Ethical moderation issue
Larry L.:
All of the above are solid observations.
In particular, Eero raises a good point that peer-to-peer file sharing technology is not the same thing as illegal content distribution. It is potentially an ideal technology for sharing the sort of work creators are willing to give away. There's the technological benefit of reducing the need for web hosting resources. Maybe negligible, maybe not, depending on the size of the file and the demand for the file. There's also the not-yet-fully explored possibility of getting work passed around by audiences who would otherwise never see it, maybe exploiting the thrill of seedy/underground/illicit venue. Independent publishing appeals to a number of definitions for success, and the aforementioned might fit in with that. I think it could reasonably be described as a "new punk avenue" for publishing. I know of a handful of indie RPG publishers who have tried this, I don't know if they feel it has been successful for them.
In terms of day-to-day moderation, however, I do see that it may not be practical to split hairs over what's legit and what isn't, or to recapitulate why every time it comes up. It would be fair to decide you don't want to touch "BitTorrent" with a stick, and let people take responsibility in private communications.
Actually facilitating illegal activities probably exposes anyone involved in the Forge up to a shitstorm of legal consequences. A litany of ethical or moral arguments for or against illegal file-sharing distracts from this reality.
What's your policy on, like, if somebody just posts a link to a PDF they don't have the right to distribute? How is this substantially any different?
Paolo D.:
(I'll assume that we are talking about links to other rpgs, and not music and stuff. I say this because sometimes I saw discussions about music scores for specific games and session, so I just want to specify what's the subject in my post)
I'll be very "material" here, I don't want to talk about what's good and what's wrong as an absolute, but just to talk about what I think could be better for The Forge.
If I got it right, this forum (and this "community", if it exists) is (also) about creation, discussion and promotion of indipendent roleplaying games and, more generally, of a "new", open-minded gaming culture in our hobby.
So, I think that torrents and in general other similar technological resources can be "good" for The Forge, because can be useful for the designer to experiment new ways of distribution for his indie game. That's why these resources were created in the first place - to create alternate means to share material. And so, I think that if a designer decides to release through peer-to-peer a free game or some other free material about his game, like a preview, a character sheet and so on, he should be able to provide the link in question in Actual Play, Game Development and Indipendent Publishing discussions.
But, sharing links to "not free" games on threads, could damage the author of the game. I say "could" because that's an open debate - if I sell my game's pdf at 15.00 $ on my website, and someone puts it on eMule or on a torrent and here it gets downloaded 100 times, am I losing 1500 $, or am I reaching 100 new gamers who will probably buy it after playing it and maybe talk about it with their friends? That's an open question, and I don't have an answer to it myself... Every author seems to have his own opinion about it, and I think it's good.
So, my opinion is: if I were the moderator here, every time I see a link to a "not free" game, I'd ask straight to the author with PM or email, "Do you want to see this link removed?", and remove it if he wants. At first this procedure could be a pain in the ass, but after some time you will know which "politic" each author has about this kind of links, and so you will be able to do it without necessarily asking to the author himself.
Best,
Paolo
contracycle:
I pretty much agree with Eero. I don't have much truck with IP myself, and indeed despise "property rights" more generally, but to endorse "pirate" material, actively or passively, is in effect picking a side in a war in which you may have no particular reason to be involved. If you DO have personal reasons to be involved, then all well and good, and you'll presumably have some idea of what you're getting into.
I happen to know (cough) that the entirety of WEG's Star Wars D6 material is available for download via torrent. I neither know nor care what the precise, current, legal status of this stuff might be, but I think it illustrates the potential danger that being known as "a haven for copyright theft" might introduce. It could potentially overshadow everything else you or the site does. If that's a banner you specifically want to carry, then fine. And while it's true in principle that torrents et al are a neutral technology, that's not really the case in practice. Because who in the world investigates everything thats made available for peer-to-peer download? In reality, no-one, and so if you yourself didn't make it your business to check that links posted here were clean, some of them inevitably won't be.
I say all this with some sadness, but because I know that the Forge's mission is somewhat distinct from my own interests. To date it has specifically supported at-least-break-even independent publishing in a conventional copyright context. A lot of that bugs me, because I'd rather see a society of pure enthusiasts, as it were, and sometimes it feels like you have to buy stuff to take part in the conversation, something like a mutually exploitative Tupperware party. But whatever my feelings might be, I can't see that the Forge can support something like, say, DiTV, and also risk hosting links to free copies of of the material via torrent or whatever. If you want to let authors make free links to their own work available, which some well might want to do, then limit it to their sub-forums.
So, I agree with Eero's points in both respects. Personally, I think old style copyright law has been made redundant, and some sort of new settlement will eventually be achieved. But in the meanwhile, everyone has to deal with the litiginous defenders of the ancien regime. There is even an organisation, Righthaven LLC, that has made a practice of purchasing the copyright to media articles for the express purpose of suing for infringement. There's no neutral stance here, unfortunately you do have to pick a side and either subvert or support the status quo, and given the Forge's practices and principles to date I cannot see that it would benefit from taking the controversial position.
Ron Edwards:
Thank you to everyone! I'm posting not to stop the conversation but to provide some clarity, or to acknowledge the bit that really nails the issue for me. Gareth wrote,
Quote
I don't have much truck with IP myself, and indeed despise "property rights" more generally, but to endorse "pirate" material, actively or passively, is in effect picking a side in a war in which you may have no particular reason to be involved.
That's very close to my view and probably exactly why I'm on the fence, or started there.
As a quick clarifier of my views on sales and publishing, my call is that both free and for-sale games are fine things. The emphasis on breaking even that Gareth mentioned is a secondary feature that I consider historical: that too many RPG publishers have gone commercial when they didn't necessarily have to (and might not have wanted to if they had known the options), and when they did, they ran into financial disaster due to incomplete and false information. I really don't want to give the message at the Forge that for-sale publishing is somehow better, or even that an acceptable (presumably minor) loss is a bad thing, if that's where you're coming from.
Everyone, please keep the posts coming as they are very helpful for lots of reasons.
Best, Ron
Ben Lehman:
I don't think, in general, it's reasonable without the consent of the creators. I think that downloads/torrents without creator consent kinda go against the principle of creator control.
yrs--
--Ben
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page