[gurps] 4th edition and ebooks?

[Jon Lang]

Classified TS/BBR wrote:
> If you prefer .PDF to .DTF the 4th Edition Basic Set books are now available
>  from e23... Buy them instead of (or in addition to) the .DTFs & no longer be
>  in the position of having illegal .PDFs...

:nod: This is the single best piece of advice I've seen on the topic
thus far.  *Especially* in cases where Steve Jackson Games is selling
digital versions for money, continuing to use bootlegged digital
copies is ethically questionable at best.  For those books that don't
yet have official digital versions, keep watching e23 and buy the
official version the moment that it's available.

And whatever you do, don't give any of your digital copies away.  You
paid for them; the guy you'd be giving them to didn't.

--

As for your initial comment that you wouldn't have considered buying
4th Ed if you hadn't first acquired the bootleg copies: I sympathize.
IMHO, one of the biggest losses that has come with the decline of the
FLGS has been my ability to browse through the books before I buy
them, looking up whatever little details might interest me.  It worked
with DTFs because when I left the store, I left with the book that I
paid for, or I left with just my memories of what I read and/or
whatever notes I was able to jot down.  The closest analogy I could
come up with for digital copies would involve downloading a copy
without paying for it, reading whatever you want from that copy for
five minutes or so and making notes without the benefit of
copy-and-paste, and then either paying for it or deleting it.
However, allowing this sort of thing would rely too heavily on the
honor system for a company to stay in business.

Speaking strictly on my own behalf (and bear in mind that I am not an
employee of Steve Jackson Games; their opinion may differ), the fact
that you are now making a good-faith effort to convert over to legal
copies of everything should make up for the fact that you got them
illegally to begin with.  As long as you don't go around encouraging
others to get illegal copies, and don't do it again.

-- 
Jonathan "Dataweaver" Lang
List Administrator