The Cover Project
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: segaprophet on March 23, 2010, 06:53:35 PM
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take a look at this - http://shop.ebay.com/orienblack/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340 (http://shop.ebay.com/orienblack/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340)
I just noticed today that this ebayer is selling our covers in UGCs for 15 dollars each. I'm more than a little miffed, especially since two of the covers were put together by me. What can we do about this?
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Unfortunately there is little we can do other than ask him to stop.
Update: The items have been reported to E-bay as "Replica and Counterfeit Item". It's up to e-bay now
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Yeah and the funny thing is hes also trying to sell an english secret of mana 2 reproduction cart for like nearly 300$ that happens to have a label on it that I made and posted up on the Digital Press forum a while back lol. Ebay probably wont do much about this but I felt like sending him a message just to let him know I think hes a little rediculous.
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he's also selling two hacked games and are saying they are "Rare" games.
I reported them to eBay.
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All of those games can be bought from the guy over at Gamereproduction.com for 60$ Im gonna try and message the auction winner after it ends and inform them.
EDIT: So he massaged me back and he claims thet he bought the cases and games from someone els and that he was ripped off and has no idea these were from the cover project. Im dont beleive that one bit. Theres no way youd be selling both custom cases, and reproduction carts and know nothing about either of them. Anyway he took down cases...
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yeah i actually just saw this too, and its actually got bidders?! and its actually ur label too badchad, i cant believe that crap!!
i reported too lol
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Lets wait for him outside of school and beat him up!
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Odd how Secret of Mana never had a sequel in the US but he managed to get his hands on 2 mint looking North American cartridges.
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all the items were pulled down. I don't know if he did it himself or if E-bay shut him down..
The Secret Of Mana 2 game ended up selling for only $61.00 but it's possible that e-bay will not allow the use of Paypal for it.
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Well he had one going for over 300$ but Im pretty sure ebay pulled it down before the auction ended because I wan gonna message the winner telling them not to pay because they could get a copy for 60$ Anyway the good news is I was able to get him to take down the covers and it seems ebay took care of the Secret of Mana 2 carts.
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(http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/7236/picture2av.png) (http://img191.imageshack.us/i/picture2av.png/)
did i get ripped off?
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(http://img191.imageshack.us/i/picture2av.png/)
did i get ripped off?
Definitely... I would not pay more than $5 in today's economy! Right now is a Pubes buyer's market you know!
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and according to borat, red pubes is worth a lot
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can i request a cover for red pubes please
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Just reading this, and it brought a question up so I got to ask. If you make a label for a game then means you have some sort of right to that games label even if you never got the permission yourself from that games maker to make labels for their games and use their images. It just comes off a a double standard being set, becasue taht what the peopel did that made this labels did to begin with. I thought these were being made as shareware, but now I'm not sure I should use some of them in my collection because people get upset if you use the stuff they made but did have permission to themselves put out as free for anyone.
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I think the problem they had was not that someone was using the cover they made but that someone was SELLING the cover they made when they intended the cover to be free to anyone who had the time to download it.
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I see your point, but still if you set something free over the net then don't be surpised or upset how it plays out. Thats just the nature of the net. Also this person could have just been charging for teh assembly of them or 15 for the case, I mean there no way to know for sure. This just has a number of auguments within it that you can not balance, and for people that created something to begin with that they didn't have permission to go playing with to then get upset when they see someone else using it, should be taken as a compliment to them instead of an insult. If one person is guilty in a situation like this then everyone is guilty, because it began with the people that created these things to begin who didn't have permission by the companys to use the names of the games or the art.
As I said there is a doulbe standard being set here, and for people (including the admins) to start pointing fingers is crazy. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. From what i see the whole site is based on peaple making covers for games they don't have any permission or rights too(I'll stand corrected if someone posts their rights), and the site will even give you the tools you need to do it yourself with.
By all means please explain this to me????
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Simple really, used for free by fans vs making a profit off of someone else's work. If you really need this simple moral difference explained to you, like you aren't being purposely obtuse (and like we don't know who you are), then there's no hope and you might as well give up.
BTW enjoy trying to hide your feedback & illicit profits you've made off of other people's works:
http://www.goofbay.com/ebay_seller_history_tool.html?gsl_username=orienblack&gsl_days=30&gsl_include=sold&gsl_submit=&gsl_submit.x=25&gsl_submit.y=3
Must be nice making over $1,000 of profit in the last 30 days w/o doing anything of worth!
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haha I didn't realize who that was at first. I feel dumb. Woo troll! :D
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I see your point, but still if you set something free over the net then don't be surpised or upset how it plays out. Thats just the nature of the net. Also this person could have just been charging for teh assembly of them or 15 for the case, I mean there no way to know for sure. This just has a number of auguments within it that you can not balance, and for people that created something to begin with that they didn't have permission to go playing with to then get upset when they see someone else using it, should be taken as a compliment to them instead of an insult. If one person is guilty in a situation like this then everyone is guilty, because it began with the people that created these things to begin who didn't have permission by the companys to use the names of the games or the art.
