I would like to get the "Worlds" & "Mirror Universe" books that were only released via PDF (iirc). Does anyone know where I can get copies of them at? I am happy to buy them, if there's a "retailer" selling them.
Any help would be great. Thanks.
Printable View
I would like to get the "Worlds" & "Mirror Universe" books that were only released via PDF (iirc). Does anyone know where I can get copies of them at? I am happy to buy them, if there's a "retailer" selling them.
Any help would be great. Thanks.
2 places spring to mind.
RPGnow http://www.rpgnow.com/
DriveThruRPG http://www.drivethrurpg.com/
If you look at "Select Publisher" and goto Decipher they should have both books listed. They both take "Paypal".
Hope this helps.
Ignore my previous post, I just looked at those sites and as of today those links no longer carry Decipher product...my apologies if you were mislead. I don't know what the ramifications of my posting those files here would be. If I/we get the ok from the moderators, then I'd be happy to post both files.
Otherwise you can still goto those links for good rpg stuff in general.
^ Posting the files to a public website for general consumption is illegal, as is selling them on your own, since you don't own the copyright to that material.
Whether Decipher or CBS would actually enforce their copyright, though, is another story. :)
The downside of the PDF revolution–no more used books.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ineti
Yes. This is VERY MUCH true.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King
I have no problem going on ebay, or going to half-priced store and buying used books.
This situation is just annoying, and one I fear will just get worse as time goes on and more books are PDF only, etc.
Weeeell, if there's enough people buying to guarantee someone will purchase it through a POD service, then there's a physical book lying around someplace.
Whether anyone's done that with those two pdf's, I don't know.
I have mailed DriveThru with a question regarding the books. I also asked them why I - as a customer who has already paid for the books and was granted a number of downloads for their money - can't download the books anymore.
Anyway: This is the answer I recieved:
Hello,
I apologize for the inconvenience. We no longer represent the publisher
of the product and have been asked to remove their products from our
database, so we can no longer sell or provide downloads for them. While
it is rare that we lose a publisher, we do suggest you back up any of
your purchases to avoid just such a dilemma in the future.
For clarification, your purchase entitles you to download the product
for your personal use as many times as needed as long as we are able to
provide the download, the download count is only there to try and
prevent piracy. Your purchase does not necessarily buy you five
downloads nor are you limited to only five downloads on any of your
purchases. If you ever run out of downloads on a product just let me
know and I will happily reset the download count.
Thank you for your business and please feel free to contact me with any
further questions or concerns.
Jeff Montgomery
Customer Service
DriveThruRPG.com
Cut wrote:
> ---------------------------------
> Hello there.
>
> I have a question regarding the pulled e-books by Decipher Inc. I have made purchases of the Star Trek PDFs Mirror Universe and Worlds as well as Paths of the Wise from the Lord of the Rings line. I have made only 1 of my 5 downloads per book (4 Downloads of the books are listed as remaining!) and now the titles seem to be gone.
>
> As an example I include the error message of Star Trek RPG World
> Customer Id:
> Order Id:
> File: Dphr-StrTrk_Worlds.pdf
>
> I feel a little bad about this. I have paid good money for a certain number of downloads of the books and you seem to be unable to provide these any more, or am I wrong?
>
> I think that even if Decipher's LotR and Star Trek RPG licenses expired, you should be able to supply customers, that purchased these titles back when the license was valid, with their bought numbers of downloads.
>
> So I kindly ask you to tell me, if I will be able, to download the books, when I want to do that again and if not, if there is anything you (or Decipher Inc.) are trying to compensate me?
>
> Please don't get me wrong. I like your store, I am completely pleased by your great customer service. I am just not pleased with what I just found out today about those titles!
>
> Best regards,
>
>Cut
To be honest I agree with their response, I always consider I'm buying the product. The first time I used them for something I was suprised to see the multiple downloads. I've never used it, I do my one download and then copy to disk in case of a crash.
Sounds like their hands are tied if a publisher insists they have to pull the product. I imagine the legal battle for them to try and continue to offer the additional downloads to just the people who've already bought it and (like me) and still have 4 additionals showing for everything wouldn't be worth the cost.
The "villian", if you will, in this case is obvious ... I find it odd that they wouldn't leave their products available and happily take the money from those who still want to buy them. You'd think that if they converted their existing books too, and maybe were able to put together say the Peacekeepers and Klingon books that sounded like they were done or near to it they'd be able to get even more money.
I think it's rather obvious by now that "the villain" is even more aggressively incompetent than Cobra Commander.Quote:
Originally Posted by RealPity
The "villain" is, in this case is likely the LAW, and not Decipher as you've hinted to.Quote:
Originally Posted by RealPity
They very likely do not have the license anymore to sell the rpg book.
