or FASA's explicit permission.

Unless you made the copy from your book, the PDF is illegal regardless of ownership of the same book title and regardless of the print status. Fair Use does not apply.

~J

No, it's not fair use to make copies of materials which are no longer in print. Sorry. Such action would reduce the value of the legal copies currently owned, and reduce the marketplace the copyright holder might have for making a new printing.

/Edit: Kage is right, and types faster.

I'd hope that they figured out better digital rights security, then.

A crack for Adobe's DRM system was posted around, what, 48 hours after it was released?


-karma

No. FanPro has not yet set a pricing structure for their eBook releases, but Rob mumbled something about the $5-15 range for many products.

You are right, they probably wouldn't force the issue, at least if all you were making were copies of the OOP books and were not selling them (but that is not what was being said...they were talking about ALL the books). Although they would be perfectly within their rights to do so.

However, just because they don't sue you does not make it any less wrong. And, I don't know what the deal was with FASA/FanPro, but it may be that the older FASA books are still owned by FASA, which may or may not mean Microsoft, and they would sue you, your group mates, your family, friends, ancestors, pets and future progeny...

Maybe in your opinion. You're in the minority there, for the most part. If people wanted those books, they'd have them and there would be no interest at all in old PDF's. The fact is they're not that easy top find, and even when they are, people don't want to carry around a copy of every book in existance. If they can put that on their computer though, it might be wrth toting around. ANd so far the consensus is that most people feel that's worth 10 to 15 bucks per book.

Don't forget you're still dealing with licensing fees, someone to go through and clean up and convert these books to PDF (Many of the old books aren;t even in a readable electronic format these days, form what I've heard), and Drive Thru RPG's fees for selling the books.

And, that brings us to pint number two...

I'm quoting this cause it was convenient, but it applies to everyone discussing this situation...

1) It doesn't matter if you own the book or not. Fair Use applies only to making copies of limited amounts of the book for personal use... Like copying a few charts, tables, or a spell list. Not copying the entire damn book.

2) If it comes to Fanpro or WIzkids attention that someone has their books available for download in illegal PDF version, whether or not they're being sold, they absolutely have to enforce their copyright. Otherwise this sets a precedent, and they lose some legal legs to stand on. Fanpro doesn;t actively pursue this issue, espeically right now since there aren;t PDF versions afvailable, but... That might change in the future once they do, and like I said, if it came to their attention and they had a direct source, they would have to take action.

Otheriwse, a couple weeks or months down the road, if someone else decides to post their stuff very publically, maybe even seling it, and Fanpro decides to take action, it can be pointed out that they didn;t enforce their copyright in an earlier situation, and this could end up with FanPro being unable to do anything about it.

Copyright is a really tricky situation, and some people enforce it much more strictly than others in an effort to be "better safe than sorry", but... <shrug> It's the way it works.

3) I really don;t give a rats ass if you posessess illegally copied material. It happens, it's a fact, though I personally think it sucks and people who do these things may as well go steal the books from someone. <shrug> Whatever.

But... Don;t discuss it here. Period. That's always been a banned topic, and always will be. Whether you agree or disagree isn;t the issue. THere are other places to discuss it, but dumpshock isn;t one of them.

Bull

This is partially correct. I'm not sure if it falls under the Fair Use clause or some other part, but one is legally allowed to make a complete copy for backup purposes. They're just not allowed to share it with anyone, nor are they allowed to use as a backup any copy generated from a book they don't possess (and by book, I mean the specific unique physical copy they own, not all printings of that title).

However, for this purpose, and indeed for nearly all purposes, the point is academic.

~J

I have to agree here. The way that Adobe configures their DRM has made it extremely difficult for me to download and install their DRM stuff. And the way DriveThruRPG.com sets things up, if I (or a family member) accidently deletes the file, or if the file is on a computer without a Zip Drive or a CD burner (like my current temporary computer is), then I can't download it.

And worst of all, you cannot install the DRM software if you run Linux (and, IIRC, if you use a Mac). All in all, if FanPro was using, say RPGNow.com, I wouldn't have a problem. Same if DriveThruRPG or Adobe handles their DRM differently. As it is, I'm going to have to refrain from purchasing any Shadowrun E-Books.

