Report sellers who infringe copyrights!
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Post Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2021 12:20 pm 
 

I just blocked him today.  

Foul

  


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Post Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:06 pm 
 

Is it legal to do this? Just saw this on ebay...


** expired/removed eBay auction **

  

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Post Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:46 pm 
 

No, it's not legal.  Another seller making money off of copyrighted material.  The company name on eBay is "eheadquarters" - selling digital porn, comics, magazines, etc., and apparently been on eBay since 2012.

The seller even has their email address in the info so someone can contact them directly.  The email address says it all: "mrbutthead1@g***.com".

  

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Post Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 5:29 pm 
 

dbartman wrote in Report sellers who infringe copyrights!:The email address says it all: "mrbutthead1@g***.com".


Seems legit. LOL

  


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Post Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 10:52 pm 
 

dbartman wrote in Report sellers who infringe copyrights!:No, it's not legal.  Another seller making money off of copyrighted material.  The company name on eBay is "eheadquarters" - selling digital porn, comics, magazines, etc., and apparently been on eBay since 2012.

The seller even has their email address in the info so someone can contact them directly.  The email address says it all: "mrbutthead1@g***.com".


lol, hadn't seen his email :D, your right, pretty much says it all, thanks for the info.

  


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Post Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 7:45 am 
 

Is this legit?  

Somehow, it looks questionable to me:


** expired/removed eBay auction **




Note they say: PROFESSIONALLY MADE PERFECT BOUND LICENSED WIZARDS OF THE COAST AUTHORIZED REPRINT

And also...

TONS OF D&D CATEGORIZED IN MY EBAY STORE

  

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Post Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 9:16 am 
 

waysoftheearth wrote in Report sellers who infringe copyrights!:Is this legit?  

Somehow, it looks questionable to me:


These can be purchased from Drivethrurpg for $8.24 plus shipping.

Chainmail: Rules for Medieval Miniatures (0e) - Wizards of the Coast | D&D, Original Edition | DriveThruRPG.com

So, while it it not the original, technically it's legitimate.  Some people see these kinds of sales as unethical and some view them as opportunistic.  Therefore, some people would say this kind of sale is questionable and others would not.   8)


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Post Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 10:36 am 
 

benjoshua wrote in Report sellers who infringe copyrights!:
These can be purchased from Drivethrurpg for $8.24 plus shipping.

Chainmail: Rules for Medieval Miniatures (0e) - Wizards of the Coast | D&D, Original Edition | DriveThruRPG.com

So, while it it not the original, technically it's legitimate.  Some people see these kinds of sales as unethical and some view them as opportunistic.  Therefore, some people would say this kind of sale is questionable and others would not.   8)


I think the listing is pretty clear on what is being offered. Some of these POD resales are much less transparent, which imo is what would make them unethical.

  


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Post Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:47 pm 
 

I wasn’t aware that the White Box was available from Drivethrurpg as a pdf with supplements!


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Post Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 8:54 pm 
 

Wow... so what's the basis of the "LICENSED WIZARDS OF THE COAST AUTHORIZED REPRINT" statement?

  

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Post Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 10:54 pm 
 

waysoftheearth wrote in Report sellers who infringe copyrights!:Wow... so what's the basis of the "LICENSED WIZARDS OF THE COAST AUTHORIZED REPRINT" statement?


He bought it off Drivethrurpg, who is presumably authorized by WotC to sell these.

  


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Post Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 5:28 am 
 

Is this suggesting that anyone is "authorised" to scan, print and resell any old PDF they happen to buy from DriveThru?  
Or is it more specifically that WotC or DriveThru has issued a statement saying it's open season on reselling their D&D PDF catalogue?

Either way, I can't quite get my head around it :)

  

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Post Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 7:55 am 
 

If these are bought Print-on-Demand from DrivethruRPG, DMs Guild, Lulu etc. then no copyright infringement is occurring at all. These would be perfectly legitimate published products and the seller is free to sell them as they please. Unless of course they entered into a 'no resale' contract with the vendor, which I very much doubt would even be enforceable - You can buy this book but you must destroy it after you're finished - Does the US allow publishers to have legal control over the disposal of privately owned property they sell yet?

So the real question is, have WoTC released the product PoD? And if the answer is 'yes' then there is nothing to see here. The seller is doing exactly what a seller of a spiral bound Chainmail is doing. Selling a product they purchased from the publisher, and hoping for a profit.

EDIT - drivethrurpg.com/product/17010/Chainmai ... iatures-0e.  So if he bought PoD, what part of this transaction is illegal?

And what 'ethically' is different from me buying 12 copies at $8 and selling them for $20 and me buying 12 copies of Chainmail I came across in a charity shop for $40 a copy and selling them for $100? I do not get why selling a legitimately purchased book from a licensed online reseller, paying the published asking price where the IP holder receives their agreed cut, and then attempting to find arbitrage in the market is in any way unethical. It seems that the only issue is an affront to collector's belief that they should be able to dictate the rules of the marketplace, when the transaction is between the legal IP holder, their licensed seller, their legal purchaser, and an unknown party who for whatever reason prefers to be able to physically see what they are buying and/or is too lazy to Google their purchase before buying.


