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Shrine of Data shut down by NPD

J

johnjohnson

Member
I wanted to look up the sales data for Popolocrois on the PSP and went to my preferred site: the Shrine of Data where I found the following message:

This site was closed.


Important asking from "Shrine of data"

- Please delete all the NPD data which got from this site.
- Please stop shape near making the copy site using the data of this site or it being had.

Thank you for your cooperation.

This site received the following warning.

It has come to our attention that you have unlawfully published NPD's video games sales data (the "NPD Data") on your website (www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~hokora/index.html). Please understand that this data is proprietary and confidential to NPD and if for the exclusive use of our paying clients in accordance with our license terms, which prohibit publication in any manner without NPD's prior written consent. In addition, we have no record that you are even a client of NPD.

Please, therefore, immediately remove all NPD Data from your website and cease and desist from any further publication or disclosure of any NPD Data or any other NPD data in your possession.

NPD reserves all of its legal rights in this matter, and will take legal action to protect its rights, if necessary. To avlid this, please comply with the above immediately.
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That is too bad! :(

Is there any other site that has cumulated japanese LTDs for every platform?
 
That sucks. I wish they kept the Japanese data around, but then that's plentiful anyway.

I wish I backed the pages up. =(
 
does this mean less sales threads?

dance.gif
dancejohnydance.gif
 
Holy shit! I used that site almost every week for my chart toppers feature on GD BIZ :(
 
To what extent can they actually enforce this? I mean, it's just information. You can't really copyright it or anything, so what legal pretext could they file a lawsuit under? Would it count as a trade secret?
 
border said:
To what extent can they actually enforce this? I mean, it's just information. You can't really copyright it or anything, so what legal pretext could they file a lawsuit under? Would it count as a trade secret?
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You can have a copyright on databases if I'm not mistaken.
 
Justin Bailey said:
You can have a copyright on databases if I'm not mistaken.
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I think you can but the information in the db is also just numbers it would be difficult to enforce if no mention of NPD was used.
 
milanbaros said:
I think you can but the information in the db is also just numbers it would be difficult to enforce if no mention of NPD was used.
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All NPD would have to do is show a court that the numbers on the site are an exact match to the numbers in their database.
 
I knew this day was coming. NPD has been VERY active the past 12-18 months in terms of protecting their data. I think this could end up affecting GAF in the not too distant future.

:(
 
border said:
To what extent can they actually enforce this? I mean, it's just information. You can't really copyright it or anything, so what legal pretext could they file a lawsuit under? Would it count as a trade secret?
Click to expand...
NPD Group uses statistical analysis to derive at the numbers each month. It is just an estimation (albeit a very accurate estimation) and not simply a collection of sales data. I’m sure it could be classified as something to protect it; I’m just not sure what exactly.
 
It's amazing how much of a headache it is to get American sales data. By the time the May NPD comes out it will seem like old news. And the Europe/Japan sales are too boring to even argue about. :lol
 
AirBrian said:
NPD Group uses statistical analysis to derive at the numbers each month. It is just an estimation (albeit a very accurate estimation) and not simply a collection of sales data. I’m sure it could be classified as something to protect it; I’m just not sure what exactly.
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How are estimates predicted? Does this mean that a weatherman could theoretically sue me for revealing his forecast on my website?
 
sonycowboy said:
I knew this day was coming. NPD has been VERY active the past 12-18 months in terms of protecting their data. I think this could end up affecting GAF in the not too distant future.

:(
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...didn't another group a bit back announce it was going to start tracking videogame sales? I'm kinda hazy so I could be wrong, but I thought I vaguely remember somebody....

border said:
How are estimates predicted? Does this mean that a weatherman could theoretically sue me for revealing his forecast on my website?
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I'm sure they'll claim it's some type of proprietary calculation(software) that is use to make the sales figures extrapolations... and they'll claim that in essense is what they are trying to protect... because maybe if you had too much of their data you could reverse engineer blah blah blah, my eyes have gone crossed...
 
Justin Bailey said:
You can have a copyright on databases if I'm not mistaken.
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You can copyright the arrangement of a database and any explanatory text associated with it, but not the data itself. Databases have better protection in the EU and there is legislation under consideration in the US to further protect databases, but that's how it stands at the moment. Not sure if NPD would try to claim it as a creative literary work or something if it went to trial. It seems more likely that they're sending out these cease-and-desist letters without any actual intention of following up with legal action.
 
border said:
How are estimates predicted? Does this mean that a weatherman could theoretically sue me for revealing his forecast on my website?
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It's not comparable.

They pay retailers to get actual sales data, take that data, run it through a variety of proprietary statistical models and resell that information (and analysis for those interested) to a variety of companies (some retailers, although the big guys have special contracts, the publishers, manufacturers, brokerages, independant investors, and many others)

It's proprietary data and completely under the protection of intellectual property. Just like if someone got the source code to Windows, Google's proprietary search technology, or reprinted a copy of Stephen King's latest book.