Certainly works on a Mac.

I would recommend sending your comments about DRM to DriveThruRPG, then. They have an obvious interest in growing their customer base.

Can't say I know much about DRM. But that just seems to be the natural order of things: You make a better code, someone makes a better code crack.

And just for the record, i'd pay full (original) price for most of the OOP books, just to be able to read 'em. So $15 to me is a dang good deal.

Just to keep this in perspective -- have you looked at eBay? The vast majority of the OOP stuff goes for under $10, shipped. That's my primary reason in thinking that $15 is steep.

Also to keep it in perspective... That's also a used, older print copy of the book that may or may not be in good shape.

With the .PDF downloads, you have a crisp, clean electronic copy that you can take with you, if you have a laptop, or even print out various pages from as needed for use during games. Theoretically, you could have every game ever publshed and take it with you in a 5 pound laptop. If I haul every game book I own with me to a game session, we're talking 5 feet and about 100 pounds of paper product. Not portable.

Consumer rights only extend so far. personally, I find it frustrating to see the whole "Consumer rights" thing bandied about so much when you're talking about, in effect, stealing.

Like I said in my post above, FanPro's not gonna search your hard drive and file charges if you have a PDF book on your computer. I'm pretty sure Rob doesn't give a rats ass if you want a crappy pirated PDF for your laptop, especially off an old out of print book that FanPro's not gonna see a dime for if you buy it on the secondary market.

But don't flaunt it. Don;t post it up for download. Don't host it, don;t advertise it. That makes you a potential target because if it's brought to FanPro's attention, they have to defend their copyright. They don;t have a choice.

Likewise, don't discuss it here. period. We don;t condone copyright piracy, support it, or publically agree with it. Dumpshock's always stood by first FASA and now WizKids and FanPro's copyrights, and we'll continue to do so.

I'm not closing the topic as the discussion of Shadowrun PDF's for sale in the future is still valid, but the topic of the leaglity of pirated material is over. Thank you for playing.

Bull

I totally agree, and I have a family member who is an attorney who agree's too. I don't have the case( U.S. Case) but i know in one instance a court HAS ruled that a person can transfer music to any medium they want, and because they bought it, it is there right to transfer it to anything they want, THEY OWN IT.

So i said..Well what if i bought Dark Side of the Moon on tape in 1982, and don't own it now, Do i have the right to download it since i paid for it once, and are there any legal ramifications. She said " It would be on the Record Industry, not you to prove that you did NOT buy it in 1982, since they are accusing you of violating there copyright."

This seems to create more problems than it solve since I interpit this to read " any of those cheap, poorly printed, POS books that i bough and feel apart in hours I now have the right to go out and find and download."

I word in a related industry so i don't even have p2p software on my pc, but this is going to be a long, long, fight.

Fanpro would be better of offering them at a very reduced price. Or even a website that requires a membership due to obtain them.

For you perhaps, but for those of us interested in minis for a RPG game, and not action figures to collect, they sucked.

While they may be the finest action figures ever made, it makes no difference if you are looking for minis.

While not a fan by any means of the whole clix base junk, I would at least consider buying small scale ones that are useful for table top gaming.

Wizards figured out they could cover both markets with D&D and Star Wars, now WizKids needs to figure it out also.


As for the PDFs, are they something you download and can then move around and access freely? Or an item you can only access online from a certain site?

DriveThruRPG handles the DRM aspect of the files, the publisher provides the files to DTRPG and they handle the rest.

Yes. You'll need to reactivate your copy of Acrobat 6, which takes a few minutes and a 'net connection, but I've successfully backed up files, moved them between computers, OSes, etc.

No. All version of Acrobat 6 and Adobe Reader 6 can open DRM-using eBooks. The process is explained on their site.

I don't know how big your collection is, but if you're at all concerned about quality you might be able to do it in a solid weekend of work. Less if you had access to a scanner designed to accept batches, but it's a lot less trivial than you're implying.

~J

The GE's Free Library is a great experiment that seems to be working. But I don't know if the model would work for game publishers. While they are fun to read (I bought them for years before I ever had an opportunity to play or GM Shadowrun) they are essentially reference books. That may or may not generate a different type of use.