May Purchased PDF files be Printed?

[Fearghus]

Hello,



I am looking to get Chainmail soon, and already purchased the three LBB's and supplements (all in PDF). May those be legally printed through a commercial org (lulu, Staples or Office Depot)? May they be legally printed from my home printer?

My initial thought was yes since it is a printable document format and I bought a copy, but I didn't want to start uploading files to lulu or Staples if I am in the wrong.

[scalydemon]

I was wondering exactly how this worked also regarding lulu.

[Vile Traveller]

It's not certain, sometimes Lulu is okay with it and sometimes it's not. I have never tried it with a DTRPG file, but I have heard from people who have, and, as I said, sometimes Lulu will say "no". You can always try, just make sure you set availability to yourself only.

Is the file watermarked (I don't know whether that makes a difference, but I wouldn't want to print a book with a watermark)?

[Deleted]

Here's my take: Where there's no judge, there's no jury.

Unless the file is specifically protected, and unless the prohibition of printing is made known to you (via the terms of use, or special notification), you may rightfully assume that you are in your full rights to print the file. Now, big online printing presses do, in my experience, still sometimes reject such approaches, simply, because they don't want to get into any trouble. If you experience similar reactions, go to a smaller printing store somewhere in town. They might charge you deftly, but they will generally not ask questions...

UNLESS, that is, you want to print to distribute. Which a local print shop won't care about, unless you order a few hundred copies, but which can, in very general terms, cause you trouble. - But you can, again, solve that if you know your country's legalese: In Germany, for example, it is legit to always keep 14 (!) full (!!) copies of any (!) medium in your private possession... As if any serious lawman would really care about those things.

So, whatever, to print and bind ten copies of the LBBs and hand them to your players shouldn't be a problem. Whether people might want to make one of it is another matter, is something else, but unless you do something that particular brings attention to what you're doing, you should have nothing to fear.

[cadriel]

Okay, so you know how the Chainmail "reprint" got linked on this forum? That caused the print on demand book to be removed and the person's account to be suspended from Lulu, because it got reported by someone. Lulu is sensitive to such reports.

However - when I upload a PDF on Lulu and set it to "private to only me", I've never had a problem using this to turn PDFs I bought into books. Just don't make the book available to others and they will print it with no issues.

I've had problems printing specific PDFs at print shops because of the copyrights in the books. At one point I had to point out that Basic Fantasy RPG had a license in the book and eventually FedEx printed it for me, but they've caused more issues than Lulu ever has.

[krusader74]

Assuming that you legally purchased CM and the 3LBBs from DriveThruRPG.com, in the past their explicit policy was that you may print a hardcopy of your PDF (and copy selections to the clipboard):

Frequently Asked Questions

Click a question to see its answer.

The Basics

What are ebooks?
Why should I buy ebooks?
What can I do with my ebooks?

First, the one thing you should not do is make a copy of the ebook for another person. Contrary to what many file-sharing sites would have us believe, doing that is a copyright violation and more importantly, it seriously erodes the ability of publishers to continue to offer the best products possible. It's not like our publishers are minting millions as it is, so your support against copyright infringement is always appreciated. You may print your ebooks, and copy as many selections to the clipboard as you wish.

--DriveThruRPG.com FAQ, archived on the Wayback Machine on January 11, 2012

I say "in the past," because this FAQ no longer exists on their site!

Their current policy seems to be: You may print hardcopies (and copy selections to the clipboard) unless these functions have been disabled in the PDF. This policy is implicit in the verbiage on their support page: Unable to print PDF file. If you are not allowed to print a PDF, it says so in the "Product Information" block on the right hand side of the screen on the product page:

Printing disabled

Here is a screenshot of Champions Annual #2 that shows you an example of what I'm talking about:




Rarely, some PDFs, like Diaspora spell out your right to make a hardcopy:

VSCA Publishing authorizes any owner of this digital book to print and bind the document for their own use. This includes the right to print and bind the book in whole or in part for personal use or for the use of the other players at your table. So if you’re a clerk at some place where someone might want to do this, and have a policy about printing material in copyright, please be advised that the owners of the copyright do not consider you making three or four copies at any one time an infringement.