Whether or not they got it from someone who "shouldn't have leaked it", doesn't give people the free reign to reproduce it and claim ignorance.
 
sonycowboy said:
They pay retailers to get actual sales data, take that data, run it through a variety of proprietary statistical models and resell that information (and analysis for those interested) to a variety of companies (some retailers, although the big guys have special contracts, the publishers, manufacturers, brokerages, independant investors, and many others).
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Well, I'm sure quite a bit of money and effort goes in to making weather forecasts, what with the dopplers and everything. If these forecasts only available on a subscription-based service, could I be sued for telling people it's going to be sunny and in the mid-80's on Friday?

And how much leeway would there be for posting altered NPD estimates? Let's say you fed the data into Excel and told it to round everything to the nearest thousand or nearest ten-thousand. Have you produced some kind of derivative data set that's no longer protected? Hell....could you then claim that your new data is protected and go around suing everyone that tries to repost it?
 
border said:
Let's say you fed the data into Excel and told it to round everything to the nearest thousand or nearest ten-thousand.
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If they do that, here's a sample from the may npd :(

MAJESCO PSYCHONAUTS XBX 1000 $ 50,000
 
I think rounding (maybe to the thousand) would work best to get around NPD's propietary data. Should the axe ever fall at GAF, hopefully our sources will do just that.
 
They basically sell a license for people to access and reprint the information. It's their research being conducted, they should be able to determine who does what with it, and how they can access, republish, etc... I don't see anything wrong with what NPD has done.
 
border said:
Well, I'm sure quite a bit of money and effort goes in to making weather forecasts, what with the dopplers and everything. If these forecasts only available on a subscription-based service, could I be sued for telling people it's going to be sunny and in the mid-80's on Friday?

And how much leeway would there be for posting altered NPD estimates? Let's say you fed the data into Excel and told it to round everything to the nearest thousand or nearest ten-thousand. Have you produced some kind of derivative data set that's no longer protected? Hell....could you then claim that your new data is protected and go around suing everyone that tries to repost it?
Click to expand...

Look at it this way. NPD's product is their research and anslysis on sales data and trends. If that were all leaked for free, then they have no product to sell. This is no different than any other research business, which sells their data to customers. The difference between the weather and these reports are that people dont' charge for the weather forecast. It's part of the news model, which is dependant on advertising to pay the bills.

Stealing a report that no on else can reproduce and distributing it is much closer to sonycowboy's analogy than yours. It's theft of IP.
 
since I am a complete ignorant idiot as far as Shrine of Data and NPD and why this is happening, can someone explain to me the basics? who is NPD anyway?

I feel scared. even though I don't know exactly what this is all about, it is obviously some form of crackdown, and supression of information. which I hate. :(
 
GhaleonEB said:
The difference between the weather and these reports are that people dont' charge for the weather forecast. It's part of the news model, which is dependant on advertising to pay the bills.
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I'm not talking about the forecasts that are part of the evening news, I'm talking about a hypothetical forecast that would only be available as part of a subscription service. Would that content be just as legally protected as NPD's?

If it makes it easier to wrap your head around, just imagine any other kind of research. Somebody publishes a report that estimates that there are 2.3 million furries in North America. Am I not allowed to repeat this information to anyone since they spent a bunch of money figuring it out and are now trying to sell it?

I understand WHY NPD wants to protect their data, I just want to hear an explanation of why they would be allowed to prosecute people that re-publish that data. It seems like a bizarre notion to me, that people can own the rights to simple facts. Could Billboard or the New York Times put similar restrictions on their best seller lists if they so chose?
 
sonycowboy said:
I knew this day was coming. NPD has been VERY active the past 12-18 months in terms of protecting their data. I think this could end up affecting GAF in the not too distant future.

:(
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well that about wraps it up for GAF
 
Don't worry about shrine of database. Just use the Google archived pages. Even if they closed out the server the data is still here.
 
My belief is that the only person(s) liable would be the one's who originaly bought access to the inforamtion and breached thier contract by leaking it onto the net. A law that allows them to persucute some kid who finds it posted on a message board is a little hard to believe.

Once the information is out there... its out.
 
Gahiggidy said:
My belief is that the only person(s) liable would be the one's who originaly bought access to the inforamtion and breached thier contract by leaking it onto the net. A law that allows them to persucute some kid who finds it posted on a message board is a little hard to believe.
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Sure but if they send the kid a "cease and desist" and said kid refuses to comply then he's just as guilty as the original leaker.
 
Deku Tree said:
Sure but if they send the kid a "cease and desist" and said kid refuses to comply then he's just as guilty as the original leaker.
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No he's not. The original leaker signed a contract with the NPD group. The kid signed no such document.
 
mediabiz said:
Don't worry about shrine of database. Just use the Google archived pages. Even if they closed out the server the data is still here.
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Not for long. Google archives don't last more than a couple weeks, you know. Quick, someone pull all that data down!
 
GDJustin said:
Not for long. Google archives don't last more than a couple weeks, you know. Quick, someone pull all that data down!
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Er, I've seen archived pages that are years old. :/
 
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