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 Ravenous D wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:


You can spin it anyway that you like if it helps you sleep better at night, but this is still piracy.

Group buying is not piracy. So I'll sleep just fine on the money I'll save. What you allow is what will continue, if you want to keep supporting and justifying GWs terrible behaviour then go nuts. I will continue to cut GW out of my game by every legal means necessary.

What you are doing is not "group buying", group buying is when a bunch of people buy a single copy to share it, while what you are doing is buying a digital copy for each member of your group while paying for it a single time.

It is not legal, it is expressly against Apple's ToS and it is piracy just as much as if you had torrented it.

And I don't support "GW's terrible behaviour", you wan't to know how I don't support them? I stopped playing their games and buying their product when 6th edition was released. But what I also don't do is steal from them and justify it by trying to claim that I'm "fighting the man" or some such nonsense...

Im afraid, it is piracy, regardless of how you wish to dress it up, unless those 9 chums are all family.

May as well get recasting too. Its really the same thing, file sharing material, outside contractual limits is illegal.

Stuff like this is why our books wont be released on PDF or as an ebook. So this sort of behaviour has an effect not only on GW but smaller publishers who cant run the risk of losing sales to file sharing.

What I find odd is the view that it is in some way 'sticking it' to GW. Really the only cause, if any, would be to increase unit cost to cover losses.

Go to all that effort to get around spending money on them but still want to play the game.

If its that bad... play some other game, that may stick it to them better.

PhantomViper wrote:


What you are doing is not "group buying", group buying is when a bunch of people buy a single copy to share it, while what you are doing is buying a digital copy for each member of your group while paying for it a single time.

Umm.... Sure. Okay.

PhantomViper wrote:
It is not legal, it is expressly against Apple's ToS and it is piracy just as much as if you had torrented it.

Nope. No more then me sharing an app across my multiple devices.

I prefer just paying for the codex, the money goes to a good company whos game I enjoy. I want them to continue to exist and make the games i enjoy, so paying them for it isnt that big of an issue to me.

can always just share the hardcopies anyways.


besides... factor in the 400$+ cost for the ipad and it doesnt sound that cheap to me lol!


unfortunatly, the fact is, this game is an anachronism in a time of computer/console games... GW has more overhead and smaller margins then video games, and caters to a much smaller audience.

things like model piracy and rules piracy do affect their bottom line,

and just as filsharing destroyed all the blockbusters and HMV's, this stuff can destroy GW if it gets out of hand.

not saying this particular exploit of apples sharing is piracy, and im not saying it isnt,

but I do think you sign an agreement with apple saying you only share on YOUR personal devices, not with other people's devices.

its like stealing sattelite by buying 4 receivers for YOUR house under one contract, then giving them to your friends and splitting the bill, pretty sure the TOS you sign with apple will have similar clauses.

 Ravenous D wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
It is not legal, it is expressly against Apple's ToS and it is piracy just as much as if you had torrented it.

Nope. No more then me sharing an app across my multiple devices.

Except that you just stated that they aren't your devices, so:

Apple ToS wrote:
“You agree that your Account is non-transferable"

So, like I said, keep lying to yourself all you wan't if that makes you sleep well at night but what you are doing is still piracy.

And they aint your multiple devices... even contradicting yourself there old chap.

But I'd like to know what you think regarding my comment on its effect on smaller publishers.

Big P wrote:
Go to all that effort to get around spending money on them but still want to play the game.

If its that bad... play some other game, that may stick it to them better.

Yep, if you want free rules, here's an excellent place to download them:

http://www.manticgames.com/free-rules.html

They're also much better written and balanced than GW's "Sell 3 of the latest £70 power ranger toy kit by giving it OP stats" rules, with the only decent thing about the game (the background) slowly being butchered away in whatever drivel the disinterested writer quickly whips up to put in there.. the last codex where it seemed like the author actually cared was Dark Eldar.

Free rules and army lists can also be found for Infinity, and plenty of other games, too!

And besides that, there's a ton of games where the rules and all the army lists can be acquired with the purchase of a single £15 book.

£60 rulebook, £35 codex, £35 expansion, £5 dataslate, £5 dataslate, £5 dataslate, throw it in the trash after 2 years when the new edition comes out is basically exclusive to GW as far as pricing structure for rules goes.

I'd encourage basically anyone who isn't happy with 40k to give either Deadzone, Infinity or Dropzone Commander a try. All really great sci-fi games with active playerbases where you can get a complete army and all the rules for less than the price of rules + codex from GW.

Big P wrote:
And they aint your multiple devices... even contradicting yourself there old chap.

But I'd like to know what you think regarding my comment on its effect on smaller publishers.

Yet sharing them with your family is allowed.. Those aren't all *your* devices either. It's such a pointless argument since Apple doesn't define it so strictly. 1 product may be shared across 10 devices that log on using the same apple ID, done. Would it make it better if one person theoretically *bought* all the devices and then simply let others borrow them? Are we seriously so hung up on the term "own"?

How about each person buy their own Ipads, and then "sell" ownership rights for 1$ to the owner of the AppleID? Then simply lease the Ipads back for 0$ and 0% interest? Would that satisfy the ownership requirements, or perhaps is a court document required? Maybe some blood? It's an Apple policy in which they allow 10 devices, that's all there is to it.

It is incredibly impractical to share apple accounts with non family, or even 'other people' and it is terribly hard to easily swap between apple IDs for downloaded content. iCloud, FindMyFriend, iMessage all make it terribly impractical to share with another human even inside the family. It basically only works for devices which serve no purpose as a personal device.

If I was buying an IPAD for nothing but codexes, then so be it. But I use way to many features of my ipad and iphone to even consider sharing with another person.

The only way this would be practical was if there was a 'store' or 'club' ipad which did nothing but sit there and serve codexes while gaming. Then I can see the splitting the costs 10 ways.

Stupid idea is stupid. No one who actually owns or uses apple devices would even consider this model.

The Irony of buying a product to show a company how you don't support them.

The irony of people calling GW unethical and piracy unethical, while simultaneously admitting to owning multiple Apple devices makes my back fething teeth ache. Unbelievable.

Take thirty seconds and Google 'Is Apple unethical?' and prepare to weep at its human rights abuses specifically to make your tablet. *facepalm*

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
The irony of people calling GW unethical and piracy unethical, while simultaneously admitting to owning multiple Apple devices makes my back fething teeth ache. Unbelievable.

Take thirty seconds and Google 'Is Apple unethical?' and prepare to weep at its human rights abuses specifically to make your tablet. *facepalm*

I buy my shoes from Nike. I'm typing this post on my iPad. I have thousands of songs on my iPod that I (probably) didn't buy. I watched a full "ripped" version do Space Battleship Yomato on YouTube. I don't use GW as a means of justifying any of it.

The thing that I find silly about the OP's scheme is that you'd need to buy ten iPads dedicated solely to putting codexes on them. While I have codexes on my iPad, that is really the least I use it for. I use it more for movies and music videos with internet being a close second.

Hey now, a lot of people are throwing around the word "piracy." Piracy implies that there is something illegal going on, so be careful with that word unless you actually go read the Apple TOS.

GW agreed to the Apple TOS in order to sell the product via Apple's ecosystem, so GW has already said it is okay with anything that is allowed under the TOS.

So how about we actually read the TOS.

I'm not going to because I really don't care about this, but I think that if you are going to say someone is violating a law, you'd better not be saying it lightly.

How is sharing multiple copies with your family and multiple copies with your friends different? Is this defined in piracy law?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If it is different, how is family defined? Brother? Second cousin twice removed? Sister of my brother-in-law?

 milkboy wrote:
How is sharing multiple copies with your family and multiple copies with your friends different? Is this defined in piracy law?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If it is different, how is family defined? Brother? Second cousin twice removed? Sister of my brother-in-law?

It should be spelled out in the TOS.

I couldn't find the TOS on the Black Library site. Would you know where? All I could find was the 5 time download for their e-books.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I guess I asked the family question because some posts implied that family sharing is not piracy. So unless there is a clear definition of who is family, it's a grey area. Aren't we all descended from the first human? That makes us.....family?

Apple doesn't have to make it illegal, they just have to make the product practically unusable and sharing apple accounts unreasonably difficult to make it be worth the effort.

So reallly... I am going to wipe my device, lose all my email, media, game scores, downloaded books, music, imessage, cloud, photo, videos, software, personal tracking and the thousands of other useful options on my ipad and iphone so I can read a codex and screw GW out of some money? Really?

The way apple devices are, you can only have 1 apple ID per device. Changing the apple ID wipes the device. It is pretty damn hard to use the features of an apple device with another adult human on the same account unless they are a child. My parents share an apple ID and are minor users and not tech savvy at all and it still causes them headaches to share with each other... Imagine if I had to share with them, or 9 of my random friends?