VSCA Publishing does not grant rights to redistribute the file to other people or make copies for resale; that would be wrong. Diaspora is the property of the authors and VSCA Publishing.

(I wish more publishers would do this!)

But in general, it is illegal to make any copies (including hardcopies) of a copyrighted ebook (or any other copyrighted material), unless the copyright owner gives you written permission to make such copies.

So unless:

• The seller has a policy allowing printing hardcopies like DTRPG or
  
• The book itself gives you written permission to print hardcopies like Diaspora or
• You have contacted the publisher and gotten their written permission to print hardcopies

then it is illegal for you to make hardcopies!!!

Some publishers include a strongly worded copyright notice like this, forbidding any and all copying:

Copyright © 2017 by Dewey Cheatham

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means--electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise--without prior written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

However, this "All rights reserved..." stuff is completely unnecessary, since the law gives the copyright owners all the rights anyway.

You can argue that it's fair use to print a hardcopy. But this must be decided by the courts on a case-by-case basis. They will weigh 7 factors:

1. Do you own the copyright to the work? No.
2. Do you have the owner's permission? No.
3. Is your use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research? No. It's for recreation.
4. Is the purpose and character of the use commercial or noncommercial? Noncommercial.
5. What is the nature of the underlying work you are reproducing? Is it highly creative and subject to strong copyright protection, or is it less creative or perhaps even not subject to copyright protection at all? This is a highly creative work that is entitled to strong copyright protection.
6. Did you use the whole work or just a few words? The whole thing.
7. Will your use of the work cause the owner to lose money? No, because you paid for the ebook and the hardcopy is for personal use only.

Of the 7 fair use factors, you would only win on the two, (4) and (7), in green, so you would not likely be able to invoke the fair use defense successfully.

Printing out a copy on your home printer is one thing. Taking it to Kinkos or a University print shop or having it printed, bound, and shipped from Lulu is another matter. Especially if you're making multiple copies. Some printers will not do this without written permission from the copyright holder.

No doubt you can print a copy on your home printer, and you can (sometimes) get Kinkos and Lulu to make hardcopies for you. But without permission, it is still illegal. "Can" does not imply "may."

I suggest following these steps when you want to print a hardcopy:

1. Look for permission on the seller's customer service website or FAQ.
2. Failing that, look for permission on the copyright page of the book itself.
3. Failing that, write to the publisher and obtain written permission.

WRT step #3, I recommend the book: Getting Permission: Using & Licensing Copyright-Protected Materials Online & Off by Richard Stim, Attorney.

[Fearghus]

Thank you, krusader74! DriveThru is not responding for me atm, but I'll check it again later.

[bea]

krusader74, kudos to you! That was the most intelligent and thorough answer I've seen to this question pretty much anywhere.

[tetramorph]

Thanks for all the details, Krusader!

I am so happy to see them all laid out and described so clearly.

That said, I do not agree with your conclusion. I do not believe that printing PDFs I have purchased the right to use is illegal. I do not think your strict interpretation of the law would hold up against fair use precedent.

The real question is: is my printing hurting their ability to profit, or helping. So long as I do not sell or distribute, they have not lost a customer. And insofar as I would not purchase it if I could not use it, my ability to print has gained them a customer.

Just my 2cp. I'm not a lawyer!

[capvideo]

In the United States, in general, it is legal to make copies of things that you own. Copyright covers the right to distribute new copies. When you copy a CD to your computer so that you can listen to it in your jukebox software, you are not breaking the law; the same is true when you copy that copy from your jukebox software to your phone or portable music device.

