That may be true of warez sites and games/software, but isn't necessarily true of file sharing like overnet and kazaa and everyday products. Normal people share their stuff on those networks - cracked or not - and for the modern gaming industry, I'd suspect that is much more of a problem.

Just for fun, I did a search on "d20", "D&D", and specific products/lines (worldworks, mongoose, malhavoic) on one of the file sharing networks. Wow. There is A LOT of stuff out there, most of it pirated (even though I've shopped at RPGNow and my FLGS, I didn't realize the vast quantity of D20 materials available).

In those searches, I found some of Denny's sets as well - although I had to dig a bit to find them. But they weren't being shared by a professional hack, they were being shared by normal people, and THAT is the problem I think that should be looked at. Ye olde normal person isn't going to try to break whatever protection scheme is used (if any), but if they are a file sharer, they _will_ share those files unless you make it inconvenient or difficult to do so.

But then you go back to the more important issue - how many people that pirate would pay for the product in the first place? That I don't have an answer for. I know a few that would probably pay for stuff they liked, if it was inconvenient for them to get free copies. I also know a few people that would never use something they didn't pay for. And I know a few people that pirate everything, and won't pay for anything except for storage space (and they'd probably steal they if they could). As many have mentioned, I don't think you're going to change the mindset of most people.

The final question becomes, by adding some sort of protection scheme to your IP, will you save (or make) more money by reducing piracy, or will you lose more money by making it more difficult for your paying customers, thus alienating them?

if you copy protect it, it will become easier to find on kaza / file sharing sites.

The only way you can protect this product is if you block printing it.

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

Anyone who can print the product can re-scan it and encode it back into a PDF. All it takes is one jackoff with a color laser printer and capabilities to print at 300-600dpi and you've got a copy protection free version on the net.
(And if you think folks won't go to the trouble of scanning in 200 pages of stuff... I can show you otherwise if you PM me)

Then it becomes something to 'value' because it's 'hacked' and people will put it on their kazaa shares, newsgroups and IRCfieservs and then yer screwed twice.

Another way you can screw yourself is by making it hard to manage your products by making lots and lots of small releases so that someone gets tempted to store all WWG products in one-big-zip and share it or burn it.

It *might* happen now but your packaging is so convenient I don't see why anyone would want to.

At the end of the day, IMHO, your best use of effort is find more honest fans who will support you and don't worry about converting the pirates. Build loyalty with your customer base (and you do a fine job with us here on the boards) and go get more. Encourage us to go get more fellow fans and bring them here with the marketing stuff we've asked for and contests, bounties etc...

I know it STINGS when you know that someone is using your product 'for free' but, I would wager that many of them don't even ever build anything with your stuff. The amount of commitment and time it takes nearly demands honesty in a person or at least a willingness to 'go public' and brag about your latest build to the forum here! Can't do that if you're a stinking pirate!

(My maiden is still slowly making progress... I need to whip the goblins a little more to get them working faster... I can't wait to post pics of the maiden anchored off Skull Cove with a Village and Castle in the background!)

I think Denny's done said all he's gonna say.

So let's sum up:
Since SeaWorks isn't showing up in searches yet, but other sets are, there is a lower probability that SeaWorks is suffering from piracy compared to other sets.

SeaWorks is highly speciallized. Only people who need sailing sets or are WWG fans are likely to buy it.

Copy-Protectection can always be beaten. If it shows up on my screen, I can copy it out of the DRM-protected file and restore it in my own PDF. Despite any disabling of the Copy function in Acrobat.

I learned of WWG from EnWorld. Since then I have seen many 0one and SkeletonKey Games products announced there, but I have not seen any WWG products announced there since Gothic came out.

Subscriptions could make some customers happy. Not all. I only buy select sets (actually, just one so far). Consider CheapAssGame's system of a subscription is "spent" on buying each release that comes out. So it's like a pre-order before you know what's coming out. Some categorical protection would be good (only send me fantasy related sets).

I see some action items as:
write up a formal Cease and Desist letter. Some of your fans would be willing to hunt down pirates and send it to ISPs with proof of violations.
Get a lawyer who can figure out how he can get rich by suing pirates and ISPs on your behalf (who cares if you get a share of the booty).
Write up a press release for each product (in advance) and post it at EnWorld
Keep making great sets!


Janx