[mythtv-users] Re: Torrentocracy Patch against Mythtv-cvs

[Jonathan Link]

Bottom line, this list is operated under the sufferance of the
developer(s).  Though IANAD for Myth, I certainly understand their
desire to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
As with any OSS, develop add-ons and discuss them in another forum,
just respect the developers' wishes that this particular project and
others with similar functionality or purpose not be discussed HERE,
it's not blessed as being part of MythTV, so therefore should not be
discussed here.  What's so hard to understand about that?  No one is
restricting your rights to do with the software as you wish, all that
is being asked is that discussions, developments of Torrentocracy
et.al. be handled off this list.

Regards
-Jonathan


On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 14:48:46 -0800, Brad Templeton
<brad+myth at templetons.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 27, 2005 at 02:26:38PM -0800, Chris Petersen wrote:
> > >This is really truly such an unfortunate attitude.  I really
> > >appreciate this patch.  Many other myth users including yourself I'm
> > >sure appreciate this patch.  Bit torrent is not illegal technology.
> >
> > No, bittorrent is not illegal.  Nor is mythtv.  But combining them in
> > such a way that makes it blatantly easy for people to share tv
> > recordings will draw the same attention that Napster did (napster was
> > not illegal until people started using it to share copyrighted files --
> > no one cared about the people who were sharing legal recordings).
> 
> Napster operated a centralized server with a database of available files.
> It was alleged that Napster, in planning their business, sat around and
> discussed how they could get rich off all the unlawful filesharing that
> would take place.
> 
> There are a lot of other differences in the Napster case.   There are
> differences in the Grokster/Morpheus case too, which we're going before
> the supreme court in just over a month on, so I won't comment in detail,
> but if you read our briefs you can see how we're defending the same
> principles that kept the VCR legal.
> 
> Bittorrent is nothing more nor less than the best tool for distributing
> large files for people who do not have massive bandwidth of their own.
> As the best tool it is used by everybody who wants to distribute
> large files  -- both people who want to illicitly copy videos and those
> who want to do independent movies and those who want to put out linux distros.
> 
> Whatever the best tool is, it will get used by the video pirates.  As
> such, there will be legal assaults _relating_ to it by the enemies of
> the video pirates.   However, organizations like ours continue to defend
> the tools.  We have not been called upon  to defend bittorrent itself because
> even the MPAA is smart enough to know that as a tool, it's clearly on
> the legal side of the line.
> 
> If you say, "Let's stay away because of that" you are saying "let's stay
> away from integrating the best tools."
> 
> Which is indeed the victory the MPAA wants.
> 
> > Now, maybe someone could figure out some kind of safeguard system to
> > prevent access to non-legal-torrent sites that would make Isaac feel
> > differently about such things, but that's between you and him.
> 
> That's pretty difficult, and actually might even open you up to more
> legal liability.  One reason Napster fell is the judge decided that if
> they wanted to block a copyrighted song once they were told it was
> a violation, it was within their power because they were in the center
> of all directory searches and downloads.   Power to block, the judge
> suggested, could turn into duty to block.
> 
> 
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