Professional printing of PDF:s...

[dawnrazor]

Hi guys!

I wonder if you could enlighten me on the subject of PDF printing. If I want to take my legally purchased PDF to a POD printer and make, say a hard bound copy of the book, would that be legal? I really can't see the difference from printing it at home and put it in a binder or use ring binding or whatever...

Anyone knows?

Cheers

/a.

[nclarke]

Copyright law differs from place to place in the world but with a legally owned PDF you can in most jurisdictions indeed have it professionally printed.

The problem might be (and I think I've only heard about it in the US) is that the printer might want to have some proof that you have the right to print the pdf. This is often as easy as pointing out the statement that if often on pdfs from professional companies that says something like "you have the right to print this for personal use only".

AFAIK that statement, for example, appears on just about every character sheet in most RPG's even where a separate sheet is provided for download from the authors web site.

[seneschal]

In the U.S., Kinkos will give you fits about printing a PDF, even if it plainly reads "Permission granted to print and copy for personal use" on the cover page. Office Depot, however, is much more reasonable.

[ORtrail]

What about Office Max? That would be the closest place to me. I had a map laminated there the other day, it nevered occured to me to ask about PDFs. As many as I have purchased in the last two years though, I really should look into prices, etc. Mainly for the ones with lots of color.

[Chaot]

In the U.S., Kinkos will give you fits about printing a PDF

Ha! Still! I remember going to a Kinkos back in 2001 or so and having them grill me about ownership and then refusing the job.

What about Office Max? That would be the closest place to me.

If they give you a problem, loudly declare that your nom de plume is Steve Perrin, except when you're writing as Gary Gygax. Report back here with the results.

There are some online printers as well. I'm not much help here as I really don't print out pdfs.

[Puck]

I found Office Max to be a pain, but Staples was very reasonable.

[ORtrail]

I would think part of it would be the Store Manager and part company policy. With the explosion of PDFs they are missing out if they refuse print jobs. I will just have to take a PDF or two in on a thumbdrive to my local Office Max and see what happens.

I need to laminate another map anyway.

[ORtrail]

So, I actually ended up at an Office Depot, and had no issue getting my PDF of Villains & Vigilantes: Final Fight With The Furies printed out. It was 64 pages (seven of those color the rest B&W) on 28lb paper, spiral bound, with a clear plastic cover and plastic maroon colored back. It was $15.03 which was okay, but they would have wanted close to $100 to print out my PDF of Capes, Cowls, And Villains Foul at 170+ pages in color. Uh, no, I'll just use my Nook or the laptop.

I did expect double-sided printing, but they did each page on a seperate piece of paper. Actually, that gives me plenty of space to write conversion notes to Superworld and plot changes/additions, so I'm cool with it. For an actual gaming book, I would not have been happy.

I also got another map laminated, with no waver to sign -and they gave me a "Why would we ask you to do that?" look.

[soltakss]

I also got another map laminated, with no waver to sign -and they gave me a "Why would we ask you to do that?" look.

Laminating is fine - if you want to ruin a map by covering it with plastic then it doesn't affect copyright.

Copying the map and then laminating it might be different.

[rust]

If I want to take my legally purchased PDF to a POD printer and make, say a hard bound copy of the book, would that be legal?

It depends on your national law, the laws in the various continental European states

differ considerably, and the relevant laws in England and the USA are completely dif-

ferent from those in most continental European states (e.g. their laws have the con-

cept of "copyright", which does not exist in most European laws, where a quite diffe-

rent concept of "intellectual property" is used).

For example, in Germany a Privatkopie ("private copy") for the personal use only is al-

most always allowed, to compensate the owner of the intellectual property we pay a

small fee with every empty CD, printer and other device used to produce copies we

buy, and that money is distributed to the organization of the intellectual property ow-

ners.

So, to be sure what is legal, you have to take a look at the Swedish law.

[ORtrail]

Laminating is fine - if you want to [protect] a map [from spilled drinks] by covering it with plastic then it doesn't affect copyright.

Copying the map [like you did] and then laminating it might be different [but Office Depot will not care].

