-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Wieck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Why is it unreasonable to expect another OG publisher to buy CC in order to
>reference the monster stats for use in their own book (not that we won't
all
>be swapping product anyway)? Or even why is it unreasonable to desire fans
>to buy the book to use the monsters rather than pull them off a website for
>free.
There's nothing unreasonable about desiring or even expecting people to buy
the book. You can't, however, require that someone buys it in order to use
your open content since no such requirement it stated in the OGL. One would
hope that if someone likes something in your book enough to want to use it
or derive from it, they would find the product worthwhile enough to own. In
an ideal world, this would be the case, but even in our flawed world, this
will probably be the case most of the time.
I look at the issue form the other side, why prevent those who did buy the
book to have easy access to the OGC presented in the book? By easy access,
I mean, the ability to copy and paste it as necessary without having to
retype, spellcheck, etc. Remember, you will make things harder for those
who do buy the book along with those who don't.
>To DM's point, yes it will happen, and yes any sane OG publishers had best
>be prepared for it, but my issue is why would I ACTIVELY support websites
>that seek to do this? By extension, why would other OG publishers actively
>support it or go about creating such a site themselves?
To reduce the cost of making their own products. If I have an easily
searchable, centra repository of OGC, I can but down research time, data
entry and editing (even the best typist and the best OCR software can make
mistakes sometimes) time. The product can potentially be produced quicker
and cheaper which just might boost sales and/or increase profit.
>Thanks, and yes perhaps they are, but I rather agree with Paul's point that
>I'd rather have the whole car to sell rather than only rely on the body of
>the car because the engine can be obtained free on the web. If the consumer
>is only buying the car's body, then the purchase has less value to them.
>Therefore why would OG publishers want to actively help put engines on the
>web for free?
An engine doesn't get you to the grocery store without the body to go with
it. I don't know many consumers who would go out get a free engine and then
have to pay to build the body around it when they can easily buy the whole
car at once. It's a matter of convenience. Most people will shell out the
money to buy a product rather than build something themselves just for the
convenience of it. They can take the book with them anywhere, use it even
when there is no access to computers or the internet and it'll never be down
when they try to access it. Sure you can print out the content if it's
available online but you have to deal with any layout (time consuming) and
binding (usually a hole punch and/or page protectors and a binder) yourself.
Anyone doing this has to pay a create price in time and effort so most
people don't bother. I know from my college days that the tradeoff is
rarely worth monitory the savings.
Chris
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