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Post by CreativeCowboy on Jun 20, 2012 22:30:14 GMT -8
Everyone should be reminded of this every time they pay for any electronic product from WotC. It's like the Character Builder that they abandoned. They do not know how to run a business in the age of the internet. Have you ever tried to contact them about it? Yes. We did. Hasbro Belgium is directly responsible for D&D Europe. Rather than by product line, the market is divided by language region. Old parochial thinking! The same thinking that originally had the AD&D 1e reprints an American release only. The same thinking that recently had the 5e NDA say "online..." The same thinking that has D&D cannibalizing the current player market rather than expanding the market. (The responsibility of expanding the market is foisted upon the current players, which is not successful when games are full and GMs unmotivated to be Amway salesmen for WotC: "read a book in public" BS.) The result of our intervention led to our liaison realising how backwards was Hasbro/WotC SBU and departing the company for another job. True story.
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Post by malifer on Jun 21, 2012 5:43:04 GMT -8
Wow.
For years with the 4e edition wars I always thought the simplest solution would have been to just release the old stuff in pdf or pod.
I had no idea they actually did this and then abandon it because of potential piracy.
Lame.
Side note: Anyone in the US notice there is now another piracy warning on DVDs telling you it's illegal in addition to the old ones. They do realize Pirates don't actual see this right?
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Jun 21, 2012 7:20:02 GMT -8
Side note: Anyone in the US notice there is now another piracy warning on DVDs telling you it's illegal in addition to the old ones. They do realize Pirates don't actual see this right? Pro forma of law, though I understand the irony you're suggesting. It closes a potential legal loop hole. Justice may be blind, or it may not be, but ignorance is no defense. The added labelling throws the responsibility of ignorance back onto the shoulders of the pirate and the pirate's customer(s).
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Post by mook on Jun 21, 2012 9:49:48 GMT -8
Have you ever tried to contact them about it? Though I never did personally, when I discovered what had happened when I wasn't paying attention I poked around the online community to see if there was any recourse. The answer was a resounding "Nope, you're hosed - you are the precise cautionary tale that has customers so angry." I suppose I should have, but really, WotC's stance seemed pretty clear.
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Benji
Journeyman Douchebag
Alea iacta est
Posts: 176
Preferred Game Systems: Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, V20, D&D 3.5, Castles & Crusades, Monsters & Other Childish Things, Little Fears, TFOS
Currently Playing: Not a damn thing
Currently Running: Pathfinder, Savage Worlds
Favorite Species of Monkey: Cebuella pygmaea
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Post by Benji on Jun 25, 2012 11:43:37 GMT -8
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Post by malifer on Jun 25, 2012 12:23:35 GMT -8
Wow. So a few a months ago when Wotc got "hacked" showing 3.5 books and a re-release of the Dungeon Board game it was a lie. My biggest problem is with 1st edition reprints on the way why are we bothering with 5e now? So the 2nd edition players have something to play?
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Jun 25, 2012 12:56:49 GMT -8
I caught this too. The thing about brand extensions, as my mentor has repeated time and again, they hardly ever work to increase the market and always work to fragment it. Just because you broke the mirror into a thousand pieces does not mean you multiplied your market by a thousand.
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Post by Kainguru on Jun 30, 2012 5:17:22 GMT -8
I'm going to admit that I have frequented that dim murky corner of the Internet to acquire pdf's of long out of print products. However (!!), I did (and still do) own the original physical copies of these products - they're old now with fading covers and delicate spines . . . I want to resurrect an old campaign (a certain evil temple of the elements) for a group of younger players who never had the thrill the first time round and I'd rather not effectively burn my original in the process by subjecting it to the rigours and hazards of the gaming table. Do I think what I've done is wrong or morally deficit? Hell no, legally questionable yeah but years ago so were those tapes I had in my car of the vinyl LP's I legally owned at home . . . When push comes to shove . . .
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Jun 30, 2012 6:58:34 GMT -8
Does anyone remember taping songs off the radio? We used to do that - particularly in the Eastern Block (USSR) countries where Western music was hard to buy but a short wave radio was standard issue.
I NEVER groked the big hand wringing over this issue. I understand the law associated. I NEVER understood the 1st World guilt trip here.
FanSub anyone?
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Post by Kainguru on Jun 30, 2012 9:29:46 GMT -8
Hell yeah I remember taping songs off the radio ! Not unique to former soviet block countries I can assure you - especially if you were growing up in a time when it could take anything from 6months to 2 years for a physical release of a song would be available. Back then Australia was a far away land on the frontiers of western civilisation.
It's not so much that the people of the 1st world (?) have a guilt complex it's (pause) complicated . . . In the same way Facebook gives this as an option for relationship status. A true artist is rarely ever rich in their own lifetime but we've managed to perfect a system that allows people to still profit from those works and they jealously guard that privilege. Google Elvis estate, Disney and copyright for a better understanding of how cut throat it can get. I love Elvis, my Dad loves Elvis, but he died when I was like 10 years old and there was all this fuss here in the UK recently because his back catalogue was about to fall into the Public Domain. Sorry to sound harsh but I think Elvis' need to profit from his IP sort of expired with him in 1977. It's a poor example I know because it has more to do with leaving a legacy for his surviving family and fair enough, into a point.
