[mythtv-users] Free US/Canada Listings

[David Segall davidsegall.net]

R. G. Newbury wrote:
>
> Screen scraping a website for TV schedule listings data enters a 
> decidedly grey area in North America. The actual data may not be 
> copyrightable, but the presentation by whoever, is. It may be presented 
> in ways which use technological measures to protect the copyright in the 
> presentation (yeah, well that would be the argument!). An individual 
> user may fit within the fair use exemption, or even the more limited 
> Canadian fair dealing limitation. But the DCMA makes the scraper writer 
> a criminal.
So why hasn't Google been prosecuted?
> I do not take the position that screen scrapers are per se illegal.
Then how do justify saying that the "DCMA makes the scraper writer a criminal"?.
> I do not want Myth to be tarred by 
> the FUD which the IP 'owners' could throw. And the existence of SD as a 
> legal allowed structure for obtaining tv listings data removes the 
> 'need' for the use of scrapers in North America. So there is no *need* 
> for scrapers to be discussed here. So lets not give them an opening. 
For those that risk their life and liberty in a repressive society "lets not give them an opening" is an understandable reaction. In the United States, where the worst the list maintainers face is a letter from some corporate lawyers demanding that they stop, I think self-censorship is inexcusable.