Normally I skip over these but this one caught my eye.  The cover color is off and it's missing the B5 designation on the front left corner.  


** expired/removed eBay auction **


-SKA

Be aware -- same seller listed this a few weeks ago.  Same grayish color. "B5" is present.  No mention of a POD, and the module is a bit worn.  It was sucked into our valuations, and I remember looking it over at the time because of the color.  Decided it was just some sort of sun fade.  So not sure what's going on here.


** expired/removed eBay auction **


Regardless, I banned the seller off of Auction Hunter searches.  I really hate people selling POD's on eBay -- it's inappropriate.  Buy a POD to play with.  But don't try and sell it; it's a photocopy and it's worthless.

Foul

Was the used B5 PoD? It doesn't look it. It just looks like an old used copy to me.

FoulFoot wrote in POD's on eBay:I really hate people selling POD's on eBay -- it's inappropriate.  Buy a POD to play with.  But don't try and sell it; it's a photocopy and it's worthless.

What is the difference then between selling a reprint of say T1-4, and selling a reprint of say PotVQ? Our members sell these online.
And if you buy a copy of something of of DrivethruRPG or DMs Guild, should you then be banned from selling those books on to others if you don't like them?
One option would be to force (legislate) all PoD printers to place a watermark reading COPY in big letters across every page and make it clear to all publishers that only products they print and ship themselves can be considered commercially available products, and force online resellers like DrivethruRPG and DMs Guild to make in clear that if you buy from them you are not permitted to sell or distribute your book and by doing so you are breaking copyright law.

But books now are printed PoD. Why is there a difference between buying a book at Borders or your local Games Store which has been printed at the same press and shipped directly to the store when ordered in the 10's or 100's of copies, and then  selling it on eBay, or buying the same book through DrivetruRPG, buying 10 copies and selling them on eBay?

Or is it a case that nothing pre-2010 should be permitted to be sold if it's not a genuine pre-2000 printing? But anything in the modern era where everything is PoD should be allowed to be sold?

I just don't get how you can set rules to protect the dumb people out there from spending their money as they wish. It seems a minefield of speculation and subjectiveness to even distinguish between what is an acceptable printing of a product and what isn't, and you'd need a whole team of eBay employees trained in this field just to filter it, and every decision they would be making would be a decision to remove money from eBay's revenue stream, which in and of itself is a conflict of interest.

These aren't targeted at collectors as we understand collectors. These are targeted at players and those players are free to buy from DrivetruRPG as easily as you or I.

Grug Greyskin wrote in POD's on eBay:
This guy deserves a ban and is clearly deceiving buyers, but I don't think it is necessarily inappropriate to resell PODs. You own it and can do with it as you will. As long as you clearly describe the item as POD, not as an original item.

Filtering out stuff on the forum is good because it tailors the algorithm to more accurately select things which are of interest to forum members. Most of us have no interest in reprints of any kind, as the word ‘reprint’ may well have been a good trigger word. The photo is clearly of a perfect blunt modern reprint as described.

I haven’t read all of the sellers posted items, but of the two we have flagged here, the first is clearly described as a brand new reprint of an old product, and the second is described as a fairly condition copy that is genuine and would suit someone who may wish to buy it as a play copy or placeholder until they can buy a better condition original. The photo is clearly of a used original copy with a frayed spine, loose leaf over a paper booklet. I cannot see the rest of the original photos of that auction, but it looks like a genuine used copy as described.

There seems to be a lot of honesty and an attempt by the seller to ‘sell’ the product to the buyer by explaining what type of buyer it would suit and where it might sit in a collection. We may disagree that a buyer may wish a used fair condition copy as a placeholder, or a mint condition reprint as a valued piece, but I cannot read deception into those two items.

As I say, I haven’t taken the time to review other items in his shop, but I would caution that we are judging what we desire to be ‘right and honourable’ based on our viewpoint as niche collectors who site somewhat at the pinnacle of the informed D&D collecting world.

The majority of buyers do not buy and collect or even care for the nuances of the products as we do. The same way most people just buy a car, or a laptop, or a brand of coffee. For most people it’s just stuff, and they do a level of research commensurate to the value the product has to them and then pull the trigger and buy. If they feel buyers remorse, I suspect they are more likely to regret not just downloading the PDF than overspending on a rough original copy, and indeed an modern reprint.

Just my view from sunny Scotland where it has hardly stopped raining for three days straight.

Are there any examples?
Where is the above two listings is the guy lying or misleading the buyer?
What has he written, versus, what have you read into what he has said?

