Is it a violation to email GW pdfs? For instance, there is a Catachan 4th edition PDF. Am I breaking a rule asking for a copy of it? I know it is some sort of violation to scan say Chapter Approved articles out of GW mags and then send that as a PDF but I was wondering about things that were already pdfs.

Thanks.

it would depend entirely on the terms that are attached to the individual download, IMO. if the conditions say the file can be passed on, then there wouldnt be a problem with asking for it, or with someone sending it to you. however, to my knowledge most GW downloads have quite strict terms that you must agree to in order to get them:

for example, go here and click on the Download link. see clause 3:

A single copy to be downloaded, stored temporarily on a single computer and printed once for personal, non-commercial use and only for the purposes of playing Games Workshop's published hobby war games. Additional copies, whether electronic or otherwise, may not be made or distributed without the advance, written permission of Games Workshop Limited. You may, however, provide any person with the URL of the Games Workshop Limited Web Site or a hyperlink to the pertinent portions of said Site (Deeplinking or bandwidth theft excepted). All other rights reserved.

so even though its 'free' to download, we arent 'free' to pass it on as a file (only by means of GWs web address).

so yes, it would be against the rules to ask for such a file here at Age Of Strife (either in a thread or by PM). of course, its none of our business what you do on other sites or by email etc...

hope that helps

~ Tim
p.s. feel free to ask for links to official GW sites that have the files you are looking for - theres nothing wrong with doing that.

Thanks as always Tim. I am making my "GW Bible" with FAQ, CA, army pdfs (BA for instance) with the plan of keeping just the parts I need for reference without digging in old WD and the like.

I know there are things I am missing such as pdfs that are no longer available and I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable as I build this.

I am having a hard enough time finding old hardcopies like the Chapter Approved book.

As Tim says it depends, It also depends which site you download them from (in your innocent state of mind of course) this came up with the datasheets when they were taken down. The UK site has a big sheet of small print attached to nearly all resources, basically stateing that its a single use download and anything else = bad. But a fair amount of content\resources on the US site do not require agreement to such sheets to get the downloads.
A lot of the stuff is still there, some of it can be found by trawling through the black gobbo magazines where some of the links still go to places that are still alive, and I've heard that the old erratas are still on the aus GW server (its just they removed all the links, so a few seer heads still have the links (not I though)).

Now thats an interesting area. If something is no longer linked from a main page, and there is a quiet assumption that its been removed. If the content is still on a server and the link is still the same is that a bad thing? (I, sitting very far into the mr badman camp, would obviously say it wasn't but I guess some folks might call it cyber terrorism or something)

What rare junkets (list) are you looking for I might be able to track down GW hosted material someplace.

no probs. i think i saw the other day that some (well, at least one) of the old links on the GW Oz site (IIRC) still worked, even though they arent actually on the site (if you get what i mean). if i remember rightly, it was Ghazkull Thraka on Warseer that posted the link - if im right, and if you ask him, he might have some more "invisible" links that still work.

there is also this page:
http://uk.games-workshop.com/warhammer40000/gaming/

(and be sure to check the similar pages in the other GW sites that use English, like US, Oz etc)

and try this one:
http://www.ageofstrife.com/modules.php? ... link&cid=7

hope that helps, mate

~ Tim

if you follow tims link to here
http://uk.games-workshop.com/download/d ... achans.pdf
= codex catechan
I suggest you right click and "save as" if possible to stop any big upsets of getting pdfs open in your browser if thats possible.

killmaimburn wrote:Now thats an interesting area. If something is no longer linked from a main page, and there is a quiet assumption that its been removed. If the content is still on a server and the link is still the same is that a bad thing? (I, sitting very far into the mr badman camp, would obviously say it wasn't but I guess some folks might call it cyber terrorism or something)

well as GW say its OK to pass on the link, i dont think that would be a problem (it doesnt say you have to check that the link can still be found on their site before you share it, does it?). afterall, its up to them if they dont want the old links to carry on working, isnt it?

~ Tim

Its all about the idea of implied theft and other strange areas (e.g. the court case that is currently dragging on about if someone steals unused wif fi bandwidth from an un secured source has someone commited a theft? What value has been dimished? (i think it will go to the house of lords cos its one of those ones where most folks know the answer but it won't work for today eith the graffiti tagging white vans lurking, I've seen my first few over the last few weeks)
Just because some one is dumb with IT security and leaves all ports open and leaves all their content available to harvest doesn't mean its necessarily allowed to be taken (if you think it does then you have the brain of a late 80s hacker )
That said I don't have a beef with it

BTW whats Deeplinking? (getting around agreement pages? or going beyond the main page as I described above?)

killmaimburn wrote:Just because some one is dumb with IT security and leaves all ports open and leaves all their content available to harvest doesn't mean its necessarily allowed to be taken

i think the important point here though is that GW gave the link, GW gave permission for the link to be passed on, and GW allow the link to continue working. if you had to guess the link, or modify an existing link to find a file, then i think thats a different matter - but when the original link still works then i think its only fair to assume its OK to use it.

killmaimburn wrote:BTW whats Deeplinking? (getting around agreement pages? or going beyond the main page as I described above?)

im no expert, but AFAIK deeplinking is when you link to a file in such a way that it displays on your site as the content of that file, rather than as a URL. for example, if i linked to the GW site in such a way that made an actual FAQ appear in my post, as if the FAQ was part of my post, while it still being provided direct from their site, then that would be deeplinking.

its different to actually hosting a copy of the file yourself, as it still drains the real hosts bandwidth, but makes it look like you are the host.