Or, if Drivethru (or whomever) was not working out for them, why should they stick with a bad buisness venue?
I swear there's a curse when it comes to Trek RPGS ! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by First of Two
[QUOTE=Markraven;169446]They very likely do not have the license anymore to sell the rpg book./QUOTE]
Touche, a valid (and unfortunate) point
"I waassss once aaa maaaaaannn..."Quote:
Originally Posted by First of Two
This seriously ticks me off! I purchased both products when they were released and had 4 downloads remaining for each... both files were lost when my backup hard drive decided to take a dump.
I located Worlds via usenet... still can't locate a copy of Mirror Universe.
Yancy
Have you tried sending a email to DECIPHER? Maybe they might be willing to send you the files if you can get DrivethruRPG (or whereever you got them) to confirm your purchase of them.
It be worth a try; all they can say is "no".
I dwouldn't expect any results from Decipher.
The problem is, once thier liscence expired, they are no longer able to sell the files legally. It they did, they would be selling Star Trek stuff without a liscence and subject of a lawsuit by whoever owns the Trek franchise these days (CBS, Viacom, Paramount, Paramount PIctures, the Illuminatti?)
With a hard copy it is usually okay to sell off stock as it was prinited while the agreement was in effect (plus it keeps book and gaming stores from being left holdinbg the bag every time a liscene expires), but with an electronic book, there is no stock.
THis is one of the flaws of the DMCA and the new laws. It used to be that when you bought something, you "owned" your copy of the product and could do what you wanted with it. Now, it has been changed so that you don't own anything.
At this point the chances of getting a legal copy of any Decipher PDF is pretty slim.
So it does sort of encourage fans of a defunct RPG to resort to other means. Especially since Hard Drives crash, files get corrupted, CDs go bad, and accidents do happen.
I think that someone who purchased the book should be able to get a copy from another purchaser, but the law doesn't work that way.
.
On PDF files, if the copy was registered with Decipher while the licensing was intact then the copy goes bad (HD crash, corrupted, defunct disk, etc...) you should be able to present your registration number or e-paper work or what ever verification they gave you back to Decipher for an updated/new copy or the PDF.
This is not the same as selling the original, there for should be allowed – depending on the wording and nature of the license.
Should be able to., but that is not how the law is written.
On a similar note, it should be okay to buy someone else's computer and transfer ownship of the PDF files on it, the way one used to be able to transfer ownsership of software.
But, the companies that lobbied for and pushed through the new Didgital copywrite laws pretty much stamped out all of that.
Personally, I'd have no moral problem with seeing someone's puchase order and sending them a copy of the PDF. It would be very easy to do, but there are legal problems. Paramount (or whomever) could take action, if they found out about it, and decided to do so.
Realistically, no one would know unless said copy got passed around on the internet and a copy popped up in front of someone ihnvloved with Trek. But legally the material is dead and gone, unless someone is lucky enough to still have it.
Well, it looks like I waited too long to get into this game system. Although I'm not sure about the Mirror Universe, that Worlds book looks like it was pretty sweet. At least the preview section of it contained the expanded system generation rules, but it would have been cool to get those planet write-ups.
Score 1 for the digital revolution, 0 for the slacker fanboy :o
Make that score 2 for the digital revolution and 0 for me, I didn't even know that these were ever available.
Hello everyone I am new here and have a dilema similar to yours.
For years I have been an avid fan and player of the great line of Star Trek tabletop games put out by Decipher. I have spent quite a bit of time collecting every book in the line (quite a tough task since I heard about them long after the line had gone out of print) Mostly through good fortune at used gaming stores I was able to get all of the books save the last two which only came out on PDF. I was able to purchase the Mirror Universe sourcebook through DriveThrough RPG but by the next week when I went back to purchase the final book, Worlds they had removed all traces of the PDF from their website saying that they had lost the publishing rights.
Since then I have been fruitlessly poking around the internet trying to find another source from which I can download the PDF. I would hate to have to resort to something like BitTorrent and would rather support the RPG in some way, but having spent quite a bit of time, energy, and money assembling the entire run of the RPG I am somewhat perturbed to fall one book short.
Does anyone know of anywhere that the Star Trek RPG: Worlds pdf can still be found, or would anyone be willing to share a copy if they posses it? I own the Mirror Universe PDF and would be willing to exchange it for the Worlds PDF if anyone is looking for it, or even paypal someone for a copy of the worlds pdf.
Just send me off a private message.
It seems to me that Decipher made a conscious decision to make this product unavailable by any means accept P2P sharing even through there are good people like myself and those on this forum willing to give them good money for it. It would not be difficult to simply archive the PDF's for those who wish to download them, given a choice between Not getting the PDF ever, and getting it through a shared community of trek gamers i'll take the latter. If decipher ever decides to re publish the PDF's i'll support the effort at the drop of a hat, but in the mean time I don't think those of us who posess the PDF's should be afraid of sharing what we have. Since Decipher obviously no longer cares about their Trek product line.