The scenario proposed is ridiculously unfeasible to actually be done by anyone anywhere. This thread is a poorly attempted anti-GW troll because anyone who actually owns Ipads or uses apple devices knows there is no way you would basically make a 500$ ipad useless, let alone 10 of them simply to get a cheap GW codex.

I have an Apple ID and use it on three different computers, but I am just logging into the Apple system to "do stuff". I don't own any iTunes, iBooks or iApps or anything -- maybe they work differently?

Actually I have downloaded an app on my wife ipad by logging in with my ID and nothing got wiped. It just cannot update unless I provide the password.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just go to settings, log off the store account and log in another.

Big P wrote:


If its that bad... play some other game, that may stick it to them better.

Here here..

If the prices are that much of a turn-off, probably better to play a different game that doesn't demand such an investment.

Awesome! Now, if only we can find a way to make this work for the models...

nkelsch wrote:
Apple doesn't have to make it illegal, they just have to make the product practically unusable and sharing apple accounts unreasonably difficult to make it be worth the effort.

So reallly... I am going to wipe my device, lose all my email, media, game scores, downloaded books, music, imessage, cloud, photo, videos, software, personal tracking and the thousands of other useful options on my ipad and iphone so I can read a codex and screw GW out of some money? Really?

The way apple devices are, you can only have 1 apple ID per device. Changing the apple ID wipes the device. It is pretty damn hard to use the features of an apple device with another adult human on the same account unless they are a child. My parents share an apple ID and are minor users and not tech savvy at all and it still causes them headaches to share with each other... Imagine if I had to share with them, or 9 of my random friends?

The scenario proposed is ridiculously unfeasible to actually be done by anyone anywhere. This thread is a poorly attempted anti-GW troll because anyone who actually owns Ipads or uses apple devices knows there is no way you would basically make a 500$ ipad useless, let alone 10 of them simply to get a cheap GW codex.

Hey Nick

Guess you missed the part where I said NEW iPad in the OP.

Also, really, how many of us buy every codex instead of just the codices for the armies they play? Doesn't doing this to buy every codex (and all the other books I presume as well) actually increase GW's sales for most books?

Jefffar wrote:
Also, really, how many of us buy every codex instead of just the codices for the armies they play? Doesn't doing this to buy every codex (and all the other books I presume as well) actually increase GW's sales for most books?

Quite a few people actually, and really this is who the thread is aimed at, if you are a casual player it doesn't make much sense.

 Ravenous D wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Also, really, how many of us buy every codex instead of just the codices for the armies they play? Doesn't doing this to buy every codex (and all the other books I presume as well) actually increase GW's sales for most books?

Quite a few people actually, and really this is who the thread is aimed at, if you are a casual player it doesn't make much sense.

I think the most interesting thing about this thread is the idea that one could buy a new iPad and load it with all of the 40K rulebooks and come out cheaper than just buying the books.

Says a little bit about the price of those books and the value that you get out of them.

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
The irony of people calling GW unethical and piracy unethical, while simultaneously admitting to owning multiple Apple devices makes my back fething teeth ache. Unbelievable.

Take thirty seconds and Google 'Is Apple unethical?' and prepare to weep at its human rights abuses specifically to make your tablet. *facepalm*

Is this the documentary that was proven to be faked, or a newer one?

Disregarding any potential terms of service issues (which I'm not saying this concept does or doesn't infringe upon), the premise of this thread is so incredibly unwieldy that it is practically trolling. Sure you can buy codexes at up to 90% off if you have 9 other friends who are willing to purchase an iPad specifically to hold ibooks and don't want to have access to that stuff on any of their other apple devices (including mac computers).

Many people don't actually own apple devices and so aren't intimately familiar with the limitations on the Apple ID system, so by presenting this concept the way you have, you're confusing people into thinking that this would be relatively easy to accomplish (just find 9 friends you trust and buy an iPad), when that is not all that is required (because of the limitations of the Apple ID system).


All the purchases on an iPad are tied to a single Apple ID. That means all movies, music, TV, books & apps purchased through the apple store are tied to this single account. If you change the Apple ID on a device, then you lose the ability to access that content.

Yes, Apple allows the same Apple ID to be shared across 10 devices…but there are a few giant caveats about this:

• It is 10 DEVICES, not 10 people. That means, if one person has an iPhone, an iPad and a mac laptop, that's 3 devices already down…so even though you can't view the ibook format books on an iPhone, if you still want/need that iPhone to share your music/TV/app purchases between your iPhone & iPad, then you're going to need to have them both sharing that same Apple ID.