I'm looking for a specific example I can get on board with.

The problem will always be that someone can use a  photo editing tool to remove the wording (or indeed completely replace) the covers.
Also (in the case of modern RPGs) these are printed in the same printshops, to the same quality, using (in most cases) the same print files as the originals.

People here do not care about 'fake' OSR or 5e product. They care because WotC released all the TSR products in PDF and licensed OneBookShelf to print them when requested. That is seen as a betrayal by those who collect the originals (which is just pointless because if you can't tell the difference, and you don't care to ask, you fall into the fool-and-his-money category of online targets.) The other argument seems to be, "Well, I'm not that dumb, but all these other people are dumb and we need to protect them from these scams." I can see this to a certain extent, but what is being sold is a perfectly legal product, so the argument is a mischaracterization.

The true argument by the PoD detractors is more akin to, "Well, they could buy it cheaper from OneBookShelf who were granted the monopoly by WoTC. These resellers are just price gouging."

And there's your argument at its core. People would prefer that the monopoly to sell reprinted products remain with big business, or that if a single guy in a garage in Utah decides to sell reprints, he should have to do it at Big Business cost plus a small commission. He should not be allowed to make a profit for himself, or add in the additional costs of having the products shipped to him, having to buy packing materials, having to spend his time listing the products, having to pay his electricity and factor in depreciation of his business equipment or make any allowance for storage costs.

This should be a free service provided by eBay resellers in order to keep the costs of the products similar to those on DrivethruRPG and Amazon.

I tend to agree. Everything sold online should be priced at the lowest cost achievable by the largest supplier. All other resellers should either price match and sell at a loss, or be forced to close their operations down.

We already have algorithms emerging that trach historic price data, and compare price data across multiple platforms. It is only a small step change to implement forced price controls over all products 'in order to protect the consumer.' What could be more innocent and noble a motive that protecting the innocent from their own bone idleness and stupidity?

.

I will grant that there may be the odd instance where someone takes a crappy photo and says, "This is an original product published by TSR in 1983." But most of the examples posted here are just people selling perfectly legal PoD products no different to NKG, with perfectly honest descriptions, and greater honesty and clarity.

Selling something and lying about its condition and posting unclear or misleading photos is the same for all products. It's been happening for 20 years or more. No-one is saying it should be illegal to sell incomplete items, and how dare these disgusting sellers do that to the unsuspecting collecting community. eBay has a dispute resolution mechanism that deals with such things, as do credit card companies, and as any seller will tell you, it is heavily biased towards the buyer and against the seller when it comes to a dispute over something sold.

It all seems like histrionics and banner flying from those who wish computers and digital media had not come along.

And lets face it, the people who opened the door to this were WotC, the owners of the IP, and they have every right to do this.
Wait until they realize they can give everyone 'print-it-your-way' with the click of a website at no additional cost - Like buying a burger. Then you have infinite reprint potential and no way of tracking the alternate covers that get uploaded.

I don't complain about PoD the same way I don't complain about reproduction pottery or fake designer clothes.
I prefer to buy the originals. If I don't know enough about what I'm buying, I don't buy it., and I protect myself with eBay and my Credit Card.
These are basic steps that even the most dumbest of dumb buyers can follow. The last two are built into the system and almost impossible to avoid without taking deliberate action on your part.

I don't get the crusade. But then, I didn't get the crusade against PDFs fifteen years ago. I didn't get the crusade against digital media 10 years before that. The world moves on.

Sir Kill Alot wrote in POD's on eBay:
Not a crusade Ian, just pointing out that uninitiated people are paying well over what they normally would than just going directly to the source themselves.  Also pointing out the more dubious instances where the seller purports the photocopy is worth more than it actually is.

Is there no responsibility for 'the new guy' to do a bit of research on the internet before buying something? Or do we absolve every idiot of every decision they make? Isn't it the bone idleness and stupidity of these people that is the problem? In most instances a simple Google search shows them exactly how much something can be bought from on online reseller. If they then choose to buy anyway from an eBay reseller, because they don't trust DrivethruRPG, isn't that a decision for the buyer? The seller is offering them the opportunity to buy something through a retail channel that other resellers are refusing to use?

When I used to sell products on eBay I used to 'big up' what a great product I was selling, and what it contained, and how it could be used, and what the benefits were. I wouldn't lie about its completeness or its condition. Many of my buyers were on this forum. But I didn't hold back on how great Dreadmire was, and how much source material was contained in within, for an otherwise difficult to DM environ. I had 30 copies of humongous hardbacks to shift.