As I said there is a doulbe standard being set here, and for people (including the admins) to start pointing fingers is crazy. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. From what i see the whole site is based on peaple making covers for games they don't have any permission or rights too(I'll stand corrected if someone posts their rights), and the site will even give you the tools you need to do it yourself with.
By all means please explain this to me????
wow, just wow.
anyway, I know alucardian is a troll, but MisterCreazil is exactly right, TCP covers contain IP from the original release, even if they are put together/cleaned up by us, thus I don't think any of us think we have any rights to them ourselves.
what we do have the right to do, indeed our duty is to make sure no one ever sells them, including us, they are free for everyone, period.
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wow, just wow.
anyway, I know alucardian is a troll, but MisterCreazil is exactly right, TCP covers contain IP from the original release, even if they are put together/cleaned up by us, thus I don't think any of us think we have any rights to them ourselves.
what we do have the right to do, indeed our duty is to make sure no one ever sells them, including us, they are free for everyone, period.
My feelings exactly. TCP dose not condone piracy. this means that we do not accept or allow any kind of monetary compensation fort he work displayed in this site.
True that we take liberties in using other peoples work when making covers, but it's not being done with the intention of profiting from it. and me personally will try to do anything to stop someone from using the work displayed in this site in order to profit from it.
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nothing can be done either way. it's out there so it's up for grabs. two a character if used from original sources of material that's copywritten. can't be sold, they are registered trademarks. the time it would take to go n try n do something of it is depending on the issue. with things that don't exist on the market, is whishy washy. these fan covers can't be registered with congress of copywright. cause its someone elses art / work. so u cant do shit about it cept bicker n kick your heels. there is no proof, other then an ip i guess from what someone said. but that's saying i forged that ip address which is easy n posted something. no one on this site has the rights to shit. unless it's 100% your work not using images that were made by the artists / concept groups inside the company that made or developed the game. there is no world copyright law and never will be. even with the torrent battles from the california / new york media battlefronts, trying to make a global war out of it. they don't have the authority, but seem to with boat loads of money paying off officials in other countries.
to whomever said tcp doenst condone piracy is full of shit. it's a bullshit clause n moral going around so u feel better about growing a community of people w/ other agendas good or bad. isohunt.com / piratebay.org doesn't condone privacy so they can host the tracker shit (but never hav the actual files of say Avatar on there machines). when they do raids on them all they find are footsteps, nothing illegal. a judge wouldnt understand it but they hav been aware during the year long court cases as a defense statement. just like a headshop doesn't condone illegal activities but u know what all that stuff in the store is aimed towards. legally u cant say i want that bong or weed pipe (if they hear u u get kicked out). they would get shut down, promoting illegal activities. u got to use different terminology so no one gets in trouble.
i checked out that ebay linking site with a few sellers whom i know the prices items sold for. a few of them had the wrong prices. like an item that went for 45. it showed it going for 238. it's buggy n only shows 30 days.
as far permission, hit or miss. for sound sampling as long as ur not making profit off of it. say the simpsons sound clips for a radio show. that's fine, matt g n fox gives the ok to just about all of them. as far as releasing them on a record of sounds for dj's. that's a gray area but underground n sales skyrocket. cause they are limited pressings n worth double n tripple once it's out of print. look up hip hop break vinyl records or samples. n they all weren't cleared to press to sell. even past Biz Markies - All Samples Cleared album. which is the first licienced rap album ever commercially. from then on out people get sued in big contracts like. dr dre got sued from lucas with his 2001 intro song. w/ the thx sound he forgot to clear. there is a band who had a one hit wonder n they r paying out the ass with there hit single, cant think of it at the moment. a 90's alt rock song w a drum beat they oversampled under guidelines of free drumming standards for manufacturing music. the one hit being there only song that still plays on the radio they pay per play n each disc made. they are fuckd for life. dj dangermouse's gray album using the beatles white album for the beats n prefessionally pressed on vinyl n cd for "mixtapes" for underground rap / hip hop / record shops got shut down. the samples weren't cleared. n those now since they stopped making em. r priceless items to have or sealed. they go for a hundred dollars plus a pop if u can find them. they sold for 20 at the time when they came out.
these covers aren't just here but hundreds n hundreds of other sites. good luck w/ that.
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Ok so the different between what TCP is doing and what Alucardian (I didn't even need to look at the IP, 2 posts only in this topic is enough for me) is doing is like comparing apples and oranges.
TCP is providing a means for fans to print out and make covers for their games that they have already purchased, they are not profitting off of it. (I guarantee you the ad revenue barely covers the hosting costs for the site) Where as Alucardian is profiting off of people who don't know any better by using others work and passing it off as his own. That is blatant plagiarism because he is making a profit off of it, not to mention a-holeish...