When MP3.com got into trouble, it was because they were making one copy of a CD, and then distributing that one copy to everyone who showed that they owned a different copy that CD. According to the courts, if MP3.com had been copying each user’s CD, and then letting that user listen to that particular copy made from their own CD, they would have been fine. (At the time, this would have been prohibitively expensive due to the massive hard disk space it would have required.)

The same was true, and litigated as such, back when computer magazines included code, usually BASIC, that readers could type in onto their computers. Some third parties had the great idea of typing in each program and then, along with proof that their customer owned a copy of that magazine, sending a cassette or disk with each program from that magazine back. The courts said, that's great—but you'll have to type from each subscriber's magazine to do so legally without permission from the copyright owner. Again, this wasn't economically feasible given the technology of the time so such third-party typing services died.

This means that it is legal to print from a PDF copy that you own, and for third-party services to print from your PDF copy on your behalf, as long as you aren't bypassing any restriction mechanisms (laws other than copyright make some attempts to circumvent such restrictions illegal).

[Deleted]

Bottom line for me, if I buy a hard copy not being able to make a copy is fine; but if I buy a pdf and I cannot legally make a hard copy, then I will in all cases never buy the product in the first place. PDFs for us old folks are only usable when they are printed.

Maybe someday publishers will figure out that paying customers are not the enemy and start treating us accordingly.

[Deleted]

Jan 13, 2017 9:21:31 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

That said, I do not agree with your conclusion. I do not believe that printing PDFs I have purchased the right to use is illegal. I do not think your strict interpretation of the law would hold up against fair use precedent.

I share this sentiment. The usual IANAL (I am not a lawyer) notwithstanding, I tend to interpret fair use fairly broadly. Why? - Because *fair use* is basically anything that I do with a medium in private; common sense, more than anything else, applies here. For example, when a PDF comes with the printing function enabled, then I assume it's generally legal that I print it as much as I need it for private use. If, like in the example krusader74 detailed, the printing function is disabled, and I would have to manually enable the printing function using an external program, then I assume it's generally illegal to print the file.

Now, the laws and the lawyer'ing most big companies (itunes, Amazon, and in this case, the DT network) do are INTENTIONALLY nebulous and confusing: For example, while Amazon's Kindle program doesn't offer a printing option, printing files from an e-reader format is not considered generally illegal. But who knew?

Now, the OP's question circled mainly around whether online printing services would accept or reject PDF files previously bought in an online store. That, common sense indicates, shouldn't be subject to law, but to that online printing company's estimation and deliberate corporate strategy. In other words, if they think it's not alright, they will tell you. But you're not breaking the law by asking, and by asking repeatedly.


Frankly, what I would do is to go to a small print store, and not try and handle this online. Your friendly neighborhood print store usually won't mind, unless you do something that looks like it could be severely illegal. (Printing 50 copies of the LBBs, and ordering the store to display them for sale.) But seriously, how many bachelor or master papers do you think they print each year that *gasp* use photographs or tables without permission?! How many of those do you think the print store refuses to print? How many digital photographs, visual collages, and so on?

My general recommendation would be: Don't overthink this. Unless you're actively doing something that common sense indicates to be breaking the law, you will be fine.

[Deleted]

For example, while Amazon's Kindle program doesn't offer a printing option, printing files from an e-reader format is not considered generally illegal. But who knew?

No way to print from Kindle and no way to use it on a screen large enough to read, only the tiny Kindle screen. That is why I will never be a Kindle customer, because of the way the anti-consumer company Amazon runs things. All of those books that are offered only on Kindle and no other way, for all practical purposes do not exist. Perhaps someday this corrupt company will change and become user friendly, but I would not hold my breath.

[derv]

I am always intrigued by these growing threads of discussion that are essentially matters of the conscience.

