[mythtv-users] Written proof that we've all been conned about SD

[R. G. Newbury]

kijuhty kijuhty wrote:
> How does your foot taste Phil, Greg, Jay, William et al?

So do you do your happy dance clockwise or counterclockwise?

Your 'proof' is nothing of the sort. Who is 'aaron' and who was his 
source? And for that matter who are you?


But assuming it is correct, then gee.. the big bad company bluffed us 
all and is making a little more money. How surprising that they would do 
that. That's what corporations do....being psychopathic and all...

But you saw through all that. Good for you. Kudos to you.

Myth is still free. You can still use a scraper and get program data for 
free if that is your religion. I consider that $5 a month is small price 
to pay to insure against the uncertainty of having to figure our how to 
scrape. And maybe Isaac and Robert and the others may make a couple of 
bucks. Good for them. They deserve it for all the work they have done on 
Myth. But note: they will make that money from SD not Myth.

The thing that bothers me most about your position is the underlying 
accusation that Isaac and the others, all suddenly decided to become 
greedy money-grubbing bastards, after years of freely working and 
donating their efforts on myth into the free universe. You cannot, it 
seems, accept that when they say they do not intend to gain from SD, 
that is will be a non-profit, that they is truly what they intend. But 
they have walked the walk for years. I think they will continue to do 
so. You just insult them,

<large deletion>


> The fact is that Myth would have continued to
> be free if the Myth community had said "we see through this laughable threat
> to terminate zap2it labs and we're not falling for it, we'll call your bluff
> and if you really want option 3, fine, we'll go back to screen scraping."

The fact is that Myth is still free. These threads must really baffle 
the shit out of people in Auztralia or Britain or Germany. Myth is free 
there too!

  > Geoff's post was hilarious: "the list owners now recognize that 
scraping in
> defiance of user agreements or web-site owners is illegal....  Isaac and
> others do not ... want to be associated with it in any way. If they did 'it'
> in the past, they no longer do, and regret having done so."  

And gee they told me I could never do stand-up comedy....

It appears you do not understand the difference between copyright and 
patent law. Since the passage of the DCMA, copyright has become almost 
criminal law in the way it is prosecuted and all of the power is in the 
hands of the person claiming the copyright. The patent examples you 
mention have never been litigated and probably never will be, because 
recent US caselaw clearly holds that patents for an EPG grid or for 
pausing live tv could be struck down because of obviousness or prior art 
or both. Screen scrapers however could easily be attacked under the 
DCMA. And while Google can hire copyright lawyers in football squad 
sizes, Isaac and Myth would be truly screwed by a malicious copyright 
claim. (About scraping or guide data, not about programs).


> Myth was promoted from day 1 as being a "free" solution, ......The issue is
 > that it's not a free solution anymore
> because the myth developers chose to partner with Tribune to turn it into a
> commercial venture even though they had alternatives that would have kept it
> free. 

Myth is still free. You don't have to pay for anything. Why don't you 
develop one of those free alternatives...Heh. you could write a screen 
scraper fof listings.zap2it...!


> As far as why I'm posting this, it's not to bash SD or Myth for going
> commercial. 

I'll believe that when Ted Haggard ...etc...BTW. who IS he? Politician? 
Televangelist?...

> that if the Myth community said 'no' to SD and threatened to do screen
> scraping, then the guide data would still be free like it was before

That is an unwarranted even egregious assumption to make.

> that attempts to ban discussion of screen scraping is to protect SD's
> business and not because of a serious threat. 

With SD having a commercial relationship with Tribune, SD is under no 
threat: it does not do anything improper with Tribunes data. Those of 
use who use SD are similarly protected from action by Tribune. But 
screen scraping is open to action by zealous enforcers *and Myth gets 
tainted by the thrown mud*.

As for me, well, I'm willing to admit that I could have been conned by 
this whole setup. But I'm in good company. So were Isaac and Robert and 
others who were involved in the discussions. And they certainly believed 
what Tribune was saying. So I've been conned into paying $5 a month to 
SD while I would have been happy to pay that to Tribune/zap2it in order 
to guarantee a secure source of data. That's life...
So Tribune lied, and kijuhty cried..wolf.

We really have wasted far too many electrons on this.

Geoff