D&D Handbook Distribution Lawsuit Settled For $125,000 124
The Installer writes "Wizards of the Coast is in the process of settling its claim against several individuals for illegal distribution of its newest copyrighted handbook. 'In one of three lawsuits brought by Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc., US District Judge Thomas S. Zilly on Friday accepted a settlement in which Thomas Patrick Nolan of Milton, Fla., agreed to a judgment against him of $125,000.' These were the lawsuits that went along with WotC's decision to stop selling the handbook in .PDF format. 'According to court filings, more than 2,600 copies of the handbook were downloaded from Scribd.com, and more than 4,200 copies were viewed online before the material was pulled from the document-sharing site at Wizards' request.'"
Re:Don't arrest me, jerkwads! (Score:4, Interesting)
Widespread consensus? Not in my groups. Oh sure, there are those people around, but we learned to ignore them like we learned to ignore the people who still protest that 1st edition was the best and demand that people play it.
We like 4th edition because it's not dumbed-down, it's wised up, with a system that's actually got some thought into its overall, not just a random mish-mash of whatever seemed like a good idea at the time.
Just the idea of all the class having actual abilities done along the same lines makes 4e a lot better.
But hey, you want to play 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Pathfinder, or whatever, you go for it. Like what you like.
Just don't diss me because I like what I like.
Sigh. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you're about to see Hasbro get all litigious on folks because they are not making what they think they ought to from the brand. Whatever the reason I think when companies start worrying about this kind of nonsense rather than continually producing good content its a harbinger of hard times ahead. Hopefully they'll sell of the brand or others like Pathfinder will take their place. I think it was a bad sign when they nixed the d20 license from 3rd edition. I don't know what Hasbro's numbers looked like but the industry as a whole was much better off when everyone was writing d20 products and the bookstores and cons were full of the stuff. Today D&D is almost irrelevant among the people that I know who still play RPGs. As a disclaimer, I'm just a sad creature who still reads through the books for entertainment value and writes a few pieces from time to time.
for those who don't know (Score:5, Interesting)
Wizards of the Coast was bought out by Hasbro a while back and underwent a transformation from geek utopia to corporate cash machine [salon.com].
The current dire state of the economy is forcing them to show their true nature to an unusual extent- for example, they've recently added a chase rarity to their flagship product, Magic: The Gathering, as well as releasing semi-monthly "collector's edition" products for same.
networking (Score:5, Interesting)
My, when the IT bubble burst in naught one, this D&D nerd at work was canned and that night, at a D&D game, he gets another job - for more money! Those games are what golf is to other professions!
In other news... (Score:3, Interesting)
Meanwhile companies like WizKids and Games Workshop continue to show [games-workshop.com] their complete disdain [photobucket.com] for their customers and the fans of their products as well as their utter inability to properly market their games. Which is especially evidenced by the utter failure of WizKids' "Mech Clix" line for Battletech, and arguably evidenced by Games Workshops' constant price increases for Warhammer 40k; Catalyst seems to be going in completely the opposite direction - embracing digital distribution and open source in ways essentially unheard of in this day and age.
Re:Don't arrest me, jerkwads! (Score:5, Interesting)
At first I liked some of the ideas in it, but after a while it seemed it mattered very little which class you played, they all end up pretty close to being the same, often with abilities that are the same (or very nearly the same) but with a different name. All the spells with great non-combat use, for example, are missing. All the abilities of every class in fact, focus on combat. Hack and Slash is fun and all, but it isn't the sole reason why I play rpgs. If I wanted that only, I'd just play a computer game. Some of the best sessions I've ever played in were games where not a single attack was made the whole time. I'll probably play 4E again some time, but probably like the board game it feels like it is trying to emulate.
Now that Fantasy Craft is out and I've had a chance to read through it a bit, I think it is what 3.5 should have been. The rules are complete, handle combat and non-combat well, and give you real choices as you level up as to what you want to do with your character.
Re:Don't arrest me, jerkwads! (Score:2, Interesting)
My first reaction was remembering that even though I own the 3.5 manual (which I paid $90 for some years back) I still don't have pdfs, and need to obtain them.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Interesting)
Meanwhile companies like WizKids and Games Workshop continue to show [games-workshop.com] their complete disdain [photobucket.com] for their customers and the fans of their products as well as their utter inability to properly market their games.
Wow. This part of the Terms of Service for Games Workshop is pretty disturbing:
"SUBMISSIONS
Any notes, e-mails, online messages or bulletin board postings, ideas, suggestions, concepts, designs, or other material submitted to any physical GW company address or to any web site owned or controlled by GW and/or to any e-mail addresses contained in or on those web sites ("GW Web Sites") will become the property of GW throughout the world and GW shall be entitled to use the material for any type of use forever, including in any media whether now known or hereafter devised. When you submit any material to any physical GW company address or any GW Web Sites, you agree, offer, warrant, and represent, both explicitly and tacitly (and GW accepts) that you are assigning all intellectual property rights in that material to GW and that GW has the right to use that material at any time entirely in its own discretion for whatsoever purpose including for commercial, promotional, and advertising purposes without any obligation (including any financial obligation) to you now or at any time in the future. You waive and relinquish any rights, including "moral rights," that may exist in any content to the furthest extent permissible by law and agree not to assert any rights over that content. We are afraid that in order to protect ourselves legally, this is the only way we can operate. If you are unhappy with this policy, then please do not post or send any material to GW.
Is this just Games Workshop being incredibly greedy, or is this SOP for online sites now?
I knew they were doomed... (Score:3, Interesting)
I knew they were doomed when I ran into to WotC employees at GDC'06.
It was after hours, and a few of us working at the conference were getting together for the yearly D&D game. We asked the two WotC people working the booth if they'd like to join us. "Oh... We don't play games, actually..."
Big difference from the old days of any random person at WotC (even accounting [youtube.com]!) being pulled in to playtest the latest
Re:Nerds (Score:4, Interesting)
I never understood this..
Why ... The ... Hell ... Did ... You ... 'Need' ... Those ... Books
(sorry)
Don't those books just give you extra rules and powers? What happened to simply making up house rules to fill whatever gaps you percieve there are? Is it so important to have publisher certified material say that you get extra turn undead roll on level 12?
Making those rules and sharing them with community? Or is there some comandment that you mus only ever use whatever is in handbooks, no more, no less?
Have players and DMs grown so pitifull that they can not use their own fantasy and creativity to have fantasy adventure? Have you all turned to munchkins in few years since I last played RPG?
Re:Sigh. (Score:4, Interesting)
That said the rest of what you say has a pretty good point to it and I'm glad it brought you into a hobby that I hope you enjoy. I'd also be curious to see where you are in 2-5 years and if you've moved on to something that supports more complex and challenging role-playing side of things or if the tactical challenge is what you enjoy. 4th edition plays like a artificial tactical game to me and really doesn't provide the effective simulation feel of previous versions. I feel more like I'm playing a card game or a board game but that's just my personal feeling.
Again, I am glad it introduced you to table top RPGs and I hope it helps grow the market as a whole. I just don't know if I believe that it has without seeing some numbers given the contentious nature of it's launch.