[mythtv] Anyone Selling MythTV PVRs?

[Ryan A. Carris]

Cost of the subscriptions...

Something that I've been wondering about, is scraping Zap2it's listing 
legal, or at least accepted?

Zap2it is owned by Tribune Media Services, who sells the same listings 
to people like DirectTV, Tivo, and newspapers.  The Tivo subscription 
are to partly pay Tribune Media Services for the listings. Zap2it 
provides these listings on their website for free, because you have to 
look at advertising.

We by scraping their website are bypassing their ads, therefore they 
might not like this, even if it were legal, and could slam the door shut 
on us at any time.

But, the thought provoking question that needs to be answered in the 
future is:

If someone puts files on a webserver, but does not link to them so that 
the only way of get to them is trial and error exploration, is this 
trespassing?  The premise is that only file linked are intended for 
public consumption and therefore public.  Any file not linked, is not 
intended for public consumption, and therefore accessing these files is 
trespassing.  Does linking to a file make it public, or does placing on 
a webserver make it public?

If you argue the latter, then where does the public/nonpublic line stop? 
    Are all files on the webserver, including system files then public? 
  I would say no, because the directory is not world readable.  But 
whatif a directory was accidentally made world readable.  This doesn't 
make it public, because the intent was to keep it private.  And if you 
use intent as the rule, then only files linked to are public.

This would of course mean that scraping could be illegal trespassing.

Something to think about.

-rac




Alex Davidson wrote:
> You think?  Even when you consider the lack of monthly fees or lifetime
> subscriptions?
> By my reckoning you'd pay $448 for a 40hr Tivo with a lifetime subscription
> (almost the same for Replay) or on a monthly plan you'd pay $354.40 the
> first yr then $155.40 every yr henceforth, you don't think you could sell a
> consumer on the concept of paying $400 or so for a superior feature set and
> never pay another penny for subscriptions?
> 
> (Okay, I haven't sat down and found the best & least expensive components
> suitable for this, so I'm estimating at $400)
> 
> Alex