[mythtv-users] Zap2it Labs Shutting Down?
Dan Ritter
dsr-myth at tao.merseine.nu
Wed Jun 20 18:20:54 UTC 2007
On Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 11:04:35AM -0700, Chris Petersen wrote:
> Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > Of course it doesn't mean that. If you post it, *someone* can scrape
> > it, if they're motivated enough. Raw factual directory data (which
> > this is) isn't copyrightable anyway; Feist v Rural makes that pretty
> > clear. If there's *creative* writing in the episode descriptions, then
> > maybe, but IANAL.
>
> Show names, episode titles, etc. are all copyright to the respective tv
> networks that own them. They license use of these names to TMS, who can
> then sell them at whatever price the market can bear.
You can't copyright a title of a creative work. You can apply
for a trademark, but that doesn't restrict people from talking
about it. (I bought a box of Kleenex tissues yesterday. Want to
learn how to configure a cisco 2600?) And patents don't apply.
You can't copyright the factual information about a work or
newsworthy event either, as Major League Baseball, Inc. has been
finding out, repeatedly.
The shows themselves are copyright-owned by whatever entities,
but MythTV, TiVo, and Comcast wouldn't exist if there weren't
legal ways to distribute the vast majority of them without
paying anyone a fee.
Now, TMS may have a contract with each and every television
station in North America... but I suspect that they don't, and
that they may not even have an exclusivity clause. Consider PBS
stations.
-dsr-
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