Can RPG companies prevent online piracy of their work?
The surprising answer is yes; there are precisely two ways:
1. Make your stuff free online anyways.
2. Suck so badly no one wants what you offer.
Either way, no piracy.
Aside from that, NO. There's no way. So what's the point in arguing the fucking "principle" of the thing, when you've "sticking to your guns" means insisting on a reality that no longer exists?! I mean fucking christ, when you have to be in an alternate timeline where the internet never existed in order to win, you know that you're really fighting a lost and pointless cause.
You're the Iranian Ayatollahs of the gaming hobby.
RPGPundit
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Comments (3)
Really, before the internet was sharing PDF's we were photocopying books in high-school libraries. Sharing content is integral with the hobby it's in understanding this that game companies can discover ways to make money using it to their advantage. Some of the things Paizo is doing seem to be along these lines.
Can we prevent rape, murder, tax evasion, speeding, shoplifting, or any other activity by outlawing it and punishing those we catch?
Does the persistence of the criminals mean we ought to give up on these issues?
If copyright infringement is different from other types of crime, the difference is not that "the victims can't stop it."
The difference is that there is a general public perception that these things are real crimes, and it is not something regularly done by millions of people each day.
Well, speeding maybe. But the difference there too is that there is a quantifiable measure of physical danger to others in speeding; whereas filesharing's only "danger" is that MAY reduce the profit margin of certain corporations (its never really been demonstrably proven to be a direct cause). Likewise, the "cost" of fighting speeding is that people will have to go slower from one place to another; whereas the "cost" of fighting "piracy" is that we are being obliged to give up a great deal of fundamental freedom of communication on the internet and hand over a great deal of power to these corporate interests which will be harmful for the intellectual climate and civilization in general, particularly when combined with these extremely powerful corporate interests using their money and the corruption of public officials to change copyright law to insure that they retain control over intellectual property forever.