I've seen a lot of people get all
outraged about the watermarks that appear on many of the pdfs sold
through Drivethrurpg. Before this is was the DRM which everybody
complained about, which I agreed with them at that point it really
sucked. But the watermark isn't nowhere near that restricting.
Basically it's just your name printed onto the file... and some
people just hate it.
So you see these people complaining
about the measures being taken in attempts to deter filesharing and
piracy of these files. But most of them don't say a single thing
about middle ground solution or any ideas on other way to deter the
piracy of pdfs that is apparently pretty heavy among game material.
They want their pdfs with no strings attached and usually use the
excuse 'Piracy is going to happen anyways' over and over again.
Along with the tag line that piracy and filesharing helps increase
sales.
Now I'm going to give some of my
opinions and observances on things that I've actually seen or
experienced. That's mainly because it's shit that actually happened
and not made up excuses like a lot of people use or repeat after
somebody else says them. Actual real experiences not depending on
somebody else to be telling me the truth.
Nearly every person I know that gets
pirated pdfs never goes out and buys the book. Nor do they try to
help it sell in any way shape or form. They actually do more to
convince others that there is no reason to pay 'outrageous' prices
for game books when they can get them for free. The other players
don't need to buy that they'll just pass them a flash drive with all
the books on it for nothing. Along with passing on the information
of what torrent sites are the best to use, where to find the pdfs
online as regular downloads, etc. They help convince others that
piracy is the best way to go and not to hand any of their money over
for game books ever again.
This was going on long before pdfs
became a big thing even. Case in point, around here Sla Industries
took off like nobodies business. Not everybody had a copy of the
Karma sourcebook though so one guy asked to borrow the book so he
could 'copy the gear chart in the back'. What he really did was take
it to the place he worked at and made five copies of every page and
passed out these copies to the other GM and players. None of them,
to my knowledge, ever went out and bought Karma after that, they
didn't even bother looking for it.
Another person I used to know was
always looking for free copies of anything he wanted. He would come
up and ask about a game, some of would do some looking and see how
much a copy of it would cost and then he would tell us he didn't want
to pay for it. The other pirates would then find it for him and they
would all swap files around and 'help each other out'.
Met an entire table full of gamers who
all believed that they didn't have to pay for anything also. They
had printed out copies of the books they wanted and externals full of
stuff to share. Their overall attitude towards others was that they
were idiots for paying for a game book.
These were usually the same people who
had CD cases full of burned music an not a actual purchased one to be
found. Cracked copies of software on their computers. Movies on
their hard drives before they were ever released on DVD. They simply
would not pay for anything that they could get for free. It's almost
like a subculture within a subculture in gaming. A growing
population of parasitic leeches living off the rest of us who support
the designers, writers and artists.
But nobody wants to do anything about
them or the problem that they have become. Although they sure want
to bitch and complain when an attempt to work against the problem
comes along that may offer them the most miniscule bit of an
insignificant problem. They are all full of complaints but never
bring any sort of solution to the table. The reasons against the
watermarks are pretty flimsy at the best. Some don't want their
names on the pages if they print them out, some say 'what if' my pdfs
get stolen and then spread among others, claiming that the watermarks
crank up the file size (which they do if done wrong, drivethrurpg
does it right) or the most laughable is that they ruin the appearance
of the pdf like if somebody wrote in a book. It doesn't matter that
somebody worked and put effort into producing the product and all
they want is paid. They may claim they care but if they did then
they would understand the reasoning behind it.
Now I will say that recently one
person came up with a solution to some of the complaints in a thread
over on rpg.net. Simply replace a persons name with an account
number. So then the 'my name is on it' bawling will stop... and we
can watch those folks scramble for another excuse to cling to.
One solution is also obvious. Stop
playing with or socializing with the people that you know are
pirating the files. Why shouldn't they be treated in the same
fashion that the cat piss smelling folks are treated. They should be
shunned by all of us who go out and spend our money supporting the
hobby we enjoy. But nobody will do this. They simply turn their
heads and pretend it's not happening and go along as normal... and
complain about other measures being taken to stop piracy.
I'm going to do this. For now on
anybody who refuses to buy the books they use will not be playing in
any game I run. Nor will I play in a game being ran by somebody who
does it. Hell I would be pretty tempted to not play with other
players who do it. If more people would attempt to be part of a
solution instead of just sitting back and bitching about the proposed
solutions then maybe a difference could be made.
But then again, sometimes I think a
lot of those who complain about the watermarks are doing so for
another reason.
