Copyright, copywrong, who can tell... Here’s what I found in a thread on EN World: If the PDF looks official, they won’t print it, for fear of being sued. ¹
It all started out with JVisgaitis (author and publishers of the impressive Denizens of Avadnu) saying:
So I had my girlfriend take a couple of PDFs that I bought to Staples and they refused to print them. They said they need a written document from the publisher which states that they can be printed. ²
Other people chimed in:
I’ve had a Staples (in SoCal) refuse to print copies of a PDF that I authored/owned. ³
Errmm.. this may be a daft question. What do they print? It doesn’t actually sound like they have a printing business. Are you sure they actually print stuff? :D ⁴
The store manager showed me the policy. It specifically stated that they would not print “any copyrighted material”. Not “any copyrighted material unless you own the copyright”, but “any copyrighted material”. ⁵
Here in Switzerland there’s a specific copyright exemption: You are allowed to copy material *for your own use* (URG Art. 19) The copyright holders are still entitled to remuneration (URG Art. 20). To this effect we have a copyright collective (”Verwertungsgesellschaft”) that receives a bit of money for every page copied to be redistributed to the copyright holders. (Usually they waste about half this money for their own administration, but that’s a different point entirely.)
Don’t these exist in the USA? Or are only copying machines part of the deal, not printers? Clearly the print shops don’t want to be part of a crime, but I’m surprised that they set up a policy that essentially assumes that their customer-wannabes are criminals. I must assume that this is a result of the punitive damages they are afraid of: If these are very high, erring on the side of paranoia is a rational decision.
Clearly, the law should be amended: Printing should be treated like copying, and thus remuneration happens as you pay for the service via the copyright collective. Your printed copy is legal, whether the PDF copy was licensed or not.
What would a *privateer* do? Buy a printer and print at home.
The alternative is for PDF products to look as unprofessional and ugly as your average software specification. I bet print shops would print you hundreds of copies of those documents, neither knowing nor caring about copyright. But since roleplaying PDF books are nice and shiny, you must have stolen them...
Unfortunately, the legal lure of the USA is so strong, and our own heads so muddled, I won’t be surprised at all if a few years down the line we’re going to be in similar trouble.
#Copyright #USA #RPG #Publishing