That doesn't make me a disreputable reseller.

Sir Kill Alot wrote in POD's on eBay:

So the 'little guy' is not the person trying to make a living selling crap online?
The giant corporations should be retain their monopolies and the small businesses should be stifled?
Why?
Why should the small business not be allowed to buy something from huge business and sell it to whoever will buy it at a proffit?
What is the difference between paying $1 for a tub of salt in Walmart, and paying $2.25 for the same tub of salt in the local privately run convenience store?
That's more than a 100% markup, and the schmuck running the convenience store will tell you tales of how he has to make a profit and how hard it is to do business these days, when in reality all he's doing is preying on the vulnerable people in his neighbourhood and leaching off of their hard earned cash.

But I see that as perfectly good and reasonable business.
There isn't anyone that is hurt by this in any way, who hasn't made the deliberate and conscious decision to do so. They are trading speed, convenience, and the security of being able to buy through eBay, for an additional cost. They know exactly how much that additional premium is, and they choose to buy at that price with their eyes open. No-one is being fooled here other than us, and we are just making assumptions that there are people being harmed here, because back in our day of being ignorant and lazy buyers, we did not have the resources buyers have now, nor did we have the consumer protection and eBay on our sides as buyers.

My last comment on this: reproductions that are sold as collectibles -- no matter how clearly marked -- only serve to make newcomers to the hobby wary, or even angry if they end up getting burned.  And too many bidders who sit on the sidelines because they're nervous that something is a counterfeit or a reproduction will depress market values.  Counterfeiting is illegal, we all know that.  If you want a reproduction to play with, buy the PDF and print it out yourself, or buy the POD from a legit source.  But I'd argue that no one buys POD's on eBay fully cognizant they're getting a reproduction.  Do you see anyone buying photocopies of The Hobbit (novel)?  No.  No one would do that.

In fact (now that I have this lofty perch on my soapbox), WTF is the deal with POD's anyways?  Who signed off on that brilliant plan?  Most companies jealously guard their IP.  That's why you don't see POD's of The Hobbit floating around.  But once you hand your baby off to the POD world, you can kiss your IP rights goodbye.  Good luck trying to sue someone for illegally downloading Keep on the Borderlands when you thought so little of it, you gave the reproduction rights to a photocopier.  I guess Wizards figured they're not making any more direct revenue off these old products, but that's pretty naïve.  You can always repackage, re-edit, re-release stuff for decades.

Foul

FoulFoot wrote in POD's on eBay:In fact (now that I have this lofty perch on my soapbox), WTF is the deal with POD's anyways?  Who signed off on that brilliant plan?  Most companies jealously guard their IP.  That's why you don't see POD's of The Hobbit floating around.  But once you hand your baby off to the POD world, you can kiss your IP rights goodbye.  Good luck trying to sue someone for illegally downloading Keep on the Borderlands when you thought so little of it, you gave the reproduction rights to a photocopier.  I guess Wizards figured they're not making any more direct revenue off these old products, but that's pretty naïve.  You can always repackage, re-edit, re-release stuff for decades.

The 'baby' is one they bought from a dying company with other peoples money and no vested interest in ever having created it or contributing towards it. It was just 'stuff' that was in the garage when they bought the house. They never have and never will give a flying F about anything that belonged to TSR. To them it is free sh!t, and they treated it that way. They hawked it out for whatever they could get for it. The problem here is we value an old company and its products they produced, and they value that company and the products they produced with substantially less regard.

Tszii wrote in POD's on eBay:I know this subject can get a little "extra"? Do people still say that? Anyway,
At this point, I am going to blame drivethrough RPG. Not that anyone should care who I blame.

You're absolutely right. WotC and their licensed vendors decided they would flood the market with cheap copies. These cheap copies inevitably end up on eBay. And like Foul says, it doesn't matter how clearly you mark it as a copy, there will always be some dumb schmuck who'll buy it. That's the problem with a relatively free market. WotC are permitted to do what they want with their IP regardless of what others think. DrivethruRPG are permitted to license to print products regardless of where those products end up in the economy. The buyers are permitted to buy those products and resell them without signing a resale agreement with WotC and their vendors. eBay are allowed to sell things and take profit without having to take responsibility for where those products are sourced, who they are sold to, and who is selling them.

The problem seems to be that every single person complicit in this distribution of PoDs is motivated entirely by money and profit, and the law is written in such a manner to legalize it.