XXIII. But say you, surely there is nothing easier than to imagine Trees, for instance, in a Park, or Books existing in a Closet, and no Body by to perceive them. I answer, you may so, there is no difficulty in it: But what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in your Mind certain Ideas which you call Books and Trees, and the same time omitting to frame the Idea of any one that may perceive them? But do not you your self perceive or think of them all the while? This therefore is nothing to the purpose: It only shews you have the Power of imagining or forming Ideas in your Mind; but it doth not shew that you can conceive it possible, the Objects of your Thought may exist without the Mind: To make out this, it is necessary that you conceive them existing unconceived or unthought of, which is a manifest Repugnancy. When we do our utmost to conceive the Existence of external Bodies, we are all the while only contemplating our own Ideas. But the Mind taking no notice of it self, is deluded to think it can and doth conceive Bodies existing unthought of or without the Mind; though at the same time they are apprehended by or exist in it self. A little Attention will discover to any one the Truth and Evidence of what is here said, and make it unnecessary to insist on any other Proofs against the Existence of material Substance.

-Berkeley, George (1743), A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, section 23

or otherwise,

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

-Mann & Twiss (1910), Physics

[cadriel]

Jan 14, 2017 11:47:56 GMT -6 @theperilousdreamer said:

No way to print from Kindle and no way to use it on a screen large enough to read, only the tiny Kindle screen.

That is simply not true. There is the Kindle Cloud Reader that can be used from any web browser, and the iOS Kindle app can be used on an iPad Pro with a 12.9" screen. You could use Chromecast or some other technology and even read on a big screen TV. There is no way to print a Kindle book with DRM, but there are many other ways to read a Kindle book.

[Deleted]

Jan 14, 2017 14:05:16 GMT -6 derv said:

I am always intrigued by these growing threads of discussion that are essentially matters of the conscience.

Hey! I'm not trying to get people to break the law! It's just that, from what I get, Europeans, in general, are more liberal when it comes to those things. From what I get through my job, copyright laws in the US are more or less similar both here and in America. So, I would probably get into trouble over

Jan 14, 2017 14:10:31 GMT -6 cadriel said:

That is simply not true. There is the Kindle Cloud Reader that can be used from any web browser, and the iOS Kindle app can be used on an iPad Pro with a 12.9" screen. You could use Chromecast or some other technology and even read on a big screen TV. There is no way to print a Kindle book with DRM, but there are many other ways to read a Kindle book.

This is correct. Also, often, when people mean Kindle, they really mean ePub of any sort. And there's when things get way more nuanced. I use many e-text or epub-formats, and printing or readability on different devices are not a problem, at least not for the most part. As to Kindle itself, it does its job - full novels on any digital devices. Now, Kindle being marketed as a full substitute to books, in my opinion, misses the mark; but it's certainly not the worst step towards a new direction. Like, I get my newspaper in ePub, and I clip articles I like via Evernote. - Works.

Jan 14, 2017 11:47:56 GMT -6 @theperilousdreamer said:

No way to print from Kindle and no way to use it on a screen large enough to read, only the tiny Kindle screen. That is why I will never be a Kindle customer, because of the way the anti-consumer company Amazon runs things. All of those books that are offered only on Kindle and no other way, for all practical purposes do not exist. Perhaps someday this corrupt company will change and become user friendly, but I would not hold my breath.

Please relax a bit, TPD. The perceived anti-consumer habits you attribute to Amazon are highly debatable, and you indeed don't seem to know the technical possibilities all too well. In general, though, let's also remember that markets are not only created by the supplier, but also by an existing demand: If people would simply not buy DRM-protected, unprintable files, as they apparently do, Amazon would not have this market. The same way, whatever, Facebook and Google would not engage in nigh-unlimited data mining if people used social media more responsibly. In the end, it boils down that we, the consumers, sanction what big corporations then do.