Now if he asked each individual creator for permission when he used their cover then it would be a little better but stiill doesn't get around the fact that the covers are free. Maybe we can get a highly visable disclaimer put on the main site that says that all covers posted are freeware and any attempt to profit off of them will be stopped.
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So you believe a proper justification for selling items otherwise obtainable for free, thereby preying on what your hoping is your buyer's ignorance, is simply that you can? And we're "setting a double standard" for calling you out on that?
We don't sell these covers. While our use of copyrighted characters, names, trademarks, and images is indeed unauthorized, we are not profiting off of them. Any court on the planet would most likely find what we're doing to fall far under fair use laws, which wouldn't apply to what you are doing because you are selling them for a profit.
What you're is doing isn't condemned by this community because it's illegal, it's condemned because it's fundamentally dishonest. We absolutely have a moral ground to stand on here because we aren't preying and relying on potential customers' ignorance, what we're doing doesn't take advantage of people.
You're absolutely precious and infuriating at the same time. You're like those folks who defend ebay and craigslist scamming, so morally bankrupt it hurts.
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I'll create a GUI interface using Visual Basic. See if I can track an IP address. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU)
Edit: After spending 5 seconds with the admin tools on TCP creating my totally hax0r GUI interface, I found that the only posts from Alucardian's IP range are by Alucardian. No fun there. Maybe he went through 7 proxies?
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dennis leary said it best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b98k9I03FFA
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Great way to introduce yourself. :-\ Most of us who make covers do them as a favor or just as a way to preserve our games. For example, I use mostly Sega CD, Saturn, and PS1 covers from either ones that I made or from this site. Jewel cases suck hard. DVD cases are much better. Has ANYONE here charged for these? Didn't think so. Its really just modifying to fit our needs. Most of the ones I use are re-dos of the original artwork.
Ditto on the proxies thought.
Selling crap like orienblack did is dishonest, and in all honesty it's a flat out lie. Those aren't "super rare." They're hacks/translations that cost like $20 to make. Selling them at all for more than you paid is totally wrong. I could only see this being okay (the selling it thing) is if he was totally honest and set the price low. If not for the content then at least for the materials and labor, ya know?
The original of that vid is better. ;D
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so buying a console, or a game (doesn't have to be video games, a commodity) and selling it tripple or quadrople during the holiday's is illegal? the advantages of supply n demand. marketing concept. i don't think the people who made these hacked games gave permission either. it's not copywritten nor could it be.
anywhere else here know the law or marketing here?
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But this isnt about supply and demand. Its about all those bidders who can buy themselves a copy of that game right now for 60$ and the seller is simply taking advantage of the uneducated and telling them its a really rare game to make a profit. Thats still a form of scamming isnt it?
Sounds like a pretty sheisty way of marketing if you ask me...
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I don't see it as a scam - an item is only worth what someone is willing to pay.
are shops scamming us if we buy something and it goes on sale a week later, or if we find it cheaper online?
a scam is when someone deliberately misleads someone into doing or buying something. anyone buying these games is a collector (or else they wouldn't be still into the NES/SNES scene) and therefore knows they are hacked carts as there was never a retail release in that format. If they are prepared to pay that for it, then it's worth it to them.
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Regardless its still pretty low to buy someones work and turn around and sell it to the uneducated for 5 times whats its worth just because they are unaware that its easily available. I would imagine if these collectors know enought to know that its a hacked reproduction cart then you'd think they also know that its easily available for much lower price. Gamereproductions has been around for a few years now and hes been making a relaible name for himself so If your a collector whos interested in buying reproduction carts then im not sure how you wouldnt know about his site. The second I found out about reproduction carts a fews years ago I found his site the second I googled NES reproductions and this is back when reproduction were slowly becomming available.
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I don't see it as a scam - an item is only worth what someone is willing to pay.
are shops scamming us if we buy something and it goes on sale a week later, or if we find it cheaper online?
a scam is when someone deliberately misleads someone into doing or buying something. anyone buying these games is a collector (or else they wouldn't be still into the NES/SNES scene) and therefore knows they are hacked carts as there was never a retail release in that format. If they are prepared to pay that for it, then it's worth it to them.
i would say calling them rare games and one of a kind are defiantly "deliberately misleading" someone into buying them when the guy who sells them has enough for anyone that wants one. plus all the repro sites seem to have alot of those now so its not what i would call rare.
i unno, charging for shareware to me personally, is scam
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so back to the red haired pubes i bought? what can i do with them now. its potential that they will attract lice. i know real haired wigs n extensions the female's like to get attract lice cause it's dead hair. i'm at a health concern at this point.
value is perceived and different to everyone. would u pay 30,000 - 40,000 for a shitty 3d tv? i wouldnt wen the technology has been the same for 20 years. and still gives people headaches w/ in an hour. i mean u could think that's cool. to pay that much to see blurry images n get an unwanted headrush.
