The ethical issues associated with digital piracy are pretty complex.  I think there are good arguments to be made on both sides.  The copyright holder has to be respected, of course, but there's also the issue of copyright abuse.  There's also social and economic factors involved in what makes a pirate a pirate.  For example, for some people, it's the only access to books that they have.  Libraries are dissappearing, or turning into sactuaries for heroine addicts.

Fuck that.  What if I want to learn.

Too complex, and I'm not going to get into it.

To the OP, have I seen TTRPGs available on file sharing sites?  Yes.  Do I use them?  No.

If I were a pirate (which, of course, I'm not), I'd have rules.  One such rule is I pay for my RPGS.  I would only pirate a RPG so I could review its contents, to see if I liked it.  If it did, I'd buy it.  A lot of pirates think this way, believe it or not.

RPGs are a small niche market.  A lot of pirating is done against large production studios (mulitmedia, Hollywood movies, etc.)  For a lot of pirates, it's not about getting free shit.  It's about defying what they see as an oppressive media combine and the governments that support it.  True or false, that's what many of them believe.  A lot of them support small outfits for the same reason.

There've been a couple of studies about this kind of thing.  I don't have them on hand.  A few argue that Hollywood has taken significant losses as a result of piracy, but most debunk this allegation.  Most of the studies I've read suggest piracy is less than an issue than people think it is.

Look, GURPS fans are going to buy GURPS, even if that shit is out there for free, just to support SJGs.

Doesn’t matter, though.

This tech isn't going away.  It's evolving.  Some really neat stuff, too!  Half of it is designed to counter invasive online privacy concerns rasied by intrusive corps or government interests.

Not supporting piracy.  There's good and there's bad.  That's all I'm saying.

I've located and downloaded freebie stuff everywhere, often of books I used to own. The stuff's often so dated I figure it ought to be public domain. (yup--that's my rationale)

I've downloaded pirated game material too. For me it's taken the place of looking through stuff at the game store.
If I read a thing and like it, I'm gonna want to buy a hardcopy. That's what happened with all the Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader stuff... it's why I've got NWOD books loading up my bookcase.

If I want to actually use it there's no way I'm going to run it off a PDF... and I'm not going to try to do it off some crappy printouts either. If anything, the pirates have turned me onto games I would have never known about... my rate of spending sure hasn't decreased.

On the other hand if I download something, flip through it, and then just leave it forgotten on my hard drive... well, it's probably not a purchase I ever would have made anyway, unless it was an impulse buy I'd later regret.
I don't go to the local game stores anymore because they long ago stopped carrying anything I'd want... so those impulse buys are gone anyway... but replaced by impulse buys on RPGNow.

Also, If I like a pirated game, I still go buy a PDF of it... just to have the 'official' one and get access to updates and errata fixes on the legit sites.

We live in weird times.

I have a notable metal music collection from back when dinosaurs roamed record shops and bought used CDs. Hunting down albums was a hobby for me in the 80s and 90s. I can't even imagine paying for music anymore.

Instead, I pay Pandora to never hear ads. If I want a song on demand, Youtube always has it. Usually with my choice of album cut, live performance or lyric video.  I guess the musicians get some income from streaming, but unless the clicks are in the millions, I bet we are talking pennies. To support my favorite bands, I attend concerts and buy t-shirts instead.  

But there is no ancillary option for RPG authors. We either buy their shit or they don't make money.

I think Sine Nomine may have cracked the code for the modern RPG sales. He gives so much A grade stuff away, and then you can buy the "complete + extras" version from him via Kickstarter or DriveThru.

I am one of those "pirates" who downloads stuff to preview. Its my version of standing in the FLGS and flipping through the book before buying it. If its good enough to be worth my time, I am happy to buy a hardcopy.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;945323My experience is that pdfs which are downloaded for free are rarely even read, let alone used to run and play games.

I have barely read all the PDFs I bought legally!!

If the author hasn't approved it, downloading the pdf is theft.  If you think the author should go to a pay-what-you-want, or a free preview and pay for premium model, but they haven't, it's still theft.  Even if it were objectively the case that they'd somehow get more net paid sales under a different model, but they don't go to that model, it's theft.

Now, if you're going to do it anyway no can stop you.  But don't tell yourself "oooooh, maybe this is legit!  It's just a publisher put it up and didn't lock it!"  It's pirates.

I understand the temptation better when you own the hardcopy, can't find it any other way, or want to preview something you're genuinely thinking of buying.  That's arguably less worse than snagging something and thinking "score!"  I suspect it's also rarer than snagging something and thinking "score!"

Most of us steal using the net, I prefer to not provide self-righteous rationalizations for it. Some behave as if they have a right to steal.

Copying is stealing?

