[mythtv-users] Copyright Legislation in Canada

Alen Edwards allen.edwards at oldpaloalto.com
Wed Jul 9 14:22:41 UTC 2008


Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 08, 2008 at 10:43:48PM -0700, Alen Edwards wrote:
>> Personally, I would not want to be associated with a group that 
>> discusses how to break the law.  This is not a list of hackers, it is a 
>> list of law abiding people trying to get their rightful use out of the 
>> things they buy legally and out of freely available off the air programming.
>>
>> In fact, I would not even want this list to take on the appearance of 
>> being such a group.  So, don't go there.
> 
> Please sit back down, Alen.
> 
> The law has not yet been passed, so no one is discussing breaking it.
> 
> The discussion is about *keeping the law from ever being passed in the
> first place*.  Do you object to that as well?
> 
> Cheers,
> -- jra


Well, if the law passes, everyone who wrote that it would be illegal to 
have a mythtv in Canada if it passed sure better get rid of their myth 
system as they are making public statements that could come back to 
haunt them in court.

Look, here is how I saw it.  The point was made that there is a bad law 
being considered in Canada.  Specifics about how that law might or might 
not impact Mythtv should not have been part of the message.

Someone made a statement that mythtv is completely legal, which is my 
position.  In addition, it has no code that allows anything illegal 
anywhere, again my position.

I don't want to flame, but at that point people should pick up on the 
idea that this is a good position to state and not argued with that 
statement.

The point about the proposed law in Canada being bad has nothing to do 
with MythTV, it stands on its own.  It is good to know about, but it has 
nothing to do with MythTV even though it is of interest to the users and 
a reasonable thing to post.

Now, Linux is a very open piece of software and there are additions that 
will do a lot of things, some of which are very useful.  Some people add 
these extra pieces of code.  MythTv is very careful to have only the 
code that is completely open and without issues.  To imply that it is 
any other way is misguided and untrue.

Making these untrue statements that MythTV allows copying of protected 
DVDs, which anyone who has installed a clean copy of MythTV and tried it 
knows that it will not do, is asking for trouble for MythTV, which is 
undeserved.  If there is a way to take some other piece of software and 
add it to MythTV to allow this, I don't want to hear about it.  It is 
without interest to anyone on this board.


Allen


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