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smoke the pubes, best high you'll ever get and totally worth the money spent on them.
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The little tool decided to change his ebay username to kcalbneinro, as if he can cover his tracks. SMH
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eBay is smarter than that. It tells when you've changed your name. What a dweeb. And selling shareware as a rare localization or whatever is lying. That's how that douch salesman sold my mom a piece of shit car once. "low tread design" he said. What a prick. I wish I was there :-\ .
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i understand shareware. which is what demo's used to be called on the 3.5" size floppy discs or the larger black one's. before the internet activity blew up over the last twenty years. a lot of software from back then shareware or full versions are considered abandon-ware since there isn't a demanding market for it. if u can find a machine now adays that'll have those drive or slow enough to run it.
to the comment above with the smoke'n pubes. i heard a small shreak of those lice, it was faint. it could have been the wind but i swear it was a small yelp.
SSL and tunneling through proxies are used more nowadays for various reasons. as well as blocking the IANA in California which is the main world "hub" authority to keep track of the world's ip addresses so no one is using the same one from a certain location. if u hav a hub (it'll change a computer's ip on that network) it'll have local ip's for that hub. w/ 0.0.0.1 for the 1st connection 0.0.0.2 ... etc w/ other #'s where the zeros r.
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...
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This dude also seems to be selling the CP's covers.
satan517
Item number: 250618124898
Looking at his feedback, this wont be the first time he has pulled off this BS.
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i reported that dude ;D
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I reported the person as well... didn't know what to call it as so i put it as stolen and in the description i stated that the covers were from this site for personal use only.
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At least hes selling them for 1$ and not 15$. Thats not even that big of a deal and is actually a good idea for those who dont want to order dvd cases and get a printer just for one case. Not everyone has huge collections on games that need to be cases. This could be simple for people who only own a Wii and have Links Crossbow Training (or Wii sports which hes also selling for 1$) sticking out like a sore thumb in its cardboard sleeve. Not to mention he includes a Wii zapper with it and its not like hes beeing greedy about it either and Im kinda curious how hed actually make a profit off this. The only problem I have with it is that he should of mentioned that his cover comes from the cover project. Other than that I dont really see any harm here.
I would of contacted the seller telling him to mention that the cover he used is available for free at the cover project rather than contacting ebay to take care of it. Not to mention there is the posibility that he found these 2 covers elswhere and doesnt even know obout TCP. I found both of the exact covers found here for those 2 games on other websites just using google image search a while back way before I found out about TCP. Just something to think about...
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This isn't really a big deal. Mookyjooky got super pissed off at a CAG user who was selling his cover + case for $15. I'd just politely ask him to link to Thecoverproject - the DVD cases and printing costs are only a little less than $1 anyway.
I wish his description didn't lie.
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This isn't really a big deal. Mookyjooky got super pissed off at a CAG user who was selling his cover + case for $15. I'd just politely ask him to link to Thecoverproject - the DVD cases and printing costs are only a little less than $1 anyway.
I wish his description didn't lie.
Thats what Im saying. There isnt really a whole lot of harm beeing done here accept the fact that he should state the fact that these are available for free at TCP. Like I said, he may not even know of this site and found them elsewhere like I did over a year ago. A simple message to the seller to modify his description is all thats needed here. (which I already did with a link to the site) ;D I dont think its necessary to report every seller to ebay whos trying to sell custom covers unless its obvious that they are claiming them for their own and are asking a rediculous/unfair amount of money for them.
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The guy is a jerk simply for what he's now put in his auctions as a result you guys contacting him:
"It has been brought to my attention recently that some people seem to be upset with auctions for these cases because cover art can be found throughout the internet for free. If anybody would like to make their own case they can do so but I assure you that the price you could pay to have one shipped to you is well under the price to buy a print from a print shop and spare white DVD case or even just the paper and ink in any store in order to print one on your home computer. I guess there will always be haters out there"
I say report away this a-hole
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Honestly, my problem isn't so much that he's selling this stuff, it's that he's passing it off as his own.
I have grown frustrated looking for my copy of Wii Sports. I always seem to find the sleeve under my other games or being used as a drink coaster when I have company. So I thought it would be a great idea to make a case for it. Now I never guess where Wii Sports has disappeared off to. This case looks like a store bought game. And now you too can enjoy having Wii Sports in a custom case that looks and feels like the real deal.
If he was at least being courteous enough to link to our site and provide the printed and already cased games as a service, I'd have no problem.
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another guy is selling covers from our site (even found my Silent Hill covers). I didn't report him or anything, just sent a message:
Dear evie_1971,
Hi, I'm from http://www.thecoverproject.net/
Website sound familiar?
