[mythtv-users] Re: Torrentocracy Patch against Mythtv-cvs

[Joe Votour]

BitTorrent is not illegal.  We all know that.

Integrating BitTorrent into MythTV is not illegal. 
Again, we all know that.

However, it is not us that you need to convince.

There are several groups out there (RIAA, MPAA and
others) who, if the plugin became official, might put
MythTV in their sights (more so than it already is). 
Although MythTV doesn't do anything that is really
questionable, I'm sure that these groups are following
our progress.

That said, Isaac and a number of the developers are
located in the United States of America, where much of
this lobbying power is.  It would be quite easy for
these groups to start putting pressure on Isaac and
the developers (who are named, thus easy to find). 
It's not so much the threat of being arrested, it's
more the hassle of possibly having to defend yourself
against a possible lawsuit.  Even if you were to win,
it could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars and
ruin your life.  There are a number of frivolous
lawsuits in the United States, they're very easy to
initiate.

If I was Isaac, and (I'm not saying that this has
happened, but...) I was contacted by lawyers, or given
a C&D (cease and desist) or anything like that, I'd
probably pull the plug on MythTV immediately.  I don't
think that's what anybody wants.  You may call it
spineless - I call it sensible.

Maybe it's for this reason, maybe it's for another
reason, I don't really know, as I don't know Isaac. 
However, he has made it perfectly clear on more than
one occasion that MythTV is *NOT* an official plugin,
and that he does not want discussion about it on this
mailing list.

Simply put: It's his program, it's his mailing list,
it's his rules.  While I disagree with some of the
things that he says, and the manner in which he says
them, the above still holds true.  Please respect his
wishes.  Feel free to hack on the plugin yourself, but
post the patches elsewhere.

-- Joe

--- Gary Lerhaupt <lerhaupt at gmail.com> wrote:

> ...
> "The developers and much of the myth community have
> made it clear that
> torrents are NOT supported, not least because we
> want the machines and
> the project that we spent so much time working on to
> remain to
> free of legal burdens."
> ...
> 
> This is really truly such an unfortunate attitude. 
> I really
> appreciate this patch.  Many other myth users
> including yourself I'm
> sure appreciate this patch.  Bit torrent is not
> illegal technology. 
> No lawyer has yet to go after Bram Cohen.  No lawyer
> has yet to go
> after me.  In fact, I don't think you could ask for
> a better
> poster-child for the legal torrent community as the
> maintainer of this
> project than myself (well, maybe Bram Cohen or the
> etree.org people)
> and what I have done with prodigem.com (a bit
> torrent hosting service
> for legal creative commons content).  To avoid the
> controversy of even
> discussing the words torrent and Myth in the same
> sentence is
> kow-towing to the MPAA and is a little spineless.
> 
> Go take a look at the frontpage of lokitorrent.com. 
> Hoax or not, it
> says it all:  There are websites that provide legal
> downloads. This is
> not one of them.
> 
> Well, I run one of "them".  Others run "them" too. 
> There's lots of
> good legal stuff out there and to not even tolerate
> discussion out of
> fear is silly.  Sure you can say that I can create
> my own mailing list
> and perhaps I should, but it's really too bad that
> the same base group
> of people can't make use of existing resources to
> discuss relavant
> software.
> 
> Gary
> 
> On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:42:51 -0800, Gary Lerhaupt
> <lerhaupt at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thanks!  Updated in my cvs.  Keep em coming if you
> got em, it
> > certainly needs it :).
> > 
> > Gary
> > 
> > On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 17:19:58 -0800 (PST), John
> Miller
> > <john_miller5555 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > Simple patch against the recent DB changes.
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
>
http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> 



		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. 
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail