[mythtv-users] Zap2it Labs Shutting Down?

stuart stuart at xnet.com
Wed Jun 20 19:31:53 UTC 2007



Chris Petersen wrote:
> Srikant Sharma wrote:
>> Is it possible for us (mythtv-users) to convince them to share the 
>> data with a very limited number of users?  We users can later 
>> distribute.propagate the data using some peer-to-peer protocol. This 
>> will alleviate the load on their servers and we can still manage to 
>> get the listings.
> 
> Their main concern is that there are people making money off of services
> that they are giving away for free.  Though I don't speak for TMS, I can
> guarantee you that they'd never release listings data to the community
> for distribution (it was suggested once when DD was first established).
>  Their whole point is that they don't mind individual users getting the
> data (hence offering it for free on zap2it.com), but if someone is
> selling a product that uses the TMS listings, they need to pay for the
> right to do so.
> 
> To reiterate, bandwidth is likely not a major concern, but people
> violating the terms of the user agreement are.  Without a way to prevent
> it, they're shutting down the entire service.
> 
> -Chris

What a mess.  Needs some creative thinking...  However, everything I 
think of requires some work at the server end...  Something TMS probably 
doesn't want to do (or should not have to do) when they are giving away 
a service for private individual use...

Anyways...

How's about setting up a subscription service that requires each user to 
have a unique key to decode personally encoded data.  You start out with 
the current mythtv community.  Then, water mark the data for half the 
uses. If the water mark shows up in commercial use, flag those users and 
repeat the process on half the remaining users.  Repeat the process 
until you identify the commercial user(s) and stop sending them data 
they can decode with their key.  Eventually you will weed out initial 
commercial users.  At such a point, start a new policy which restricts 
creation of new accounts.  That is, something like a cooling off period 
of say 1 week.  That way, if you get flagged you can't turn around and 
create a new account right away.  This would also make private users 
more protective of their keys.

Nothing is totally safe, and the above approach will take continuous 
effort.  And, dare I say it, sounds very Big Brother'ish.  Anyone have a 
better one?

---

By the way - at least in the states - doesn't PBS transmit all local 
listings (i.e. commercial and public stations)?




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