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Post Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 8:18 am 
 

waysoftheearth wrote in Report sellers who infringe copyrights!:Is this suggesting that anyone is "authorised" to scan, print and resell any old PDF they happen to buy from DriveThru?  
Or is it more specifically that WotC or DriveThru has issued a statement saying it's open season on reselling their D&D PDF catalogue?

Either way, I can't quite get my head around it :)


It seems to be the case that WoTC decided a long time ago (more than a decade I have been buying TSR PDFs from the forerunner to DrivethruRPG), that they would take a small profit from their redundant IP and manufacture PDFs before they were beaten to the post by the illicit side of the PDF 'sharing' community. They seem to have done very well out of it, and I for one have parted with a sizeable volume of $$$ over the years to fill in a collection that I did not wish to have to chase down and scan, and also felt an obligation to support the flourishing legitimate PDF market that was starting. Without the support that most people gave to the PDF market, the money would not be there for all the small press stuff that now gets published under the banner of OSR or NuSR or whatever moniker is in vogue this week.

WoTC set what they believe is a fair price for unit sold and sell products into the market. They have, as far as I am aware, no legal right to demand that a buyer destroy a purchased product, or that a buyer only be entitled to buy a single product.

Characterizing this as 'open season on reselling their D&D PDF catalogue' is disingenuous. This would be open season on selling modern WoTC reprints and is no different to NKG selling copies of the latest 5E module purchased from WoTC. The fact that one product is bought in units of maybe 10 and one is bought in units of 100 is no different.

The only possible crime that I could see is if the seller is running these off from his own PDF at a local printshop, but he appears to have made it clear that that is not the case, and the fact that WoTC do license this product for printing would seem to support that hypothesis.


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Post Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 9:59 am 
 

I agree there's no problem whatever with buying something then selling it later. No problem at all.

I guess because the seller had a bunch of OD&D-related reprints, with multiple copies of each (well... 2x Chainmail and 4x Swords & Spells were the only two I looked at), I wondered whether the seller might have purchased one CM PDF and was then selling many POD hard-copies from that single PDF purchase. That's the part I couldn't imagine WotC or DriveThru authorising.

Apologies if I offended.

  

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Post Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 10:18 am 
 

waysoftheearth wrote in Report sellers who infringe copyrights!:I guess because the seller had a bunch of OD&D-related reprints, with multiple copies of each (well... 2x Chainmail and 4x Swords & Spells were the only two I looked at), I wondered whether the seller might have purchased one CM PDF and was then selling many POD hard-copies from that single PDF purchase. That's the part I couldn't imagine WotC or DriveThru authorising.


I think this is pretty unlikely, it looks like a legitimately purchased POD from DTRPG that he is reselling. The multiple copies offered is a red flag, but he is selling for more than the DTRPG price, so maybe this is his brilliant plan to get rich. Often these type of listings are sketchy (95% of the listing leads one to believe it is an original), his aren't so bad in that respect.

  

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Post Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2021 7:38 am 
 

waysoftheearth wrote in Report sellers who infringe copyrights!:I agree there's no problem whatever with buying something then selling it later. No problem at all.

I guess because the seller had a bunch of OD&D-related reprints, with multiple copies of each (well... 2x Chainmail and 4x Swords & Spells were the only two I looked at), I wondered whether the seller might have purchased one CM PDF and was then selling many POD hard-copies from that single PDF purchase. That's the part I couldn't imagine WotC or DriveThru authorising.

Apologies if I offended.


No need for apologies here.

What I was getting at was, can I buy a PDF and then get PoD copies printed from it? As in, can I buy a PDF of say, L3, and then send it to a Print-on-Demand company and ask them to print me 50 copies? If so, then both the Printer and the Purchaser are breaking the law, and of course there's no way of knowing exactly what the mechanic is here.

But, if I can buy them at $8 from DrivethruRPG and sell them for $20 on eBay, there's a fair spread there already for a hobbyist reseller, and I doubt the market is too great. The market is really limited to the feckless and the lazy who want something but don't care too much about finding out what they are buying or whether it is good value for money.

I think there is gonna be a lot more of this going forward, and I would imagine in the OSR space (which is probably out with the interests of most on Acaeum), the quality of the PoDs will be almost indistinguishable from official 1st and 2nd print runs of hardcopy products. So until someone starts cataloguing such things and picking apart known hardcopies from known aftermarket purchased PoDs, everything post 2010 will likely remain a giant mess of who knows what.


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Post Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2021 10:38 pm 
 

** eBay auction listing blocked.  Please enable cookies in your browser for this site and for eBay! **

so this is a bit fishy

for all of 29.99 you can own tsr's entire 1st-3rd edition catalog

  
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