[derv]

Jan 14, 2017 15:13:05 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Hey! I'm not trying to get people to break the law! It's just that, from what I get, Europeans, in general, are more liberal when it comes to those things. From what I get through my job, copyright laws in the US are more or less similar both here and in America. So, I would probably get into trouble over

My point is that it is very unlikely (really close to zero if not a truly zero chance) that a person has anything to worry about, as it involves the law, if they are printing out a copy of a pdf for personal use. Primarily, who will know besides the person doing the copying? Secondarily, who would prosecute? Maybe, also, a person can ask, who is harmed? And lastly, who will care? Is there really something at issue here. We are talking about a legally obtained pdf, right.

The irony to this query/debate is that the Portable Document Format was originally developed as a means for people to create electronic documents that they intended to view, duplicate, print, and forward to others regardless of operating systems.

[geoffrey]

Well said, derv.

[Vile Traveller]

Whenever I talk to my wife (who is a lawyer) about "the law" I make quotation marks with my fingers.

[Deleted]

Jan 14, 2017 17:27:10 GMT -6 derv said:

]My point is that it is very unlikely (really close to zero if not a truly zero chance) that a person has anything to worry about, as it involves the law, if they are printing out a copy of a pdf for personal use. Primarily, who will know besides the person doing the copying? Secondarily, who would prosecute? Maybe, also, a person can ask, who is harmed? And lastly, who will care? Is there really something at issue here. We are talking about a legally obtained pdf, right.

The irony to this query/debate is that the Portable Document Format was originally developed as a means for people to create electronic documents that they intended to view, duplicate, print, and forward to others regardless of operating systems.

We are, of course, on the same page, here. Personally, I perceive most of the rules concerning multimedia copyright as intentionally intimidating... But then, that's just probably my perception, and the question the OP asked was about a specific aspect of the matter. - But, in general, come on, common sense applies. Or, does anybody here really go and say "no, dear lifepartner or child, my MP3s are registered to my account, you may not use it on your device"?

The same for the problem at hand: Does anyone really believe I would think twice whether me printing out that White Dwarf adventure I want to run next weekend was really, strictly speaking, legal?! - Of course I don't care, and I strongly recommend that noone else does, as well. Again, common sense applies, in my opinion: If a product I buy demands far stricter terms of use than social conventions would normally indicate, it's the seller's or the producer's part to lecture me, and to defend these stricter terms of use.

[Deleted]

Jan 14, 2017 14:10:31 GMT -6 cadriel said:

Jan 14, 2017 11:47:56 GMT -6 @theperilousdreamer said:

No way to print from Kindle and no way to use it on a screen large enough to read, only the tiny Kindle screen.

That is simply not true. There is the Kindle Cloud Reader that can be used from any web browser, and the iOS Kindle app can be used on an iPad Pro with a 12.9" screen. You could use Chromecast or some other technology and even read on a big screen TV. There is no way to print a Kindle book with DRM, but there are many other ways to read a Kindle book.

Then post a link for an book Amazon sells that is available only on Kindle and show me where on that page there is a link to the Kindle Cloud Reader. I looked up a dozen books and not one had a link to that Reader. Since they don't provide the link where it is needed, how would I know about it. As for DRM, I don't buy DRM and cannot imagine why anyone would. YMMV

The worst part about this and the assumption that is now made is that all consumers are under 35 and grew up with computers. They have made a deliberate and conscious decision to exclude and marginalize us older people that did not grow up with computers and have limited tech knowledge.

[18 Spears]

Jan 15, 2017 6:32:36 GMT -6 @rafael said:

If a product I buy demands far stricter terms of use than social conventions would normally indicate, it's the seller's or the producer's part to lecture me, and to defend these stricter terms of use.

