full DP guide online?

[jgenotte]

Is it possible for those of us who have purchased the DP Guide to have the (8-bit) rarity and pricing info avaliable online with some sort of login?

Just currious,
-james

[Scoots]

That would be fucking awesome if it can be done. I do the majority of my Ebaying/online dealing at work but my DP guide resides at home. I can't tell you how often I wish I had it with me here.

[tynstar]

That would be fucking awesome if it can be done. I do the majority of my Ebaying/online dealing at work but my DP guide resides at home. I can't tell you how often I wish I had it with me here.

I agree I do the same thing. i have needed the NES prices a lot.

[nesman85]

it would be cool to have it online, but i don't think it would work. some people would probably share their login info with other people and then less people would buy the guide.

[jgenotte]

it would be cool to have it online, but i don't think it would work. some people would probably share their login info with other people and then less people would buy the guide.

yeah, that is a good point. It would be nice though.

What does the almighty DP say?

[punkoffgirl]

We'll bump this over to the gaming forum where it'll get a bit more exposure. The good kind :)

[Sph1nx]

Boo. I say no. It'd be too easy to rip off and next thing you know digit press cds are popping up on ebay.

[LazingBlazers]

An online version would be alright, but I think a PDF CD version would be the absolute best. That way I could make those badass print-outs of just the sections that I'm intersted in, and put them in my binder of goodness. :)

turBOGRafx4Life... and custom ability.

[nesuser2]

well......i'm not sure what you're looking for out of it. whether it's just prices or the rarity as well. But I think your best bet would be to type up your own access DB or something, it would search much easier that way too and would be very awesome. But if you're looking for full descriptions of the games as well......ehhh......put the guide in your car. I always leave mine there incase I find a hidden flea somewhere :D

EDIT: I forgot to say, the reasons for those suggestions would be that only truely interested people or people that really use it would have it. Maybe you and a couple of your guide buying friends could split up some sections as I don't think anything would work out very good if it were posted online......even with passwords. Just my own thoughts, we'll see what DP says....

[Spoony Bard]

I'm suprised no one has said for you to get a second DP guide and leave it at work :P

[tynstar]

I need three guides then. One for home, work and car.

[tholly]

I really would like to be able to pay a few dollars to just get the NES price guide. I dont really want the prices for any of the other systems in the guide which is why i havent bought it. I dont wanna spend 25 on a whole book. but i would glady spend a few dollars for the nes sections.

[brykasch]

I like this idea as well. You can make a pdf that can't be saved or printed, and as far as the login worries, if one is looking from the same login but two different ip's than kick em off like adult's site do. I would be interested in more in depth ones for different sections for sale like one for nes, or atari 2600. One with color scans of carts and boxes stuff like that. I would be 25 for a nes one like that.

[§ Gideon §]

...and as far as the login worries, if one is looking from the same login but two different ip's than kick em off like adult's site do.
Wouldn't that defeat the purpose--to have a guide that's accessible from any computer?

Well, listen up, all. I'm here to provide a solution that will work for each and every one of you. It's rather simple, really: Memorize the DP guide. Presto! No worries!

[nesman85]

I need three guides then. One for home, work and car.
umm, why can't you just take the guide with you? or just leave it in your car so if you need it at work or home you can go out and get it?

[Trellisaze]

I'm with the idea of making an Access (or any other) database for this. It's pretty much what I did for the systems I concentrate on, and just export the data to an Excel file if I ever want to reference it at work.

[sisko]

Not trying to threadjack...but its along the same train of thought...

Is there a half size pocket book?

I've looked and couldn't find one, but I'd be all over a simplified guide with only prices and rarites for on the go.

[tynstar]

I need three guides then. One for home, work and car.
umm, why can't you just take the guide with you? or just leave it in your car so if you need it at work or home you can go out and get it?

That just makes way to much sense. I should have put around my last post.

[jgenotte]

I'm with the idea of making an Access (or any other) database for this. It's pretty much what I did for the systems I concentrate on

Um...would you mind sharing, since you have alredy done it? If you want proof that I do have the guide PM me a specific question about it and I will provide the answer, or I could take a picture with it while in a pose specified by you. :D

[Gunstarhero]

Duh, am I the only one who understands why you can't access a complete listing for consoles that appear in the most recent DP guide? It's so painfully obvious, if you give the whole DP guide for free online, who the hell would buy the actual thing?

Come to think of it, I would imagine if some schmo without the authorized written consent, decides to print this copyrighted material on the web and make it available for free, DP would be able to take some legal action against that person, much like Game Companies have the right to take action against ROM dumpers and ROM users for the exact same reason.

