[mythtv-users] Re: OT: Zap2it Labs Email

Jeff Thompson lists at threeputt.org
Sat Oct 30 03:48:54 UTC 2004


Jack, I've only recently started using DataDirect for another unrelated 
project. One thing that I immediately noticed was that DataDirect 
provides no method for obtaining schedule changes, so "users" of 
DataDirect are forced to reload programming data to catch any schedule 
changes.

Since I don't yet have a mythtv box setup (waiting on h/w), I can only 
speculate that mythtv (and all users of their service) has to reload 
schedule data periodically to catch any schedule changes. If TMS were 
serious about reducing bandwidth requirements, they would implement a 
method to query their service for schedule changes. I suspect that this 
alone would reduce their bandwidth requirements by a large percentage.

When I signed up for DataDirect a month or two ago (again, for a 
non-mythtv reason), they gave me a unique key for my application and 
stated that they had no intention to move to a "pay" service. I received 
their recent email too and I'm certainly not abusing their service, so I 
hope that their intent is solely to "remind" people of their terms of 
service and hopefully get the known abusers to license DataDirect, etc.

Regards,

Jeff

Jack Trout wrote:

>Well of course I wonder if this will spark a debate like those of the
>tv studios and cable companies about avoiding advertising, if a person
>uses a program like the original xmltv, just to grab the listing and
>code them out from the raw html and it happens that the advertisements
>arent whats kept they dont make money, but it was a free service to
>begin with, so.. is it against copyright law to grab information from
>sources without thier explicit permission, when they dont provide an
>terms of service for regular web users?
>
>I guess there main goal is to make money from thier site, and when
>mythtv and other such projects that used mythtv were small the
>bandwidth wasnt really noticable, now with floods of users it actually
>takes a toll on thier site and the ability to use it, xmtv and other
>such programs essentially circumvent any advertisement or branding of
>thier site, so if a 3rd party is now distributing a program with a
>version of xmltv being used with a front end not even mentioning
>zap2it as the provider they loose even bigger than when we use it,
>because the consumer using the product isnt even aware of the source
>and they assume the source is from the manufacturer than the content
>provider, this can hurt thier business model and just hurt the
>feelings of the people who work hard to upkeep the content, and
>company X benifets from that.
>  
>
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