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Is there a legal way to get D&D 5e core rulebook PDFs?

As much as I like having the hardcover core rule-books in front of me, usually I read or reference most information for RPGs on my computer.
Unfortunately, my google-fu has failed me at finding places to buy a Player's Handbook PDF, or even whether said PDF exists at all. My question
is this: Is there any place I can go to legally buy a D&D 5e core rulebook PDF? I'm not looking for the starter set or basic rules, since
those are incomplete (and free), I'm just looking for the core books in PDF format.
dnd-5e

books

edited Oct 12 '15 at 17:36

asked Sep 10 '14 at 17:49

SevenSidedDie
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Various comments debating legality of options deleted. Contribute an answer if you have one, please.
mxyzplk Nov 19 '14 at 23:57
You may want to specify which country you refer too, as the rules may differ. Diego Martinoia Jan
15 at 15:11
Here we tend to assume that we're talking about the Berne Convention countries, as that's "almost all
of them." Accordingly, advice illegal in those countries has been deleted. See
meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/5331/ and
meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/5382/ mxyzplk Jan 15 at 16:53

6 Answers

Not as of November 2014.

Per the Mike Mearls interview of 3 November 2014:
We're definitely looking at PDFs, ebooks, and other digital platforms, but no news yet. The
goal with anything along those lines will be grow D&D, not just sell ebooks to people who
already play the game, so we're putting a lot of work into figuring out that side of the
equation.
It is likely that if and when a PDF version is made available, it will appear on
http://www.dndclassics.com/ alongside the other PDF material from Wizards of the Coast.
January 2016 Update: The 5E system reference document is available in PDF format. For
many people this may fulfill the need for reference material (looking up spells and creatures,
etc)
edited Jan 16 at 23:19

answered Nov 19 '14 at 5:25

jbowtie
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"grow D&D, not just sell ebooks to people who already play the game" And WotC continues to
not understand how PDF availability is a network effect. *sigh* SevenSidedDie Nov 19 '14 at
5:33

There is one possibility, though I doubt you'll like it.

Assuming US jurisdiction, I believe it's legal for you to create your own PDF copy of the rules,
working from your own legally owned dead-tree copy of the rules. Of course it's a lot of typing,
and you're not likely to want to go through the trouble. (And I can't say I'd blame you for that.)

http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/47655/is-there-a-legal-way-to-get-dd-5e-core-rule...

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dnd 5e - Is there a legal way to get D&D 5e core rulebook PDFs? - Role-playing Games S... Page 2 of 3

Just make sure you don't distribute said copy to anyone else, or you'll be violating copyright
laws, and the penalties for that can be pretty freaking steep.
edited Nov 19 '14 at 19:18

answered Sep 25 '14 at 4:13

mxyzplk
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Or shear the binding off and run it through a scanner. Not that I'd want to do that either.
Polisurgist Feb 11 '15 at 22:37

No, the 5e books are not officially available in electronic form, besides the free Basic rules and
the partial rules placed in the SRD. If they ever do appear for sale, it'll likely be on the DMs
Guild Web store.
The one option available to you is to scan the books into electronic form yourself, or have it
done for you. While I am not a lawyer, here is the relevant information for you to make your
own determination.
Though in the US it's not yet settled case law as to whether this is absolutely legal or not, there
is a lot of reason to believe it is. Earlier court rulings on music and DVRs are only partially
relevant; there is very recent legal precedent, however, specific to creating electronic versions
of books. The Author's Guild generally calls any transformation of a published work into
electronic form copyright infringement and would say you can't do this. However as recently as
June of 2014, they suffered severe setbacks in Authors Guild v. Google and Authors Guild v.
Hathitrust which significantly solidified the legal definition of fair use for published works.
There is even a popular US service that has been in business since 2011 called 1dollarscan.com
which will take in books from you and scan them (destroying the physical copy and providing
you electronic copies in various formats) for your personal use. It has weathered all its legal
challenges so far. (This is actually a popular practice imported from Japan where it's called
"jisui," and it had back and forth legal challenges there too, ending with the scanning shops
being declared illegal in Sept. 2013.) Until this exact use case comes before a court it is not
possible to say it is "absolutely" legal, and it's going to vary by locality, but I think it's quite
reasonable to conclude this falls under fair use as currently interpreted by the courts.
answered Nov 19 '14 at 20:24

edited Jan 15 at 14:52

mxyzplk
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No.
The rest of this answer is now outdated, due to DungeonScape closing down.

However, you should be able to get the equivalent eventually. DungeonScape is the online
companion to D&D 5e, and should be available in the coming weeks or months.
Notably, this blog post talks about digital distribution, and mentions
In DungeonScape, taking advantage of the full suite of player-based tools (i.e. character
creation and character sheet) requires the digital version of the PHB (Players Handbook) to
be unlocked for each account/player.
This suggests that there will definitely be a way to acquire the digital PHB, if not PDF.
edited Nov 19 '14 at 7:15

answered Sep 10 '14 at 17:53

Wesley Obenshain

SurrealAnalysis

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Even still this will likely not be a full PDF, but just the contents. wax eagle Sep 10 '14 at 17:57

In Denmark it is legal for you to create a digital backup of a product you have legally bought. As
far as I know, this includes downloading it from the Internet, as long as you don't distribute it.
I don't know if it works like this in other countries, but it might be legal for you to torrent it
(disable upload first), as long as you have bought the physical book.
answered Feb 11 '15 at 1:54

Xanderh
49

http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/47655/is-there-a-legal-way-to-get-dd-5e-core-rule...

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dnd 5e - Is there a legal way to get D&D 5e core rulebook PDFs? - Role-playing Games S... Page 3 of 3

On the other hand, though, whoever put it there on the internet is not doing it legally, so you're not
necessarily going through legal channels. However, scanning it sounds like it's fine in your
jurisdiction. doppelgreener Feb 11 '15 at 2:04
2

(Scanning for personal use is fine in nearly all jurisdictions, but that's already been given as an
answer.) SevenSidedDie Feb 11 '15 at 4:31
I know that downloading a digital movie that you own is legal where I live. I am not 100 % sure on
books, though. Xanderh Feb 24 '15 at 23:23

Yeah the question is, if it's legal to download it but not to distribute it, where do you download it
from? Dan Henderson Oct 9 '15 at 17:32

There are services that will scan any book you own into a searchable pdf word document such
as bound book scanning. They have 2 versions, 1 destructive 2 non destructive. I priced it out
and it's about 50$ to 80$ for non destructive depending on the options you get. Destructive is
cheaper (32$ to 67).
I don't think it's worth it, but that's just me.
answered Mar 8 '15 at 3:03

Johnboy
39

You should probably add some reasoning as to why this is a legal way to get PDFs, so that this stands
alone as a complete answer to the question. Miniman Mar 8 '15 at 4:18

The legality of this process I believe has been thoroughly answered in previous posts. I'm only
providing the cost of one company that is reflective of several companies that do the same thing.
Johnboy Mar 9 '15 at 9:27

http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/47655/is-there-a-legal-way-to-get-dd-5e-core-rule...

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