Regarding the whole issue of the legality of pdfs and a person's oponion of them. . .  I think that you can sum up the various attitude's as follows:

1- Absolutley won't have anything to do with .pdf files
2- Would own .pdf files ONLY if an original of the item were in their collection.
3 - Doesn't mind owning a few pdf's and searching for a "free" download or trading them with friends
4- Will actively seek out and buy illegal .pdf files
5- Will actively create and illegally sell .pdf files (anything for a buck, right?)

I am sure that most of us here are in either Group 2 or 3.   Sure, there is always an uproar about illegal pdf's and rightly so. . .  when someone actively creates and sells them (on eBay for instance) they do, in fact, undermine and lower the values of collectable items.  Further, they are in competition with other sellers of legitimate items and can potentially lower the final sale price of everyone on eBay.

Yet, I don't have any moral issues with acquiring the occassional (or frequent) pdf file and downloading it.  So what if you have an ST1 pdf?  How many hundreds of mp3 files are on my computer?  How about all of you?  I bet the Acaeum membership total of illegal mp3 and pdf files is staggering. . . is it legal?  Well, no. . . . but we all do it anyway. . .

Personally, I don't have one pdf files in my possession - I absolutely HATE reading anything lenghty on a computer screen and a printed copy is just too ugly to be endured. . .

But. . .

- Should selling .pdf files on ebay be condoned?
- Should we allow forum users to post a list of all their .pdfs in the classified section for trade or sale?
- Is it right for Cougar to have pdfs of all the rare on his mailing list and sell them for profit?


In my opinion, the answer is "NO" to all the above.  A little shady dealing on the side never hurt anybody. . . but keep it cool and don't insult the rest of us by thinking that you are the "genius" who is going to make a "ton" of money on eBay by selling hundreds of CD compilations with  one day auctions and $10.00 shipping charges.

red_dawn wrote:

As a "Reader" rather than a "Collector" of OOP items, Im struggling to see why I should care that the value of low-mid rarity items has come down.

Exactly. PDFs are here to stay, and the casual buyer is a winner for it. Collectors may not like the new reality, but it doesn't really matter.

PDFs are nice for printing a page or two from a perfect-bound manual that you don't want to wreck by smashing it into a scanner, but...

...printing out the entire 96-page book? That entails some cost in time, ink, and paper. And they still haven't developed a non-fatiguing computer screen on a portable, durable (as in droppable, like a book), inexpensive platform. When they do, E-books will spread like wildfire.

    Has the price for an Orange B3 dropped the last five years or so?  The PDF on the TSR/WOTC website has been available for about that long.  I've had a pdf of The Jade Hare for several years, which I got from another guy online, yet I don't see the price for these dropping. Amazing Spiderman #1 reprints don't hurt the value of the original except for the most casual of fans.  Surely PDFs or copies of rare D&D items follow the same pattern.  
   PDFs have only hurt the value of items that were drastically overpriced to being with...those of us hording multiple copies of ST1, POTVQ, whatever, need not worry that copies will drive down value.

Mike B.