[mythtv-users] Data Direct "service"

Gabe Rubin gaberubin at gmail.com
Wed Apr 4 00:17:38 UTC 2007


On 4/3/07, Brad DerManouelian <myth at dermanouelian.com> wrote:

>
> Oh, and if TMS decides to scrap DirectData then we'll just start
> screen scraping and bringing down their web servers again. DirectData
> is a compromise that helps BOTH MythTV users AND TMS. They know they
> can't stop us from scraping their data, so they've packaged it in a
> low-bandwidth format and even tell us when it's convenient for us to
> grab this data. We comply. They *do* benefit from providing this
> service as much as we benefit from it. It's mutually agreeable.


I probably should not prolong it either, but TMS can use various
means, such as changing the layout of the data, forced timeouts, or
other things that I am not smart enough to think to either completely
prevent screenscraping or make it difficult enough (by requiring
creating new screen scrapers and having users constantly monitor for
new ones and downloading them).  I do believe this is an arms race
that we could win, but is it one we even want to engage in?  It likely
will cause intermittent gaps in our listings, which as I said is a
whole lot worse than what we have now.

That said, do I think it is ridiculous that TMS is banning users who
make posts such as what is described here?  Perhaps so, but I just
don't want to bite the hand that feeds me (and that seems to be what
the quid pro quo is in your view, TMS gives us food for free --
listings in a convenient format -- and we don't bite TMS -- hammer its
servers via screenscraping).


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