gauntner666
The Law on this is unless you are the copyright holder, or a licensed vender you have no entitlement for damages.

deimos3428
Absolutely untrue.  Of course you don't have to be a copyright holder to sue for damages.  You just have to avoid using sections of copyright law to sue.  I assure you that if someone crashes a car into the side of my house, I won't be turning to copyright law to sue them.  Wink  

gauntner666
You would have to turn to something else, because under copyright you would have no entitlement.

deimos3428
Likewise, if someone devalues my collection by illegally distributing copyrighted material, I likewise would not be using copyright law to sue them.

gauntner666
Yes, in the U.S you can sue anyone for any reason you deem necessary, but weather or not that case will hold merit is a different story.

As for damages, winning damages and collecting damages are two totally different worlds. I have been sued many times and lost, and I have sued many times and won. I have never paid 1 dollar when I lost, and most of the time never received anything when I won.

In 1990 I went to my bank and borrowed $40k for a business investment.  The business collapsed and I didn't have any money to pay the bill, I didn't even have enough money to file bankruptcy.  Eventually the bank sued me.  Yes they won a judgement for 40k, plus legal fees, interest and so on.  I never paid anything on this bill. Not because I didn't want to, but because I didn't have the money.  They could sue me all they wanted, but you can't get blood from a rock. And now the statue of limitation is up, and Im no longer legally obligated to do anything.

My computer business ran from 1992 to 1999 when I retired.  During that time we had several lawsuits from people not paying for services we provided.  Yes we won everyone, but as to this day, I have never received a penny.  I lost a lot of equipment, and wages were paid out, and so on, on losses that can easily be proven. Under PA law you have to prove that someone can pay a bill, not the other way around.  But this in itself can be an expensive endeavor.  So what I did was file judgement against these people and put leans against their properties.  But all this does is effect their credit, and one-day they will die or sale a property, then I can get paid.  But if they don't care about their credit, or they don't own any property, or other leans on the property, it's just a waste of time and money.

3 years ago my neighbor's dog bit me and caused nerve damage to my arm.  At first I had no intentions of doing anything.  All I wanted was proof if the dog had its shots or not.   The neighbor wouldn't provide this information, and was basically a total jerk about the situation.  So I sued for the cost of surgery, lost wages, and pain and suffering.  The court put this judgement in the form of restitution, so that if the person didn't pay they could be arrested and charged.  But you know what I got, a check for $7.00 a month every month for the last 3 years. Hell the medical bills alone were almost 10 grand. Because yes once again I would have to legally prove the person could afford to pay more money.  Now that person has recently died, and left nothing of value behind.  That's more money I will never see.

You may go to court and the court may say that under such and such law we can award you such and such amount of damages.  Or the court may say you have to prove your damages.  And I think that's what the court will do.  Im not saying that it's not possible, but I don't see how your are going to prove that a PDF file devalues an actual hard copy.  In all actuality it could be argued that they increase the value of an original copy.  After all why is it that people want the pdf's in the first place? Is it just to save money from buying the original, maybe.  Or do they want the Pdf's solely to use within their games, so that they can save ware-and-tare on the original copy.  Thus maintaining, and over time increasing it's value.

If you want to sue to prove a point, then by all means go ahead. But if it's for monetary reasons, I think you would be better off buying lottery tickets.  In the long run it will probably cost you more money and time, than you will ever get back.

Xmas-stuff on ebay uk, selling CD copies of 3E manuals.


eBay listings

cap_ap, selling CD's of books.

cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& ... 2&rd=1

"Please note that these are copies of the official releases of the book, that I have purchased and are subject to Wizard's of the Coast copyright. A bid on this item signifies that this CD is intended to be used only for easy reference to and as a backup of books you have already purchased."

Oh, well that makes violating the copyright A-OK then!  :roll:

GraysonAC wrote:cap_ap, selling CD's of books.

cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& ... 2&rd=1

"Please note that these are copies of the official releases of the book, that I have purchased and are subject to Wizard's of the Coast copyright. A bid on this item signifies that this CD is intended to be used only for easy reference to and as a backup of books you have already purchased."

Oh, well that makes violating the copyright A-OK then!

Now that is a difficult one. You are permitted under UK law to keep a copy of a book that you own, either as a photocopy or in digital form.

You are also permitted to supply copies for that purpose, and you can charge a fee for the service of supplying a copy.

What you are not permitted to do is supply copies to people who have no right to a copy, and the onus is on the supplier to ensure that the recipient has an original copy of the book.

I don't know about US law, but under UK law the supply of copies is permitted. This is a much more grey area.

I think what he meant was that the auction would be legal, by UK laws, as long as he makes sure the buyer has an actual copy of every book on the CD.

Which, I'm obviously positive the seller is doing..

mbassoc2003 wrote:
Like most buyers, I would prefer to spend $50 on an original than buy the PDF. I tend to aboud 3E anyway, but I don't think the availability of all the JG PDFs affected my intent to spens hundreds of bucks buying my collection.

well i think anyone who would choose to go get a PDF over the opportunity of having an item thats what 20-30 years old, is absolutely insane.

Al

mbassoc2003 wrote:PDFs have their place. There's no way I'm gonna go paging through my JG collection when I've digitised it all. But there's no way you can play with the digital copies either. Even if you print them out.

I can see there are guys who buy CDs full of PDFs on eBay, but at the end of the day, if your a DM, you need the books, and if you're a player, you're not gonna be turning up at the table with your laptop.

I cannot condone PDFs because I collect them. But I wouldn't buy them. There's no guarantee of quality. That's why I make my own.

One of the guys I play with has most of the books on PDF - he just carts around his laptop to games, and he can find stuff relatively quickly. I've got PDFs of the books I own on this computer as well, so that I can quickly find stuff that might be hard to find in the books.

Still, a laptop is no substitute for a bookshelf

For those of us who played RPGs before home computers were available, there's something very nostalgic and theraputic about thumbing through hardback manuals, or relaxing and reading a copy of Dragon. You justs can't replace that with a 2lbs gadget.

I don't think many folks that would disagree will ever find their way to these forums

I prefer to read the book myself, but when you're in the middle of a big combat, finding something in 15 seconds instead of 60 is nice

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 47372&rd=1

This surely is a no-no?