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

[Chris Petersen]

> The only way I can think that sharing TV programs would not annoy the
> powers that be would possibly be if you were forced to watch, or at
> least let play a set of commericials.

It'd never happen.  Commercials are targetted regionally.  You don't 
want to send a Safeway commercial to viewers in Chicago, any more than 
you'd want a Jewel commercial sent out to the west coast.  Not to 
mention the small-retailer commercials on your local stations -- they 
don't have any need for national coverage, and would put their money 
elsewhere (radio, print ads, etc) if they were forced to because the 
stations decided that because shows were being shared nationally, they 
should charge the national-coverage fee.

Nothing we could do with FOSS software would make the networks happy -- 
the "free and open" part gets in the way of their being able to control 
what we'd do with it.  Even if the official MythTV project implemented 
DRM, someone could just fork the project and produce a non-drm version 
-- and we'd all happily switch over to using it (just look at what 
happened when XFree86 changed their license -- most people are using 
X.org now)

Personally, if Torrentocracy really is ONLY about sharing free-and-legal 
shows, I wouldn't mind seeing it become accepted into the official 
mythtv plugins list.  But right now, as I understand it, it's just too 
easy to be construed as a tool for piracy.  One user picked up by an 
automated filename-matching bot and found to be using mythtv + 
officially-sanctioned-torrentocracy for sharing a copyrighted program 
and the mythtv devs are submersed into a legal battle that they didn't 
want or need.  It's just not worth the risk/effort at the moment.  But 
like I said, I'd love to see some safeguards installed, or something 
like that, to make it "safe" for people to use as an officially 
sanctioned plugin.  I still don't see that happening anytime soon.

-Chris