[Gollum]

It depends on your national law, the laws in the various continental European states differ considerably, and the relevant laws in England and the USA are completely different from those in most continental European states (e.g. their laws have the concept of "copyright", which does not exist in most European laws, where a quite different concept of "intellectual property" is used).

For example, in Germany a Privatkopie ("private copy") for the personal use only is almost always allowed, to compensate the owner of the intellectual property we pay a small fee with every empty CD, printer and other device used to produce copies we buy, and that money is distributed to the organization of the intellectual property owners.

So, to be sure what is legal, you have to take a look at the Swedish law.

It also depends on what is precisely written on the book. Some authors give license to copy for personal use, for instance, while some others don't.

To be more precise, here is what is written on the Basic Role Playing system, the big golden book, second edition:

"The reproduction from material from within this book for the purpose of personal or corporate profit [...] is prohibited." So, as long as it is for personal use and not for profit, it sounds to be allowed... Printing one book from a pdf with such a copyright will certainly be considered as legal as long as the owner of the printed book is also the owner of the pdf... Now, printing a dozen of books from the same pdf will certainly not be considered as personal use, of course...

GURPS Lite, to take another example, gives even more license to the users : "GURPS Lite is copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004 by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. It is intended for free distribution. You are encouraged to copy and share these 32 pages freely."

So, it really depends on the copyright. Thus, even if we usually skip it when we read a new book, watch it carefully when you want to know the author's point of view about their rights.

Edited January 27, 2013 by Gollum

[seneschal]

Again, though, Fed-Ex/Kinkos will require you to get the author's signature on a form they provide before they will allow you to print a PDF. They will require this even if the PDF has three pages of disclaimers saying, "Yes, it is OK to print and copy this document for personal use!" If YOU are they author, they expect you to prove it. They questioned my mother about copying and enlarging an ink drawing I did.

Edited January 27, 2013 by seneschal

[Gollum]

Again, though, Fed-Ex/Kinkos will require you to get the author's signature on a form they provide before they will allow you to print a PDF. They will require this even if the PDF has three pages of disclaimers saying, "Yes, it is OK to print and copy this document for personal use!" If YOU are they author, they expect you to prove it. They questioned my mother about copying and enlarging an ink drawing I did.

Yes, of course, because they can't know why you want to copy it: for personal use, for selling or for anything else even more illegal (like counterfeiting). So, they don't want to be accomplice of something illegal.

[Gollum]

Having said that, there are a lot of other ways to print a pdf, like in a "photocopying shop" for instance (I don't know if "photocopying shop" it is the good English term).

Indeed, they usually have tools to do a much better job than a simple home printing (high quality laser printer, high quality paper, etc.) and several different kinds of interesting bindings, as soon as you are ready to pay for a nearly professional work.

The difference between them and a professional printer is mainly the fact that the printer will be able to make a huge amount of copies and to reduce the cost depending on this number.

[Atgxtg]

I've Printed out several PDFs at stores and have gotten several different results. Some times it has gone smoothly; at other times they want me to sing a form that realeses them of responsiblity if I printed something I shouldn't have.

In extreme cases I had somebody refuse to print something despite the "permission to reproduce" notice on the cover, although, thankfully, the manager came over and overrode that. In one instance they wanted my to present written proof that I had permission to print the document, which was fun as I was the author. In that case I wrote out a note on a piece of paper and whipped out my ID. Problem solved. And in one instance the guy printing it was a gamer ans wanted a copy for himself!

All in the same store.

But generally, it's not to bad. THe worse they can do is say no, and in most cases they don't want to say no and loose the business. As long as you are polite and reasonable about things, you will probably get your way. Just don't go ballistic.

In my experience, the manager is more willing to accommodate. The help don't want to be the one who prints off the "no-no" PDF and get into trouble. More experienced employees, and managers aren't usually as paranoid, and better able to tell what item will cause problems. But generally things go smoothly.

[DamonJynx]

I print mine out at work, largely B&W except for perhaps the covers and take them to the local print shop for binding. If I had to pay for printing, I think it would probably be better to simply buy the printed book!