AKA, what did the author actually lose? A potential sale? Maybe, but can that be proven? Moreover, what is the actual ratio of sales lost to sales gained because of PDF copying?

And how can it be codified?

AKA, if I copy a bunch of an author's stuff, but then drop cash on his next Kickstarter for hardcovers, was that theft or advertising? Would the author have gained the KS sale if not for the copying of his previous stuff?

It's a very thorny issue.

I've noticed when I google for old material especially, right beneath the link to the paid-for pdf there'll generally be a link to a free unauthorised copy someone has uploaded (eg a day ago I saw Chainmail from ca 1974/77 reprint). I tend to think that exploitation copyrights longer than the Statute of Anne 14/28 year term lack any moral basis so I don't think it's immoral per se to read or download this old stuff, certainly for personal use, whereas I'm uncomfortable with obtaining unauthorised scans of recent material, because authors and publishers deserve a chance to get a return on their labour/investment. I think a 14 year prohibition on distribution & copying for personal use would be reasonable and would match eg Design Right & Patent terms (Patent was 14 years, increased to 20).

Quote from: Spinachcat;945392Copying is stealing?

Not legally, no. Unauthorised copying is normally a civil tort, but commercial piracy can be a criminal offence.

Then theres the really fucked up cases. One I know of personally involves fans having to quietly pass around the original free PNP of a game made for a contest after a publisher took the game to print and then tried to bury the original. Going so far as the designer messaging everyone whod supported the game with fan material and enhancements to delete their work. All so they could get the bestest mostest sales!

So people keep passing around the tapes as it were.

I'm fortunate enough to have a substantial quantity of disposable income, so I obtain my PDFs legally, despite my opposition to the current legal implementations of copyright.  I have no ethical objections to copyright infringement and I don't care if someone else does it for personal use (commercial infringement is another matter entirely), but I choose not to do so, specifically to deny supporters of the current laws the opportunity to claim that I'm only trying to justify my own illegal behavior.

I do, however, make two exceptions to this general rule:

1) If something is no longer available legally (abandonware, out of print, etc.), I have few qualms with copying it illegally if given the opportunity.

2) If I legally purchase a product which is subject to intrusive DRM, I have absolutely no reservations about obtaining a cracked copy so that I can more easily access the content which I have legally purchased.  But this primarily came up in the days of computer games that required you to have the CD in the drive to play; I don't think I've encountered a single case where I've even considered turning to piracy to circumvent DRM since they stopped doing CD checks.

Quote from: Dave R;945388If the author hasn't approved it, downloading the pdf is theft.  If you think the author should go to a pay-what-you-want, or a free preview and pay for premium model, but they haven't, it's still theft.  Even if it were objectively the case that they'd somehow get more net paid sales under a different model, but they don't go to that model, it's theft.

Point of order:  In most (if not all) jurisdictions, copyright infringement does not fall under the same law as larceny (theft).  So, no, it's not theft.  It is still illegal, but it's not the same crime.

Quote from: Spinachcat;945392Copying is stealing?

Copying without permission or license is infringing and can carry both civil and criminal penalties. Theft is taking possession without permission. One could steal an author's manuscript but one infringes upon the author's rights if he made a copy of the manuscript without permission.

It easy to copy digital works but it doesn' t make the situation any more special than using a printing press to run off copies of an author books. Both infringes the author's rights and creates a liability costing the copier both money and jail time.

Where digital differs than the printing press is because of the fact it is easy to make a copy. It is very easy for somebody who makes a digital work available to cross over the threshed that allow a federal civil suit or a federal criminal prosecution.

Also note there are not copyright equivalent of small claims. It not possible to either sue or prosecute an individual infringing an author's copyright if it just a one or two copies. There is the DMCA which allows infringing material to be taken down rather quickly.

Thanks to the G+ RPG community being so close, most everything I play now is by authors/artists that I've interacted with and genuinely like.  I can't imagine not paying for their stuff.

It surprises me though that every time I run a game for randoms on Roll20 at least one player will ask me to send him all my PDFs.  No, every time.

And then you have Mutants and Masterminds that has everything legally online in an SRD, and still makes Gold Seller status on DriveThruRPG for the PDF version.

From a publisher's perspective, I cannot prevent piracy. In fact, because of this reason, I made the decision early on to release the Early Access and final, unillustrated version of ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG entirely for free. My hope is that the 'share-alike' approach will help promote hardback sales.

In fact, I plan to host the final unillustrated version across torrent trackers on day one, so I can track downloads and measure a positive/negative correlation between downloads and hardbacks sold. It's my pet project for the year, which I plan to share the results with the community to help others understand the impact a free PDF makes upon hardback sales.

From a personal perspective, it irritates me to see a PDF that's priced at 50% or above the print version. If the PDF isn't reasonably priced, I won't buy the book.