[mythtv] MythVideo and IMDb

[Anduin Withers]

The imdb.pl and imdbpy.py (depending on how it is configured) scripts currently violate IMDb's Conditions of Use (http://www.imdb.com/help/show_article?conditions) under License and Site Access -> Robots and Screen Scrapping.

I've been trying to resolve this issue for some time, without success.

What I've done:

Contacted IMDb

Three times now, with answers ranging from "no" to the most recent:

  Thank you for your interest in using IMDb.com data.

  We're sorry but at this time we are not able to grant consent to retrieve
  data from our site in that fashion.

  Please be aware that your assumptions about other applications/sites are 
  incorrect. As previously stated, any application that is retrieving 
  content from IMDb.com by scraping our pages is doing it without our 
  consent.

Contacted Freevo

They were granted access at some point (though not for images). That access was obtained by asking.

What is next:

I'm going to comply with their terms which will likely result in:

  1. The removal of imdb.pl.
  2. Instructions for making imdbpy.py work with the downloadable imdb
     data.
  3. Find a new site with terms we can comply with.
  4. Make individual search script selection easier in the UI.

Progress on 3 is limited, I've been looking at omdb.org. There are several issues with omdb.org that will make it an uncomfortable switch (the English data is sparse). If you know of a suitable alternate site, let me know.

I'll likely get to each of the above in that order.

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Anduin Withers