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse." this is a well-established legal precedent in the america and if you break the law its on you not on the seller

[Deleted]

Jan 15, 2017 22:30:00 GMT -6 18 Spears said:

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse." this is a well-established legal precedent in the america and if you break the law its on you not on the seller

That is, of course, completely correct. - The big "BUT" comes with the semantics: What I believe to notice in discussions such as this one is that people tend to mix copyright LAW and copyright DOCTRINE, mainly because the business side of the argument likes to omit one essential detail:
The term "fair use" in copyright law does not have the same meaning as in contractual law - which is what applies when you, the buyer use a product according to social conventions/common sense. And that's a fundamental difference! But because nobody really reads the 30+ pages that you have to sign off before purchasing anything from stores like Amazon and iTunes, we, as a society, have developed this strange idea of regarding sales people (or platforms) as some sort of quasi-authorities on the use of the products we buy from them. And they are not, even if they'd like us to believe so, as if your ownership rights were in perpetual conflict with their right to protect their IP.

For example, I'm sure all of you have used your RPG rulebooks to copy charsheets when you needed some. Who here can give me a founded explanation why this would be legal, and, whatever, printing a non-protected PDF would not be? - Right, there is none. You own both. The law is on your side, here. What is not are different companies' terms of product use that you may or may not have to agree upon purchase.

[18 Spears]

Jan 16, 2017 5:15:33 GMT -6 @rafael said:

The big "BUT" comes with the semantics:

copying a copyright work is breaking the law, seems pretty clear to me.

Jan 16, 2017 5:15:33 GMT -6 @rafael said:

For example, I'm sure all of you have used your RPG rulebooks to copy charsheets when you needed some. Who here can give me a founded explanation why this would be legal, and, whatever, printing a non-protected PDF would not be? - Right, there is none. You own both. The law is on your side, here. What is not are different companies' terms of product use that you may or may not have to agree upon purchase.

you wanna copy somethig out of the books? nobody will stop you or liken to even care. different discussion then if its legal or not. it seems copying a blank character sheet would have an implied permisson to copy for personal use even if not said in print ----- different from copying or even completly reprinting a copyright work.

i'm sorry mr moderator but i rspectfully disagree with you'uns opinon

[tetramorph]

What is legal is the law. And law is always something interpreted. This sets up precedence. The precedence in the case of copywrite law includes interpretations of fair use. It is not illegal to make copies of something you have paid to use. It is illegal to distribute or sell copies.

[krusader74]

Fearghus -- Has DTRPG responded to your customer service inquiry yet? Have you tried getting CM printed at Lulu.com or Staples? Please post back with any updates!

Jan 16, 2017 13:06:07 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

It is not illegal to make copies of something you have paid to use.

Not so. Just because you have purchased a book does not mean that you own the copyrights to the content (text, graphics) in the book -- you merely license the content from the copyright owner.

Copyright owners have six exclusive rights when it comes to using their content. For book copyright owners, the relevant exclusive rights are

1. The right to reproduce the copyrighted content in copies in any form -- hardcopies, sound recordings, scanned copies to your hard disk, whatever.
2. The right to distribute copies of the content to the public by sale, transfer of ownership, rental, lease, or lending.
3. The right to make derivative works.

Unless you have written permission from the copyright owner, you may not do any of these things without infringing his rights! Fair use is a defense against copyright infringement, but you better be able to tick most of the boxes in the checklist of 7 factors I presented above.

Digital books have even more restrictive licensing terms than physical books. For example, the terms and conditions for comic books sold at Comixology.com clearly state that I have no right to resell the content---something I may do with physical goods. I have no right to print it out---I merely have the right to access it online via their app. Not only would making hardcopies violate the licensing terms, since it is DRM'd, making hardcopies would also violate the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA, for which there is no fair use defense, and which carry even harsher penalties than copying non-DRM'd materials. For these reasons, I prefer physical comics to digital ones, and I prefer non-DRM'd digital comics to DRM'd ones, unless either

• Physical copies are inaccessible to me (out-of-distribution or cost prohibitive); or
  
• Digital goods are sold at a deep discount (50% off or more).

Most people are confused about copyrights. Back in 2000, USA Today did a poll, and 60% of the respondents said they thought it was not illegal (or immoral) to download music from Napster. But just because that's the consensus view does not make it the legal view.