• While you could theoretically buy an iPad just to put your ibooks rules on it, and never plan to buy any music/TV/movies from apple, that same Apple ID still identifies which paid apps the iPad is allowed to have. That means any other person you wanted to let use your Apple ID is stuck using the same apps (including in-app purchases). Anyone with an iPad or iPhone knows, it is the apps that really power the device, so having a limitation of which apps you can have based on whomever is in charge of the Apple ID would be a tremendous pain in the butt.


So someone might be thinking: Can't you just totally share an Apple ID between people? Where you always pool your money together and therefore are always buying the same music, movies, TV shows, apps & books (that you all have then have access to)?

Yes you can absolutely do that. But unless you're each running a single device (an iPad) then you're using up one of those 10 device slots for each device. And since you're spending money buying moves, TV shows, apps & books, then you probably want to be able to use them on an iPhone as well, and probably also a mac…so really you're talking about sharing that Apple ID with more like 3-5 people realistically (depending on how many devices they each own).

And then god forbid any of those people have a spouse or kids that want to share their Apple ID, because then you're talking about a lot more devices used!

Now, with iOS8 coming out, apple says they're adding 'family sharing' into the mix, which allows you to share purchases across a select number of Apple IDs…this will theoretically open things up quite a bit, but it is still unclear exactly how this process works and how permanent the choice is of which Apple IDs now count as being part of the family.

Well, I can say that I am a lot more likely to get an iPad than an iPhone or a Mac - the only Apple device that I have is a pair of iPods, and an iPad would work fairly well as a replacement for one of the iPods. (I have Classics - that have more drive space than an iPad typically comes with. And one of them is old enough that it wasn't called a Classic when I got it....)

On the flip side - I could see a club chipping in for content on a club ID, then largely dedicate those devices to gaming (not just 40K - there are apps for Pathfinder and other games as well).

I am not certain how the Apple ToS would handle a club account... but I do know that organizations do have Apple accounts on linked iPads.

It is one step further away from piracy - as the club is the basis of the account.

That said... while I am five times as likely to buy an iPad than a Mac or iPhone it is much more likely that I will buy a Kindle Fire.... I do not much like Apple.

Nor is it at all likely that I would buy any WH40K material, in any format, at least for the current or recent rules. I do not play them, and neither do I have any urge to do so.

Plus, I can put software and rules for Kings of War - which I do play - on any device I feel like, without bending, breaking, or even disturbing any laws whatsoever... both the software and the rules are free.

The Auld Grump

weeble1000 wrote:
I think the most interesting thing about this thread is the idea that one could buy a new iPad and load it with all of the 40K rulebooks and come out cheaper than just buying the books.

Says a little bit about the price of those books and the value that you get out of them.

That's actually a scary thought. With an iPad mini (RRP £319) you're probably correct. Ouch.

It shouldn't be too problematic in practice? You can sign into multiple accounts on your ipad so you have your personal account for everything, then spend 20 seconds signing into your shared account to read the books when you want to. When you're done, sign back into your personal account. I find pdfs superior so wouldn't bother with this, but it seems perfectly doable. (Not something I've done, I just think this is doable)

It seems like this might make syncing a problem, but I abhor itunes software and find syncing to cause a lot of trouble so never use it anyway. I prefer direct control.

weeble1000 wrote:
Hey now, a lot of people are throwing around the word "piracy." Piracy implies that there is something illegal going on, so be careful with that word unless you actually go read the Apple TOS.

GW agreed to the Apple TOS in order to sell the product via Apple's ecosystem, so GW has already said it is okay with anything that is allowed under the TOS.

So how about we actually read the TOS.

I'm not going to because I really don't care about this, but I think that if you are going to say someone is violating a law, you'd better not be saying it lightly.

Hilarious how people will accuse GW of all sorts of ludicrous shenanigans (can't remember all this poster's previous accusations, but remember it involved accusations along the lines of eugenics and race hatred) yet condone obvious copyright violations.

Apple App and iTunes ToS specifically allow multiple people to access a software product from one device, or one person to access software from multiple devices. (Ludicrously impractical) suggestions like those of the OP specifically flout the ToS.

Good suggestion about only ever using discount cards for iTunes,though. sadly in the UK we seem to be limited to 25% discount.