[jgenotte]

Duh, am I the only one who understands why you can't access a complete listing for consoles that appear in the most recent DP guide? It's so painfully obvious, if you give the whole DP guide for free online, who the hell would buy the actual thing?

Come to think of it, I would imagine if some schmo without the authorized written consent, decides to print this copyrighted material on the web and make it available for free, DP would be able to take some legal action against that person, much like Game Companies have the right to take action against ROM dumpers and ROM users for the exact same reason.


Gunstarhero: I mean no offence, but I think you should read the whole thread. We are trying to find a way of making it secure so that only those who actually bought it could have access to it.

[Gunstarhero]

Duh, am I the only one who understands why you can't access a complete listing for consoles that appear in the most recent DP guide? It's so painfully obvious, if you give the whole DP guide for free online, who the hell would buy the actual thing?

Come to think of it, I would imagine if some schmo without the authorized written consent, decides to print this copyrighted material on the web and make it available for free, DP would be able to take some legal action against that person, much like Game Companies have the right to take action against ROM dumpers and ROM users for the exact same reason.


Gunstarhero: I mean no offence, but I think you should read the whole thread. We are trying to find a way of making it secure so that only those who actually bought it could have access to it.

No offense taken, but it's rather nieve to think that this idea will not be exploited. All it takes is one guy to copy the info and create and burn it to CD, or make it available on his own website for free etc...Dont think so? I point to emulation as proof. There's absolutely no reason to require the DP guide to be online, as there is nothing about the actual guide itself that is not portable. It's not like the Guide is an entire edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, it's one book, take it with you.

[brykasch]

Gunstar Heroes- How can you print and or copy something that cannot be printed or copied? PDF's can be made pretty damn secure. And I guarantee you if we found out the DMCA goons would be on them like stink on s**t.

The login ip thing. You can still use it anywhere you wnat to, but it would limit you, ie, you couldn't be on and lend you buddy your login and be on at the same time, so you can use it at home and at work. Just not both at the same time.

Granted most people use it jsut for the values, but I buy it for the history of the systems, info, etc. IF there was listings I would be in favor of just rarity and value only.

[CitizenWhite]

Yes, PDF's can be made secure. But what is to keep someone from just taking a screen cap of it? Damn, the quality would be horrible, but if someone wants the information bad enough. Come to think of it, someone could just scan the book now. Nothing can be made completely secure, there will always be a risk.

[jgenotte]

Everyone makes good points about the rip-off-factor, and I couldnt agree more. It is just that there must be a way of making it secure so that everyone is happy.

I wonder why we havent heard from DP yet. Any responce would be good even if it is: "Hell NO!, dont be stupid. [thread locked]"

DP?...

[Scoots]

Someone has already reproduced some of DP's lists and was selling them on CD on Ebay awhile back.

[Trellisaze]

Um...would you mind sharing, since you have alredy done it? If you want proof that I do have the guide PM me a specific question about it and I will provide the answer, or I could take a picture with it while in a pose specified by you. :D

Sorry, bro, no can do. I don't doubt you at all, it's just that it's not my research to share.

[jgenotte]

I totaly understand. Although it sucks for me, I think that you made the right decision.

[rbudrick]

The only way I can even think of to make an online version secure is to make it a flash file....big load times, but hey....we've got to seriously think about DPs intellectual property rights. A Flash file w/ interface would make it way too much of a pain in the ass to retype and sell, as long as you know how to mask the name of the flash file from those who like to look at the source code of a web page. Evenm then, I think those who want in oughta pay $10-20 for the privilege.

-Rob

[kevincure]

A few IP related points:

First, the actual lists of games are certainly not copyrightable. They are data, and a court would say that it doesn't meet the Constitution's "originality" constraint. There's a 1991 Supreme Court case based on a phone book company in Kansas that goes into this in depth, but I'm striking out on remembering the name.

As for the rarity and prices, even that is borderline, especially the pricing data. I think you'd be hardpressed to find a court who would say that a retyped DP guide, distributed for free (or even for sale!) online, is a copyright violation.

That said, there's also the *moral* question - knowing costs of low-print book runs, I can't imagine that Joe makes much money from selling the guide. However, buying a copy of the guide does help pay for some of what DP does, plus a lot of us simply like having a nice bound book. Someone said earlier that no one would buy the guide if it were free online, but this simply isn't true (and it's an irksome argument that I hear about in IP-related discussions a lot). Look at Shakespeare, for one. You can get any Shakespeare text you want absolutely free. If you study Economics, the IIE (an Economics thinktank) puts every book it publishes in pdf for free on the internet, but still manages to sell quite a few copies of their books. Simply having the bound book really is worth something.

