"Who does it hurt?" Every precedent that it is OK to steal hurts any creative who might ever want to protect his own stuff.
If you won't limit yourself to what you KNOW is legal, how could I assume you will limit yourself when it comes to my stuff? Most gamers are too small to protect their copyright except by public opinion. So whenever we see somebody stealing other people's intellectual property the only way we have to protect our own is to make sure we let them know it isn't OK. If that means tossing some pirate out of a convention, well, that's how the Jolly Rogers (though I can't imagine doing that myself). Maybe the convention sponsor has seen his own scenarios ripped off and felt the hurt. I personally think allowing Cyberboard boxes helps rather than hurts game sales, and provide them for my games for free downloading, and even have one for free print-and-play if you want a hard copy. Most gamers are honorable, if not always entirely honest. But I don't have any problem at all with someone who chooses differently, based on the principle that freeloaders shouldn't be advantaged over the honorable ones. What ever degree of comfort is needed for somebody to keep producing games and variants and other goodies is fine with me. We don't have nearly as many creatives as we need in the gaming hobby. Lawrence Duffield Principal LPDGames www.lpdgames.com