I personally made a few of those DVD covers you're selling. If you're going to sell materials taken from our website, could you at least credit us and give a link to our site in your auctions?
I know the common response here is to demand they stop selling, but honestly I'd just like to see us credited. If individual buyers still want to buy from this guy instead of doing it themselves using covers taken from here, that's their choice.
Anyhow, I'll post any followups, if he's respectful I say we leave him alone. If not... well there's always that report button.
UPDATE he was very friendly and cooperative and agreed to link to our site :)
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Thats all that needs to be done. If they wanna be asses, then take that next step.
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sadly there are only 4 eBay items right now that contain thecoverproject.net in the description:
http://desc.shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=thecoverproject.net&_sacat=0&_odkw=thecoverproject.net&_osacat=0&bkBtn=&LH_TitleDesc=1&_trksid=p3286.m270.l1313&_rdc=1
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sadly there are only 4 eBay items right now that contain thecoverproject.net in the description:
http://desc.shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=thecoverproject.net&_sacat=0&_odkw=thecoverproject.net&_osacat=0&bkBtn=&LH_TitleDesc=1&_trksid=p3286.m270.l1313&_rdc=1
When I checked this link when you initially posted it, one of those 4 WAS one of this seller's items. He said to give him until the end of the day, so I'm not worried.
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i guess...... but clicking it again and looking up the items individually i see he/she took it back out of the info.
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I think a little perspective is in order here.
Anything we put up on this site .... barring completely custom created artwork .... is actually illegal anyway. Whatever way you look at it the copying of original artwork is copyright infringement. It doesn't matter that you may have bought the bare game second hand from Ebay etc and just want a nice cover/case for it. Or you want to put it in a DVD case instead of a CD case. The owner of the cover in question has complete control over how they want their product delivered etc.
In light of that I personally don't have too big a problem if someone takes my N64 covers and sells someone a UGC so they can protect their original cart and make it look nice on a shelf. Sure it miffs me when we don't get credit for the cover ... but considering the legal issues of doing what we are doing I can't see the problem. Hey, if someone is stupid enough to buy a UGC+cover for $15 then they probably have too much money or no common sense. Or Both :)
What I DO object to is using our covers to facilitate pirated material, especially around CD/DVD based games. I have always objected to us hosting covers for CD/DVD based products given how easy it is for people to copy them. You can always say that people get those second hand without covers too but we all know that the vast majority of people are probably using copied games. That's why I was happy to get my huge collection of N64 covers up here but after I uploaded a few Dreamcast/PSX games I felt it wasn't aligned with my views to put any more up. That's just my thoughts on the matter ....
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I agree with just about everything TheValeman had to say on this topic. We don't own the work and we honestly have no say what others do with it in any capacity. Sure it sucks, but I'd never risk selling these simply because it could jeopardize our ability to continue to provide these to the community.
I don't condone piracy either, but I've bought enough second hand games missing covers that I see the value for storing disc based game covers.
Anyway, the bottom line is that people will always try to make a quick buck doing something without any effort. That's all this is. It's not the first time and it's not the last time it'll happen.
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Agreed.
While I personally have issues with putiing up CD/DVD based covers I certainly don't care that others choose to do so. It's purely a personal thing in that regard. And I would hate to see great artwork lost forever etc ... it's invariably the preservation vs potential misuse aspect that plagues all retro preservation efforts and not just covers. At www.retromags.com for instance we scan old gaming magazines but we draw the line at 1999 so as to limit potential damage to companies selling currently available titles. Doesn't make it right AT ALL but as with N64 covers .... they are really old school retro so it's somewhat easier on the conscience.
Snowcone once stated that our site wouldn't have any impact on the Chinese knock off merchants as they simply buy one original and print a zillion copies and I agree with him 100% on that one.
But it only takes one Company .. Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo ... to decide that we are infringing on their IP and they could come down on us like a ton of bricks. Far less likely to happen over N64 , Genesis or SNES than because we have Wii covers etc. Hence a certain self preservation aspect to my comments as well.
I freely admit that I sold off my N64 collection in UGC's with printed covers and had no issues with it because they were original manuals and carts so from my perspective I didn't see anything wrong with it. So I do get that you will get original disc games sold without covers too. That's why I don't have too many issues if someone wants to make an original cart/disc look nicer and store safer for a potential buyer.
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I generally agree, but I need to respond to a few things.
What I DO object to is using our covers to facilitate pirated material, especially around CD/DVD based games. I have always objected to us hosting covers for CD/DVD based products given how easy it is for people to copy them. You can always say that people get those second hand without covers too but we all know that the vast majority of people are probably using copied games. That's why I was happy to get my huge collection of N64 covers up here but after I uploaded a few Dreamcast/PSX games I felt it wasn't aligned with my views to put any more up. That's just my thoughts on the matter ....