EDIT: according to the wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_linking) i was wrong - it seems i was thinking of "inline" linking instead. "deeplinking" apparantly means to link past the home page of a site, so in the case of the GW downloads, linking to the PDF itself.
however, going by the wiki it also seems that deeplinking is the same as hyperlinking... and the GW terms say that hyperlinking "to the pertinent portions" of their site is OK.

maybe they got their terminology wrong, and meant inline linking isnt allowed, rather than deeplinking?

~ Tim

Deeplinking is when you link directly to a file on the server, bypassing the actual site content itself. For instance, with the GWPDFs it's ok to link to the page that lists the T&C and the download button, but you can't like directly to the PDF (the link that the download button goes to). Often other sites don't like you doing this because it means that visitors don't ever see the hosting site content, and if they have lots of adverts that means no revenue from ad presentation.

Spack wrote:Deeplinking is when you link directly to a file on the server, bypassing the actual site content itself. For instance, with the GWPDFs it's ok to link to the page that lists the T&C and the download button, but you can't like directly to the PDF (the link that the download button goes to).

but... isnt every page a file on their server? and they do say we can link to the pertinent portions of the site...

if i linked directly to the Shrine of Knowledge, for example, isnt that a deeplink? (going by the wiki, i would say yes) and if i cant do that, how can i link to the pertinent portions of the site when discussing something it says in the Shrine?

and does this mean we arent allowed to link to an individual FAQ during a rules discussion?

their terms make perfect sense if you replace "deeplinking" with "inline linking" (especially considering the context, as they are talking about bandwidth theft)... but i dont see how i can link to the relevant part of their site without it being a deeplink (unless the part of the site that is relevant is their home page) - based on my limited understanding of what deeplinking is.

~ Tim

Deep linking tends to be to images or documents, not web pages. Linking to HTML pages is normally OK because the visitor sees the site content, and has a chance to navigate around. Linking direct to images or PDF/DOC/etc files means the visitors don't see the site HTML - that's deep linking and is generally frowned upon.

Deep linking as a definition is very open - it's tend to mean linking to any file in a site other than the "home page". However, most site owners don't mind linking to other HTML pages on a site as it means they get visitors to sections they are interested in, are relevant to the page which links to it, and helps increase Google Pagerank. Linking direct to images or documents doesn't help the site owner at all.

In your example, linking to the Shrine page itself should be fine as it's an HTML page on the site. If you were however to link direct to the PDF files, bypassing the T&C page with the download link where GW can at least inform visitors of their terms, then that would be the wrong thing to do.

Spack wrote:Deep linking tends to be to images or documents, not web pages. Linking to HTML pages is normally OK because the visitor sees the site content, and has a chance to navigate around. Linking direct to images or PDF/DOC/etc files means the visitors don't see the site HTML - that's deep linking and is generally frowned upon.

i get the reasoning behind sites being against it... its the definition im having problems with. as per wikipedia, linking to the wiki article on deep linking is an example of deep linking, even though its just a page on their site.

Spack wrote:In your example, linking to the Shrine page itself should be fine as it's an HTML page on the site.

"fine" because its not an example of deeplinking, or because its not harming GW (despite being forbidden by their terms)?

it just feels like there is a conflict in the download terms.

Spack wrote:If you were however to link direct to the PDF files, bypassing the T&C page with the download link where GW can at least inform visitors of their terms, then that would be the wrong thing to do.

isnt that what everyone does though? like on Warseer, and even here on AoS (like our links to the various reference sheet PDFs)? im just trying to work out if it really is forbidden (whether thats "GW forbidden" or actually forbidden), or whether its allowed by the terms (because they give us permission to link to the pertinent parts of the site) as long as we dont use inline links or steal bandwidth.

its just never occured to me that linking to such files shouldnt be allowed (i would have thought that WS would have stopped it from happening, if that was the case, as they tend to be... rather zealous when it comes to IP/upsetting GW etc).

cheers

~ Tim

LordMalekTheRedKnight wrote:i get the reasoning behind sites being against it... its the definition im having problems with. as per wikipedia, linking to the wiki article on deep linking is an example of deep linking, even though its just a page on their site.

Wiki is notoriously bad for relying on definitions

LordMalekTheRedKnight wrote:"fine" because its not an example of deeplinking, or because its not harming GW (despite being forbidden by their terms)?

Because it's not harming GW.

LordMalekTheRedKnight wrote:it just feels like there is a conflict in the download terms.

Ask GW what their definition of deep linking is - that's the only one that counts

Spack wrote:Wiki is notoriously bad for relying on definitions

fair enough.

Spack wrote:Ask GW what their definition of deep linking is - that's the only one that counts

found this:

http://uk.games-workshop.com/legal/canandcant/1/

BANDWIDTH THEFT AND MIRRORING RESOURCES
We do not tolerate deep linking to the pictures, images, PDFs or other downloads on our website. Such activity is bandwidth theft. Also, do not mirror the resources that we have on our websites. So, if you want other people to see the materials that we have produced, please use a simple HTML link to the relevant web page.

doesnt that sound like they are talking about inline linking when they say deeplinking? how is giving the URL of a PDF "bandwidth theft"?

and is it impossible for a PDF with a URL to be a "web page"?

(is there somewhere better than wikipedia where such terms are defined?)

cheers

~ Tim