WotC paying people to scan old D&D books

[martixy]

http://goodereader.com/blog/digital-...-old-dnd-books

So this is an amusing piece of news.

I'm sure there are plenty of grognards around these forums that would be willing to contribute to a good cause, especially given a modest monetary incentive.

It is mostly about old 1e and AD&D books.
Here is the full list:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1749576859

Just thought I'd put that out there.

[nedz]

It seems a lot of work for $50 - though maybe not.

I have 3-4 of these titles

[ComaVision]

Have they not heard of torrenting? They could do this themselves in an afternoon lol

[Jormengand]

Have they not heard of torrenting? They could do this themselves in an afternoon lol

I think the issue is that...

It lists close to 600 titles that are wanting to find copies of, likely because the original master documents are missing and presumed lost.

IE they do not have the documents in any format.

[martixy]

Have they not heard of torrenting? They could do this themselves in an afternoon lol

In the document that details the various books(the google docs sheet), there is a tiny, little relevant note present in every sheet.

[namad]

uh, if they've lost all track of these books... do they even have a claim to the copyright still?

couldn't everyone on earth just ignore them and then apply for these titles to enter public domain, and then scan them for a library or something instead?


50$ is a pathetically small amount for one of these.

[The Grue]

Hm. I wonder why Wizards has suddenly decided that discontinuing and abandoning "legacy" products is no longer in their interests?

[daremetoidareyo]

Hm. I wonder why Wizards has suddenly decided that discontinuing and abandoning "legacy" products is no longer in their interests?

3.5 followed by 4.0 sent the grognards back a system. Pathfinder keeps 3.P alive enough. And all that goodwill was expended in a time when there are more other RPGs on the market than ever. So perhaps straight up buying dndtools and catering to them thar grognards is the next best business strategy rather than trying to recruit from the new and dissaffected consumers.

We'll all be sold on legacy books bound together in pdf sales, maybe even a new reprint of 3.5. Imagine if they put all of the feats in one book...

[johnbragg]

uh, if they've lost all track of these books... do they even have a claim to the copyright still?

couldn't everyone on earth just ignore them and then apply for these titles to enter public domain, and then scan them for a library or something instead?

50$ is a pathetically small amount for one of these.

They still own the copyrights for the lifetime of the creators plus 75 years, or sometimes 95 years from creation.

There is no "apply for X to enter public domain." Things enter public domain when the original copyright expires. (Or sometimes when a flawed copyright claim is knocked down in court. HAppy Birthday is now confirmed in the public domain.)

$50 doesn't do it for you? Hold out, see if they up the price. (Or if someone else with the book sells it a scan to WOTC.)

Hm. I wonder why Wizards has suddenly decided that discontinuing and abandoning "legacy" products is no longer in their interests?

Apparently, the minor revenue stream of selling PDFs now justifies the trivial costs of scanning and selling PDFs.

I'm not sure that $50 is a "pathetically small amount." How long exactly do you think it will take them to sell 5 PDFs of "9039 A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity" and recoup that $50? Obviously WOTC has figured out that the answer is "in our lifetime", but how much do you think a fair price would be? It's the scan, so it doesn't have the artifact value of your hard copy. Its value is purely a multiple of how many PDFs WOTC can expect to sell.

Some of them might also have value as parts of bigger sets--maybe only 5-10 people would buy and download "The Lost Caverns of Tsojconth" for nostalgia value because they ran and loved it, but it would serve as filler for a 10-module, $50 AD&D Classic Modules pack.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Locked re: commercial transactions and legal advice.