I'm going to have to strongly object to this assertion. Finding disc based games second hand without covers is extremely common, anybody who collects any amount of Playstation, Dreamcast, Saturn, Xbox, Gamecube, etc games can tell you this. Not to mention, just taking one look around at the posters on this forum will tell you that a vast majority of us are collectors. It's no coincidence that our site is popular among collector-oriented sites such as Racketboy. I honestly do believe that the number of people who use our covers for pirated games is very much in the minority compared to people using them to house their actual collections. Besides, I doubt a pirate cares too much about how their collection looks on a shelf anyhow.
But it only takes one Company .. Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo ... to decide that we are infringing on their IP and they could come down on us like a ton of bricks. Far less likely to happen over N64 , Genesis or SNES than because we have Wii covers etc. Hence a certain self preservation aspect to my comments as well.
Given our low visibility compared to similar sites, don't you think that if there was any danger in us getting shut down that we would've seen a site like cdcovers.cc threatened with legal action long before us? We may be technically infringing on their copyrights, but we're not depriving them of profit. Nintendo likely knows about us, as to most of the major companies, and they aren't concerned because nothing we're doing is harming them. Shutting us down would be nothing but a PR nightmare and a waste of their own money and resources..
And we don't facilitate piracy. We never have, and honestly don't think we ever could. The only way we would be facilitating piracy would be if we were providing a means to obtaining or using pirated games. Cover art doesn't do that.
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Even if we would get problems with one of the big companies like N or M we then could just drop support for the newer stuff and it would be all good wouldn't it?
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Even if we would get problems with one of the big companies like N or M we then could just drop support for the newer stuff and it would be all good wouldn't it?
Likely they'd ask us to cease hosting all of their covers.
That's assuming it's even likely that they'd give us trouble to begin with.
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I see your point, but still if you set something free over the net then don't be surpised or upset how it plays out. Thats just the nature of the net. Also this person could have just been charging for teh assembly of them or 15 for the case, I mean there no way to know for sure. This just has a number of auguments within it that you can not balance, and for people that created something to begin with that they didn't have permission to go playing with to then get upset when they see someone else using it, should be taken as a compliment to them instead of an insult. If one person is guilty in a situation like this then everyone is guilty, because it began with the people that created these things to begin who didn't have permission by the companys to use the names of the games or the art.
As I said there is a doulbe standard being set here, and for people (including the admins) to start pointing fingers is crazy. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. From what i see the whole site is based on peaple making covers for games they don't have any permission or rights too(I'll stand corrected if someone posts their rights), and the site will even give you the tools you need to do it yourself with.
By all means please explain this to me????
wow, just wow.
anyway, I know alucardian is a troll, but MisterCreazil is exactly right, TCP covers contain IP from the original release, even if they are put together/cleaned up by us, thus I don't think any of us think we have any rights to them ourselves.
what we do have the right to do, indeed our duty is to make sure no one ever sells them, including us, they are free for everyone, period.
I agree... though i have purchased one from ebay as a convenience (though adding up the cost of shipping an official ds case and printing the cover on regular paper.... dude only made $1. But they used glossier paper so prolly less)
though i think it really comes down to the profit one is making.... A little for ones time and cost of materials seems fine... but I too would more enjoy the site being credited.
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This particular issue crops up every few months and someone usually goes to town on it.
We have no legal rights to host this stuff whatsoever. The fact we are under the radar is irrelevant to the legalities of the situation. It may simply be luck that we haven't been asked to remove the files, either by the copyright owners OR the sites Hosting company. That happened to us over at www.retromags.com and it caused a heap of issues believe me. Asking people to say where they got the files from COULD ... I stress COULD ... cause more issues for us than doing nothing about it.
Example ... someone buys a PS3 game off EBAY to find it is a copy. Makes a complaint to Sony. Sony looks at auction and see's our site mentioned. Lawyers visit Snowcone.
This is probably a bit of an overkill example but given the knock-off volumes on EBAY it does represent a potential issue. All I am saying is that sometimes staying below the radar by not advertising yourself has better long term effects for the cause than the feel good factor of getting your name out there.
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Exactly, that's how I have always conducted my site as well.
In all honesty, this site will likely never get a cease order because it is free publicity/advertising for the companies and their products. It's not like this domain is making any money off of selling the covers and there aren't tons of ads. It would be where as Valeman said, people advertising on eBay who are making money off the covers with copyright infringement, could get adverse attention directed towards the site. And while the majority don't approve of selling them, we can't really do anything about it except put in complaints on eBay.
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i dont mind that someone sells a game on ebay and it has a cover i made or was made by others what bother me is when they falsify their auction by saying its a "rare" "special ed" etc version of said game , simply put be honest about what your selling , if its a repro mark it as such , and if they want to link to the site and say here is where i got the cover thats cool too
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That's a fair comment.
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IMO it comes down to simple copyright infringement vs. bootlegging. One is non-profit the other is for-profit. Fans vs. scams. It's not only a legal difference, depending upon what country one resides in, but it's also moral one as well.