Thank you,
PS: All these wonderfull gaming stats...woo.
Thank you all for helping me out!
I'm kind of in the same boat -- I got into Decipher ST RPG way too late, and while I've bought all the available books, and gotten the "Worlds" PDF, when I went to buy "Mirror Universe" from DriveByRPGs, it was gone. It especially sucks because I really want to run a campaign set in the Mirror Universe. There needs to be a way to buy and sell out-of-'print' PDFs the way you would used books.
Anyone have any advice or help?
-- Brian
Not much you can do. Find someone willing to send you a copy of the PDF or find an illegal copy somewhere on a torrent (I don't recommend doing this, but it's about all the options you have).Quote:
Originally Posted by bzero
Decipher doesn't have the Trek or LOTR licenses any more, and they will never sell their LOTR or Trek products again.
Chalk this up to one reason electronic-only materials suck--no legal second market to sell them. You can't go to a used pdf store to get an out of print pdf.
What about printing out a copy and giving that away for the print-out-costs? Then you could make sure, that the copy wouldn't find its way back into the internet and you could remove or overpaint your name and order number on the bottom of each side as well.
Quite costly as a move, but as there wouldn't be a profit involved that shouldn't be bothering people as much as actually sharing a digitial version of the books.
Depending on where you live, this would be illegal as you don't own the right to make a copy of the work. Printing it out is making a copy. Digital rights is a sticky issue. It's unlikely anyone is going to give a crap if you print out a copy of a PDF and give it away. Ethics are in the individual's hands. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Cut
Of course, there's basic ontological problems with what is 'copy/non-copy' in terms of your computer data. The 'actual thing' is a code of on/off switches that needs to be translated into visual impressions–copied from your hard drive into pixels on your screen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ineti
Someone helped me out with the "Mirror Universe" PDF, and I got to spent all weekend running a Star Trek RPG for my girlfriend. So, all is well with me. Thanks for the help, guys!
Joining the chorus here. Long-time CODA-LotR fan, and I am preparing a new CODA-Trek game with the books I just bought used from my local game store. Now I see there were .pdf files for Trek too? If someone would be kind enough to PM me and help me out with finding "Worlds" and "Mirror Universe", that would be fantastic. Thanks.
Hi all,
Just joined this site. I am looking for some of the old and now not sold anymore Decipher gamebooks. The ones I am looking for are:
Star Trek: Worlds
Through A Glass Darkly: The Mirror Universe
Blood and Honor: The Klingons
Peacekeepers: The Guide to Soldiers & Diplomats
Thanks in advance!
You'll find this to be highly difficult.Quote:
Originally Posted by gmt
The first two books where published as buyable pdfs only. The other books have never been released. So I guess that you might be able to _somehow_ find copies of the PDFs somewhere, obtaining notletigimate versions of those titles.
The other two books shall be very _very_ hard to come by I guess...
If anyone does, let me know... : PQuote:
Originally Posted by Cut
Quite so.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King
Thanks for your reply, I didn't realize that these two were never released. Any tips on legally aquiring the PDF's of the released ones? PM's welcome.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cut
Uhhh... what're the digital copyright laws like where you are? : PQuote:
Originally Posted by gmt
From a legal standpoint, it is virtual impossible to obtain the PDFs. Decipher's license has expired, so they should not be making the PDFs avialbe anymore. That is one of the benefits of books. They can be resold as used. Current US didgial copyright laws even prevent someone who bought the PDFS to sell them and transfer ownership.
From a purely tehnical standpoint it is certainly possible to obtain the books in PDF form, and there are those who have done so. However, making the PDFs avialbe or instreucting somehow how to obtain them are topics that are not suitable or permitted on this forum. No one wants top get the site in any trouble.
Hello one and all
I just discovered this forum and you guys are the last hope I have (as best I can tell at this point) of ever obtaining the PDFs of the last two books put out by Decipher, the Worlds and Mirror Universe books.
If anyone has any method or idea for how I can obtain these two PDFs, I'd be extremely grateful. I'm aware of the copyright laws and such, very aware of them. I worked with copyright law everyday for a number of years. There must be some method for obtaining the books without a problem, though.
If anyone can help me or has an idea, please PM me or email me at pcofhod@charter.net and I would be extremely appreciative. Thank you for your time and attention.
There is no legal way to acquire copies of either book, as has been mentioned again and again in this thread. And to preclude further requests and the reposting of the same responses, I'm closing this thread.
PLEASE NOTE: ALL ATTEMPTS TO REVIVE THIS TOPIC IN NEW THREADS WILL BE DELETED AND THE POSTER WARNED.