Making copies of copyrighted material carries a low risk of criminal prosecution. Typically, states in the US don't prosecute copyright cases. Since 1999, the US Federal government has only prosecuted about 30 copyright cases per year. And about 29 out of these 30 are settled via plea bargain with only 1 going to trial. And outside the US there are virtually no criminal prosecutions.

Civil suits are another matter. The number of non file-sharing copyright cases averaged about 2,000 per year for the last 4 years. There were about 100,000 mass lawsuits against anonymous file-sharers filed in 2010 alone. These mass lawsuits have waned, but there's still 2,000-4,000 civil cases against file-sharers per year since then.

Making a copy on your home printer may be very low risk, possibly zero risk. Of course, the low risk of negative repercussions from the act does not equate with the legality of the act.

But making a copy at FedEx/Kinkos is a totally different story. Kinkos is routinely targeted for copyright violations by publishers, and as a result they usually follow a very cautious C.Y.A. approach -- if you don't have written permission from the copyright owner, they're not supposed to make copies for you. Doesn't matter if it's for educational use, personal use, or other fair uses... Like I said, fair use is always weighed on a case-by-case basis, using the factors I illustrated above. What's fair use here may not be there. In Basic Books, Inc. v. Kinko's Graphics Corporation (1991), a professor made copies of some articles for classroom use at Kinkos. He owned the journals he was copying. He was not copying whole journals, just a few articles. The District Court of Southern New York ruled that articles copied for educational use are not necessarily fair use and held Kinkos (not the professor) liable for damages!

Lulu.com is in the same boat as Kinkos. I am aware of some recent federal lawsuits filed against them by publishers, for example this one (cached, NSFW). As a result, in the future, I expect to see them increasingly exercise more caution and make sure that users own the copyright or have the copyright owner's written permission.

[Deleted]

Please, folks, since this seems something of great interest to many in our community, let's try and keep the discussion focused on the actual case Fearghus described, at least for the time being: We're not talking about Napster. We're not talking about supposed rights of reproduction, distribution, or derivation, or (like the example of the professor) about actions taking place in a professional environment, of any sort. We're still talking about whether it is supposedly legal to print out a legally purchased, DRM-free PDF for private use. - Anything else would just mean moving supposed goal posts further and further away; of course, copyright law is complex, and of course there is no golden rule. But that's not the point.

krusader74 has, of course, named a key factor for understanding what is legally correct, and what is not: That, to access digital content from most reputable online sellers, you need to agree to a particular set of extra rules, like the terms of use at Comixology he cited. However, that is a private contract between you and the online seller! It's not common law, and the rules one seller sets for you to access the content it provides do not necessarily apply to the conditions other may apply.

As to the copyright infringement cases mentioned, let's please also not potentially scare or scandalize people: Yes, there are tens of thousands of copyright infringement lawsuits every year; but those concern completely different circumstances than the ones described: If anyone here thinks it's really a good idea to post, whatever, your CamRip of "Rogue One" on Pirate Bay, and use your home computer to upload, then, yeah, that might be a problem. But, again, printing out a legally purchased, generally protection-free PDF for private use is something completely different.

I'm not saying this "as a moderator", or whatever, I'm saying this because I actually have some practical experience in the field, and I think it's actually quite saddening that people have to worry about this stuff the way some here have expressed to do. - Then again, I live in Germany, and people here are perhaps more protective of everyman customers than they seem to be in the US. For example, when there were similar cases like the one with the professor that Krusader referred to, authorities here basically stepped in and told the copyright holders to go to hell.

[krusader74]

Jan 17, 2017 0:14:43 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Please, folks, since this seems something of great interest to many in our community, let's try and keep the discussion focused on the actual case Fearghus described

For the record, I'm not capable of giving Fearghus definitive answers to his specific questions. The only ones who can provide these answers are

• Wizards of the Coast's customer support
  
• DriveThruRPG's customer support
• Lulu.com's customer support

For peace of mind, I urge getting definitive answers from these sources!