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For most people Greed > Morality.... If I ever sell some of my collection on eBay I don't know if I would include the custom cases or not, but if I did I wouldn't say it's rare or anything, just custom. The thing is, I don't want to get rid of cases themselves just incase I get another game in the future that I would need one for.
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I found another one: evie_1971
http://shop.ebay.com/evie_1971/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686
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I wonder if we should make access to the covers locked w/o registration?
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I wonder if we should make access to the covers locked w/o registration?
Probably not a good idea. That would just leave us with a bunch of users signing up only to download covers. I looked through the members list before and noticed theres already a mass amount of users who signed up and then never had any activity.
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I wonder if we should make access to the covers locked w/o registration?
Probably not a good idea. That would just leave us with a bunch of users signing up only to download covers. I looked through the members list before and noticed theres already a mass amount of users who signed up and then never had any activity.
Yeah, I'm just trying to think of something we could do on this end of things. I guess reporting the auctions to eBay and hoping they take 'em down is our best bet...
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I found another one: evie_1971
http://shop.ebay.com/evie_1971/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686
Reported all the items to E-bay as "Unauthorized Copies of Media"
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I wonder if we should make access to the covers locked w/o registration?
I'd rather introduce cover downloads only to members with a minimum post count of hundred posts except in the request forum (we can moderate the postings so that no nonsense posts get through).
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Restricting content because of the actions of a few is a bad idea. Why should others be punished because of these people?
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Restricting content because of the actions of a few is a bad idea. Why should others be punished because of these people?
Maybe because everyone should earn the right to download by contributing to the community?
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yeah and while we're at it we should just ban members who submit covers that get rejected ::)
Your idea isn't going to increase contribution. If anything, it'll turn countless people away from the site and present our community as stuck up and elitist.
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This would take some work and would double the amount of content, but maybe we could do something like have a thecoverproject.net logo across the legal info for unregistered users and registered users will have access to copies with out the logo. Just an idea.
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as a watermark would be successful in preventing this type of scam, Snowcone just moved 50GB of data, or atleast the "remaining" 50 GB of data... I think that if you were to use a simple remedy like this, you need to have the original picture and a doctored one with the watermark, meaning twice the hosting space needed =\
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What's to stop folks from registering just to grab unwatermarked covers?
I don't think these kind of preventive measures are necessary to protect TheCoverProject. In fact, as TheValeman said on the previous page:
Asking people to say where they got the files from COULD ... I stress COULD ... cause more issues for us than doing nothing about it.
Instead of protecting us, things like watermarking and such could instead draw some unwanted attention.
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Watermarking and asking sellers to advertise for us, yeah, could draw unwanted attention. I'm not advocating that. But, making the community less open doesn't IMO, in fact it does the opposite. I'd be down with requiring people to be active members of the community before being able to DL. They could see thumbnails of the covers but couldn't DL until after X many posts, etc. In fact this may become a necessity as time passes and security of the site warrants due to understood reasons.
Ultimately, I don't want to see the Cover Project go under, nor can I stand seeing the hard work done here be ripped off by anyone, let alone by shameless profiteers.
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I kind of think things should be left as is. Is it insulting to have your work (which is really only partially your work) giving someone else a profit? Absolutely. However, if an eBay buyer wants their collection to be covered that bad, they will make their way here. No eBay seller will ever be able to offer the full range of covers here for a price. As it is they have a handful of covers for different games. Collectors aren't stupid; they'll recognize that these games were never released in DVD cases. Some may buy, but, if they like the look of the case, they'll make their way here, find out they got ripped off and take it up with the seller on their own.
As for locking the covers unless you're an active member...that's kind of ridiculous. I've lurked for about 3 years now, and only recently registered, and we can all see the wild amount of activity my account has had. ;) There's not a whole lot here to put your two cents in on. It would probably bring in a flood of spam posts.
These guys likely aren't making much off of this anyways. DVD cases aren't wildly expensive, and they're charging shipping, but they're using the ink to print, the paper, they have to use gas to get these covers to the post office, it's likely they're losing money on the shipping materials as well. They're probably making a quarter at most. If they want to go through all that effort for a quarter, then oh well.
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as a watermark would be successful in preventing this type of scam, Snowcone just moved 50GB of data, or atleast the "remaining" 50 GB of data... I think that if you were to use a simple remedy like this, you need to have the original picture and a doctored one with the watermark, meaning twice the hosting space needed =\
The site is a svelt 70GB today.
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I was thinking more about this today, what we could start doing is just simply put a line in the legal info or somewhere on the box that says "This cover was fan made, if you paid money for it your were ripped off." This way we don't do unwanted advertising for the site and we get the buyers to report the covers themselves.
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Put a line in the legal info or somewhere on the box that says "This cover was fan made, if you paid money for it your were ripped off."
