COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT THROUGH PDFs
SVC REPORTS:
There was lots of chatter on the industry Email lists last week about a new website that opened up with hundreds of free but illegal PDFs of products from a lot of manufacturers (including WOTC and ADB), some of which are de-watermarked copies of PDFs sold by manufacturers and some of which are scanned copies. GAMA was contacted and promptly had the US Secret Service shutting down the site and prosecuting the site owner, who faces thousands of dollars in fines and a year in prison.
The various arguments about passing around PDFs are garbage.
"He might buy something else someday" is silly; why would he buy book #2 if he got book #1 for free and can get book #2 the same way? Worse, the publisher never did book #2 because of poor revenue from book #1.
"He wouldn't have bought it anyway" is also rubbish; a guy with a thousand free but illegal PDFs would probably have bought at least some of those if he could not get them free.
"It's free publicity for publisher" is silly since the publisher isn't getting any revenue and anyone who sees the free but illegal copy is more likely to search for a free but illegal copy of the sequel than go buy a legal copy.
Walmart has taught the world that only morons pay full price, and this has bled over into the "why pay for what you can steal when stealing is easy, without risk, and without penalty"
There was lots of chatter on the industry Email lists last week about a new website that opened up with hundreds of free but illegal PDFs of products from a lot of manufacturers (including WOTC and ADB), some of which are de-watermarked copies of PDFs sold by manufacturers and some of which are scanned copies. GAMA was contacted and promptly had the US Secret Service shutting down the site and prosecuting the site owner, who faces thousands of dollars in fines and a year in prison.
The various arguments about passing around PDFs are garbage.
"He might buy something else someday" is silly; why would he buy book #2 if he got book #1 for free and can get book #2 the same way? Worse, the publisher never did book #2 because of poor revenue from book #1.
"He wouldn't have bought it anyway" is also rubbish; a guy with a thousand free but illegal PDFs would probably have bought at least some of those if he could not get them free.
"It's free publicity for publisher" is silly since the publisher isn't getting any revenue and anyone who sees the free but illegal copy is more likely to search for a free but illegal copy of the sequel than go buy a legal copy.
Walmart has taught the world that only morons pay full price, and this has bled over into the "why pay for what you can steal when stealing is easy, without risk, and without penalty"
posted by Federation Commander at 5:09 PM
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