Since WotC owns the rights to these books, they're your main concern. If you contact them for clarification, and you follow their guidance, then you're not infringing their rights.

Lulu.com's terms of service make you affirm that you own the content or have the owner's permission and can provide evidence of such:

You represent, warrant and covenant that (i) you own or otherwise possess all necessary rights with respect to your Content, (ii) your Content does not and will not infringe, misappropriate, use or disclose without authorization, or otherwise violate any intellectual property or proprietary right of any third party, and are not unlawful, fraudulent, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable, (iii) at Lulu's request, and without further consideration, you will promptly provide Lulu with reasonable evidence of such adequate and enforceable rights of third parties (i.e., consents, approvals, licenses or sublicenses), and agree that Lulu may provide a copy of these Terms to anyone claiming an infringement of copyright/trademark relating to your Content or to law enforcement or other entities as required by law or as Lulu reasonably determines to be necessary to protect its rights or the rights of others,

They may (or may not) print the content. But you ought to have an email or something giving you permission from WotC or DTRPG in accordance with (iii) above!

Jan 17, 2017 0:14:43 GMT -6 @rafael said:

We're not talking about supposed rights of reproduction

Printing a copy of a book is reproduction. Sorry to disagree with @rafael and tetramorph over this. But I am disagreeable in nature. I like to argue (no...) I love to argue.   I particularly like to take the unpopular side in an argument.

Jan 17, 2017 0:14:43 GMT -6 @rafael said:

I live in Germany

I envy you. I truly do.

The US has 5% of the world's population, but it has 70% of the world's lawyers. That helps explain why outside the US, there's lax enforcement of copyright laws. Nevertheless, 94 out of 196 countries in the world all share the same exact copyright law: The WIPO Copyright Treaty. That includes Germany, the UK, and the US.

Jan 17, 2017 0:14:43 GMT -6 @rafael said:

let's please also not potentially scare or scandalize people

Sorry if I scare or scandalize anyone! I live in the US. My experiences here may be different from yours. I have actually been refused service in a Kinkos for suspicion of copyright/trademark violation. This was not a personal matter either---I had been given sales flyers and posters by my corporate overlords at a huge retail book chain to copy in order to promote the release of a new book, and Kinkos insisted on seeing a permission letter from the book publisher, something we couldn't get on short notice; Kinkos did not care that I worked for a retailer trying to promote and sell the book. So I had to seek out a small shady copy shop with loose morals in order to print the copies and keep the job. That was eons ago. The US has gotten much scarier since then; and it'll get much scarier the end of this week.

Lastly, if it's any consolation, just because I've argued for the strictest possible interpretation for the law doesn't mean that's my personal view. IMHO, existing copyright laws are made by publishers and lawyers to get rich, with little or no work. The laws and the legal profession both need reform. I don't agree with them. They're not fair!!! This clip from the 1941 serial, The Riders of Death Valley Chapter 2 summarizes the tension between my personal view and what I've argued above:

[coffee]

(post deleted because somebody already said it.)

[capvideo]

Jan 16, 2017 21:58:44 GMT -6 krusader74 said:

Just because you have purchased a book does not mean that you own the copyrights to the content (text, graphics) in the book -- you merely license the content from the copyright owner.

This is completely untrue. If purchasing, say, a book, were in actuality a license, book publishers would be able to forbid you from reselling the book if they wanted to, as a condition of the license. They do want to, and have often tried. But the courts say that purchasing a book is not a license, but in fact a purchase, and you can resell it if you wish. This has been a consistent interpretation of United States copyright law up to the Supreme Court since at least Bobbs-Merrill in 1908, and continues to be the interpretation today.

Copyright is specifically a restriction on the things you could otherwise legally do with what you purchase; it does not turn a purchase into a license.