It's also to do with the concept of hoisting the Jolly Roger (piracy) - many pirates from history were privateers carrying letters of marque, whether they were a pirate or not depended on political expedience and which side of the cutlass you were on . . . Think of them as a modern day governments deniable assets. More importantly it's not so much guilt and hand wringing as fear of prosecution/persecution and over the top penalties. It's a symptom of how the west has evolved . . . Everything has a monetary value and ideas are both the hardest to appraise and most difficult to secure. In fact what is the value of an idea that never gets to be shared or known?
WOTC has responded to the 'new' threat of piracy of a very ineffective and counter productive manner. All they want to do in protect their IP rather than improve it's influence and reputation. What's really annoying is that with the original TSR lines it's IP purchased out of expedience so it's not like they have invested any creativity in creating these IP's in the first place. Though I think that is more Hasbro than WOTC, given the genius of the OGL from pre-Hasbro WOTC.
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Post by Kainguru on Jun 30, 2012 9:40:38 GMT -8
Apologies for the lapses in grammar - iPads are handy but the intuitive auto spell can be a real bitch and insert totally nonsensical words at random. I meant 'UPTO a point' not 'INTO'.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Jun 30, 2012 14:24:39 GMT -8
It's not so much that the people of the 1st world (?) have a guilt complex I believe the old term was Bleeding Heart Liberal, or White Man's problem. NOw it's first world problem. FanSub: Pirate a Japanese anime video. Slap on subtitles. Sell. Agree on honour to stop selling them, destroy them, and buy the official versions when those come out. Used to be traded over USENET on the alt. boards. Never heard the anime producers ever complain. May have done good for their foreign market. I fear a fine of stupid money and being sent to prison to be gang raped too. But I have a clear conscience about pirating. I do it. I also buy stuff I pirate. These days, I exclusively buy what I pirate. I also share stuff I pirate/buy including my opinions with friends and on places like Amazon. That's not to say I blab. Or make open requests on forums. I do not want anyone else in trouble sharing my cell to watch me get gang raped. But I have a clear conscience. I remember the royalties raping of Billy Joel by CBS throughout the 70' and 80's. So, no; I have no guilty conscience. No shame either.
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Post by Kainguru on Jun 30, 2012 15:18:00 GMT -8
It's not so much that the people of the 1st world (?) have a guilt complex I believe the old term was Bleeding Heart Liberal, or White Man's problem. NOw it's first world problem. Nooo it is neither an issue of being a bleeding heart liberal or the White man's problem . . . these are very different aspects of western civilisation that have nothing to do with piracy or the like. White man's problem is specifically a term used to describe the nature of European colonisation in it's attitude towards indigenous populations during the 19th and early 20th century - it's about race relations period. Bleeding heart liberalism is a derogatory term used by it's polar opposite to describe a certain social and political ideology . . . more to do with social policy, the role of authority and how communities should rectify deviances from the accepted norm. In fact a world governed by bleeding heart liberals would greatly improve your chances of NOT serving time for piracy . . .and probably significantly reduce the likelihood of you being gang-raped for any time you did serve. Bleeding heart liberals = idealists more often than not. The pirate-bay is a first world invention and based in a first world country which makes the contention that the first world has a hand wringing guilt complex about piracy counter intuitive. However, to keep this thread on track, less anthropology/sociology and more WOTC are dicks for pulling their pdf's I think is the core issue ;-)
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Jun 30, 2012 23:32:18 GMT -8
However, to keep this thread on track, less anthropology/sociology and more WOTC are dicks for pulling their pdf's I think is the core issue ;-) Amen Brother! And thanks for clarifying the jargon for me, too. To me, it all boils in the same kettle. My understanding of anthropology and sociology extends only so far as creating PR programs & RPG adventures.
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 1, 2012 7:48:10 GMT -8
What really "grinds my gears" is when did Hasbro realise that digital theft is both possible and easy . . . How deep was that head sized hole they obviously lived in since the early 1980's. Forget music, I remember trading floppy disc and before that tapes of various program's for the likes of the ZX80/81, spectrum, commodore 64, vic 20 etc etc etc. Did their very well paid experts think that the concerns over digital IP theft, at the likes of E3 etc since the early 90's, not apply to them?.
Do those same executives think that removing pdf's removes piracy? Fuck me twenty ways sideways have they never heard of a xerox machine!!! Before the reign of the silicon chip when a modem call to a BBS was the closet we had to an Internet (remember the likes of fidonet anyone?) I used a photocopier. There was a big sign at the university saying 'more than 10% in any one session from any one single volume was a breach of copyright' - great 10 trips to the copier room over the next two weeks then. I still have one such copy, first release of the 'dungeoneers survival guide': like I said Australia was a bit of an RPG backwater if you lived up north back then . . . a friend had a copy and the local game shop had stopped stocking it, 'nuff said . . .
Again Hasbro pulling the pdf's was a dick move . . . pre-Hasbro WOTC appeared to have a far more realistic and accessible attitude. Don't blame the kid (WOTC) blame the parent (Hasbro) . . .
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