Okay. A BIG moral question for those with strong opinions on the board....

If I sell an expensive or rare book on eBay, and in light of the need for the new buyer to want to keep it in as good condition as he can, is it morally wrong for me to offer to supply him with a digital copy of his purchase along with the item?

After all, he is permitted to make a digital copy under the law in both the UK and US, and it saves me just binning the CD I put the PDF onto.

The danger of course would be that a PDF of say the UK Basic could go wild though a buyer reselling or lending to a friend, and we all know that PDF security (password protection, DRM, watermarking etc.) can be stripped with relative ease.

I'd be interested to hear what the board thinks.

deimos3428 wrote:As far as morals are concerned, well...tough one.  If you have existing PDFs, you might offer them to the buyer, and destroy them if he isn't interested in them.  I think it's slightly more shady to offer to create a digital copy that doesn't already exist.  That's simply a method of increasing the sale price, you're not really making a copy for "personal use".  I'd just let the new owner worry about making PDFs for personal use, if that's his bag.

As I have already created the PDF to safeguard the book (as I don't carry home contents insurance), I was actually thinking of putting said product up for sale on eBay (UK Black Basic) and saying that I will include the PDF with the purchase. But whilst I know I have never distributed the PDF, there is the possibility of it then 'going wild'.

mbassoc2003 wrote:But whilst I know I have never distributed the PDF, there is the possibility of it then 'going wild'.

Unless you assume the rest of the world does not possess PDF scanning technology, I'm not sure how this puts you on poor moral footing.

mbassoc2003 wrote:R3 is hard to find, but the compilation Reloaded is much more than the sum of its parts. Having just flicked through it again and then repacked away safely, I'm leaning towards keeping it unless I have a serious reason to sell it. Every time I read parts of it I am impressed at how well it is put together.

At the other extreme, The Worlds Largest Dungeon is completely shite and I'd sell that without hesitation, except the world seems to be swamped with overstock of that doorstop.

Does anyone know if The Worlds Largest City is as bad as Dungeon?

I guess this review shows that AEG really pulled outh the stops to make sure they maintained the same level of crap across their product range. The fact that the company continues to push out this quality of products shows that the vast majority of RPG players are truely ignorant.

L. Wilhelm II wrote:    
The single most amazing aspect of this book is the incredible consistency with which it creates such tributes to shame on each and every page. Indeed the writing skill and style of this text is what we have come to expect from barely literate blue-green algae.

In this book you will not find any world information, overarching plot lines, maps of interior spaces, logic, or reason. Things you will find include special paper designed to absorb the blood and tears of the reader, shallow and stereotypical NPC descriptions with levels chosen to be more extreme than a Mountain Dew commercial, the explicit and sadistically detailed location of every single coin and magic item in the city at all times, and monotonous page art so bleak it would scare the cast of Orwell's 1984.

Editing and formatting problems serve to enhance the books profane aura. Lines of text are occasionally wrapped to the left and right of images for maximum seizure induction and grammatical errors can be found decorating the text with staggering frequency. While a few worthy pieces of art may be found by those adventurous enough to read the entire unholy tome they are on average exceedingly poor and placed in locations which I may only assume make sense in some non-euclidean alternate universe.

On the plus side the book functions as a fairly effective bludgeoning weapon. Also the feeling of joy and liberation one feels when putting down the book is akin to being freed from the Spanish inquisition.

Thank the Gods I didn't drop money on this. I already have one pile of shite, and don't need another. Maybe by some miracle these will turn out to be the most amazingly rare collectables, but I doubt it.

mbassoc2003 wrote:Riddle me this....

How come Google are getting away with digitising a whole array of modern books, against their copyrighter's permission and in contravention of most copyright law?

Is it because they are such a big company that US Law does not apply to them? Much like Microsoft, in that they can just buy their way out of any potential future problem and carry on doing whatever they want anyways?

Or is it because they claim it's for private use only, and are not distributing?

We are entering an increasingly digital world. Somewhere along the line, everything we collect will be digitised anyways. Is this an inevitable evolution of our time?

I belive
a) Libaries allowed them to do it with their catalogs (ie I think the Libary of Congress and several Major Universities to name some) allowed them to back up their stuff for free, and a lot of the stuff was out of copyright etc

b) Thought that google go sued by the writers/publishers at some stage for posting "partial" bits of their work.. I think at the end of the day the might have settled out of court (and so would I) not the entire thing was published online and if people wanted to buy it they still had too, either that or run the risk of google just deleating it and running the risk of lower sales- income generating revenue out of add for the books etc)

c) I thought they were bringing out a e-book reader thing, ie you could download a book and read it on a poratable computer screen thing..

Google have been very inatitive in generating income streems.. looks ay google maps and google earth, srated out free with no adds and the they changed so they could make some $$, smart move I think...

Brette:)

Luckily I live in Scotland. Here in Scotland it is not illegal to possess PDFs of products you don't physically own. It is not illegal to possess pirete software or bootleg music. It is only illegal to 'use' the material. So if your computer or CD/DVD were taken, the authoritied have to prove that you actually 'used' the copyrighted materials in order to prosecute you under Scottish law. In England and Wales you're f"cked.

All that said, I imagine it is illegal regardless for someone to supply such a 'backup copy' to another individual, especially if that person were charging for the time, materials and postage of such an item. Physical copies on a CD/DVD presumably are always illegal unless concent is given from the copyright owner. But then the bulk of the rare non-TSR D&D rarities are 'not approved for use' and breached TSR's copyright from the get go.

Copyright infringement was the backbone of this hobby. It was all the small press works that built the 'hobbyist' feel of this pasttime. We're now in a digital age, and PDF distribution is a manifestation of that same tradition. For me it keeps the corporate control feel at bay and brings a little of the chaos back into the market. D&D became too governed and removed from the player back in the 90's.

One wonders whether WoTC would defend their copyright if Dungeon were released on DVD for example. And I very much doubt any of the small time press authors would really give a damn. I mean, who would actually take action if a Judges Guild PDF Archive turned up for sale?

I for one have so many holes in my collection, and so little money to plug those holes, that I'd buy such items without bothering about long forgotten or giant corporate body copyright holdings.