Lastly, if you know how to use Access, you can make you own half-sized or one section only guide relatively quickly by typing the data in yourself. If all you wanted was the Name, Rarity, Price data, the list could be created by you relatively quickly.

[Griking]

I already own the book and really don't care if there's an online version or not. What I would love to see though would be a nice Palm or Pocket PC version of it for us flea market and tage sale hunters. Make it so you have to enter a key code to unlock it. Yeah, I know that there are keymakers for everything out there but hey, nothing is totally secure.

[punkoffgirl]

So, even though the guide itself is copywritten, you're saying it wouldn't be if it was online?

[kevincure]

No, I'm saying that there are limits on what can be and what can't be under copyright. It doesn't matter whether something says "Copyright 2000" or whatever, since eligible works (like a new movie) gain copyright upon their creation automatically (unless the creator grants free use or something like the Creative Commons License).

One of the things that can't be copyrighted is "data". For instance, in that case I cited above, a small phone book company compiled white page listings for a county in Kansas that previously had no phone book. This list had address, name, phone, all the normal stuff, and no doubt took a great investment of time to compile. A couple years later, a larger Kansas wide phone directory simply copied the data straight out of the local phone book and used it in their larger Kansas-wide phonebook. The court said that's completely legal, since the local phone book wasn't "original" content, but was a compilation of data.

The DP Guide falls along the same lines. Only a specific expression of ideas or creativity can legally have copyright in the US. Things like a listing of titles released for a system or their objective rarity cannot be copyrighted. Now, the DP book as a whole certainly has copyright-eligible components, such as the Lore and the system descriptions, etc.. But the actual lists could be copied and put online, and there would be nothing DP could do legally to stop it.

As I said, out of respect for DP and because DP might not further update the lists should such internet posting or ebay CD sales happen, there may be a moral reason not to repost these lists. But copyright really plays no part in it.

[nesuser2]

good info, what about somebody making money off of it?

[Gunstarhero]

If the book is printed online in a PDF format in the same style as the book, I don't see how thats not a copyright violation, unless DP himself does it or authorizes it. Look at the PDF's of the 16 bit stuff, they are the same format as the actual guide is, if the guide got transcripted verbatum and sold on CD I'm sure DP could take legal action.

As for there being some kind of moral decision you must take on whether you should buy this or use this kind of bootleg guide, I don't see any consistency here as morals doesn't seem to be an issue with emulation and roms theft. All of a sudden when we are dealing with one of our own on copyright issues, we are supposed to have morals, but when it's a faceless game company it's the company's fault for not taking proper protective measures. Consistency would dictate that most of you here who are rom whores would not have a single problem with getting a free dp guide online.

[kevincure]

If all someone did was scan in a page from DP and put that on the web, then yeah, that would almost certainly be a copyright violation. But if they retyped the title/price/rarity data themselves, then, no, there wouldn't be any legal action that one could take (Well, one could take legal action, but you would lose). Again, I'll bring up the phone book example - the differences in data presentation from one phone book to the next are minimal, yet there's still no copyright violation.

As for someone else selling this retyped data, that would also be legal. They can't call it "For Sale - CD with Digital Press Guide" or anything like that, since you can have a trademark on the name "Digital Press" in the context of videogame guides. But "For Sale - Console Rarity Guides": totally legal. Law's a bitch, huh?

As I said before, that still wouldn't make it *right*.

[Cmosfm]

Ta DAH!

http://antseezee.sphosting.com/updatedrare.txt

An online NES price guide, it's used like crazy over at the NES boards on gFAQs...while it's not DP approved, it's still somewhat accurate and you can at least see if what your interested in buying is worth X amount of dollars.

And before people go saying "buy the book"...already did! and I love it! But while I'm at work and need help on NES I use this.

Then there's the Atari Age guide for Atari www.atariage.com

[nesuser2]

rarity is probably off if that is etler's last with just updated prices. the rarity has since been outdated, but i don't know about the prices. I don't have time to look at all of them and see if they jive or if they're close.... LOL

[Cmosfm]

rarity is probably off if that is etler's last with just updated prices. the rarity has since been outdated, but i don't know about the prices. I don't have time to look at all of them and see if they jive or if they're close.... LOL

I'm pretty sure there off, but being that its an older system you don't see drastic jumps in prices very often...but you can at least use it as a guideline to see if something is rare or not. And if you see something valued at 15-20, selling for 5.00, pick it up...just a helpful little list

I spend too much time on these board....I guess working 11 hours a day does that to you.