And the seller would not use MS-paint or Photoshop to remove the text.
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Requiring folks to "contribute" is still just dumb to me. This place isn't very discussion oriented, so requiring people to participate via posting isn't going to do much aside from encourage fluffy spam posts that don't really contribute anyhow. Requiring people to submit scans or a custom before being allowed to download would be a poor idea too. Not everybody has a scanner, not everybody is skilled in graphics, and not everybody even has a computer powerful enough to handle those image editing tools to begin with.
I don't make my covers just for other folks who make covers, I make them for anybody who would need them. I don't want to turn TCP into some kind of elitist "secret club" just because a few guys decide to profit off of our work.
If you guys want to do anything, right now there's absolutely nothing on the main site that indicates that these covers aren't meant to be sold. Should we really expect all of our visitors to simply know that we don't want them selling these things? Why not simply put a disclaimer in a few visible spots that these are all provided for free and aren't meant to be sold any way?
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yeah and while we're at it we should just ban members who submit covers that get rejected ::)
Now THAT would be a good idea! ;D
Your idea isn't going to increase contribution. If anything, it'll turn countless people away from the site and present our community as stuck up and elitist.
Why would we want people on our site that do nothing but leech?
By the way! We are elitist we are freemason! ;)
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Some people might not have the capability or desire to help. I just want to help people get replacement covers, even if that means some people get money off my work.
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Tell me, is there any plan in place for if and when the Cover Project is sent a Cease & Desist to take down X,Y,& Z's companies' covers, or worse? This is why I said:
In fact this may become a necessity as time passes and security of the site warrants due to understood reasons.
Keeping things wide open has its pros as well as cons. Some/all of you may think it highly improbable, but eventually it may well happen, and it would really suck if TCP is shutdown because we didn't want to be 'elitist'. Food for thought is all...
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I mentioned it before, cdcovers.cc and hell possibly even vgboxart.com will be shut down long before us.
Not to mention the fact that simply restricting access to our content would do little to curb a possible C&D.
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There is no plan in place.
(Secret message) Yes there is.
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I mentioned it before, cdcovers.cc and hell possibly even vgboxart.com will be shut down long before us.
Not to mention the fact that simply restricting access to our content would do little to curb a possible C&D.
Thats very true. The day those 2 sites get shut down is when we should worry about it happening to us.
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This has come up before, but I'd be willing to eventually put tohether a few torrent files just in case our we do get a C&C. Hopefully I can keep up with RSS feed to constantly update the torrent as well, but I'm not terribly concerned with that we'll be getting shut down any time soon.
(COMPLETELY UNRELATED SIDENOTE) I just got BTstack Keyboard for my jailbroken ipod and it works AMAZINGLY. Now I have a somewhat reliable way to work from home. (Emailing from the Notes/Mail app, we browing etc). Had to tell someone because it took me forever to get running and now all my friends are asleep haha
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Actually I believe something along those lines is "the plan"
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Personally i don't think a registration / post count will really help curb people profiting from covers provided on the site. If anything i think it would keep some people on the fence about joining the site away from actually signing up. If i had to post in the forums "X" times or even required to register i probably never would have joined.
I'm really weird about joining sites, i lurk for a long time before joining a site. Hell i lurked the CheapAssGamer forums for months (even before our site was around) and was really happy with some of the covers people were creating there (I'm still not even a registered member there). I probably never would have joined if i wasn't able to download a cover and see first hand the quality all the covers i probably would have dismissed like every other cover site.
Sure it does get under my skin that people profit from our hard work but to be perfectly honest i was more upset with the fact that this most recent ebay user used a really bad cover i made :P . From what i can see he hasn't really sold any of the covers. We can just alert eBay that it is counterfeit and not really take it any further.
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Sure it does get under my skin that people profit from our hard work but to be perfectly honest i was more upset with the fact that this most recent ebay user used a really bad cover i made :P . From what i can see he hasn't really sold any of the covers. We can just alert eBay that it is counterfeit and not really take it any further.
hahaha seriously. I once saw someone selling one of my gamecube resident evil covers that he sloppily slapped a ps2 logo over.
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hahaha seriously. I once saw someone selling one of my gamecube resident evil covers that he sloppily slapped a ps2 logo over.
Talk about greasy!
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Actually I believe something along those lines is "the plan"
I guess you guys missed the secret message in my post. Get out your decoder rings and try again.
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There is no plan in place.
(Secret message) Yes there is.
Yes there is. your secret msg
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I plan on frying up a little bacon and eggs, then throwing those between two pieces of bread. Delicious!
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I plan on frying up a little bacon and eggs, then throwing those between two pieces of bread. Delicious!
Once I made a single bacon sandwich using an entire package of bacon.
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Once I made a single bacon sandwich using an entire package of bacon.
Sounds like an instant heart attack. I bet it was delicious tho! :P