oztivo EPG, new STB legality questions..

[number6]

yo, pretty lackluster forum useage lately guys..

Still curious about the legality of EPG data. The main subject of this post.
Haven't worked on my tvschedules site in ages, basically have a working prototype but still very much at the idea stage.
It's unfortunate as I am convinced that a community driven effort could lead to a major way forward for homebrew PVR and other media centric activities.

Commercial PVR (ie with actual EPG) in NZ could still be a long time off, probably several years unless something changes with the current dinosaur SkyTV.

Well, since the current state of play/rumours in AUS seems to be Microsoft are doing something with their Media Centre product (e.g. releasing it) in AUS before Christmas this year.

Its suspected that the TV stations (who in AUS, and here - since we both share UK copyright laws, own the copyright on the TV listings information) are clamping down on the the provider that OzTivo were using to make sure that their rules for use of EPGs are respected.
This could either be because MS have signed up all the TV stations to provide listings info, or because the TV stations are **** scared of PVR technology and want to lock MS out.

If the former case, then MS has locked up the EPG info for all of Australia already, so they want to keep any competing products (including Tivo), in any form out of the picture.

You can bet if MS is doing something in AUS, they are doing something here as well.

If they are going to do something it would either be to try and creep out the technology or go full steam with it. Probably neither will occur due to the fat profits they're raking in and the likely damage to the advertising revenue stream. Can we blame them or Telecom? that is capitalism with piss poor market regulation I guess. thanks government.. anyway, that is not an area of my expertise nor do I really care as I have no influence over it and people are probably sick to death as this issue is VERY old news.

Sky have indicated that they would (at some unspecified future time) offer customers an "advanced" SetTop box (read DVR) they could purchase themselves. This would most likely be a Sky+ box the same as they use in the UK. Which apparently sucks.

Of course MS could be offering the product to Sky to sell to their subscribers - now thats an attractive idea for both MS and Sky.

... anyway, seeing as we're screwed for (real) broadband in this country for the continued foreseable future and really have few options for other TV sources it's worth investigating further the use of PVR for SkyTV/FTA. So please, where exactly are the lines drawn with the EPG?

I don't see what the non-availability of affordable bandwidth has to do with EPG info per-se.

As for alternatives to "local" (NZ) TV, - few of us will be able to download all our programs "on demand" for some time to come yet even if bandwidth was cheap as. Still with the launch of Optus D1 (the replacement for Optus B1) later next year, we may be able to start getting AUS TV over here at an affordable price.

Basically what I want to know is there some grey boundary we can be certain is within the current and future law and is arguable outside of a court. If we can know that then we can use that as a sound basis for building a tvschedule service, accessible as a webservice for use with mythtv, tivo, etc. Has anyone come across any information on this subject on the web or elsewhere?.. and relating to NZ? I'll also emphasis as I have done previously, that I would darely love to know what other folks in other countries are doing in this regard and in the PVR sphere in general. Don't have the time to research it as it is a very time consuming process. Has anyone found any useful homebrew PVR sites that track this sort of info, anyone follow mythtv development? etc tell me what u know people... spill ur beans

...

Most folks are homebrewing and going under the wire to keep out of sight if possible.

Also note that US Copyright law is much different from "UK based" copyright law, in that the former allows for "fair use" and UK law only allows for "fair dealing", which is more restrictive.

So whatever the US copyright law may allow is irrelevant to NZ/AUS/UK etc.
And the UK has no need to homebrew EPG info as they gets theirs via Tivo Guide service or via Skys sat service.
So you'll have to look to the "British CommonWealth" countries for similar case law and precedents in Copyright law thats relevant to NZ copyright law.

The first commercial PVR that I heard of was in march or earlier? The IceTV device that Peter Vogel is hawking. Peter being a dude who has been involved in oztivo for about 6-8 months I think? - came in learning nothing, cottoned on fast, now apparently building his own system. He has a glossy site to look at www.icetv.com.au but haven't heard any real plans although there have been some media publicity about. He was trying to recruit programmers a while back... lol anyway all the best to him, he is going for the Tivo subscription model ($2 a week or something), not sure of cost of hardware or where the hell he is getting his guide data from and how he thinks he can do it legally.. anyone got more details?

Until I see an actual real/able to purchase product from Peter, I'd treat anything on his website with a truckload of salt.

Unless he has done a deal to access EPG info legally, he won't stay in business long. Yes Peter is a smart guy, but are his pockets deep enough to withstand the collective onslaught of many lawsuits at once if he's using EPG data he has no rights to?
I see no evidence he is doing anything special regarding sourcing legal EPG info to same extent as OZTivo guys have.

What's interesting is that he is publicly offering the guide data in XML format. Afterall the device is just a Mythtv box.. but how very nice

Interesting to see if they can both coexist in the same space, or even get of the ground... so yeah, anyone know anything?

Be interested to see if the MythTV guy is still in business for much longer offering listings.
After the Cease & Desist OzTivo got it obvious that things are happening in the EPG space in AUS and everyone there better look out.

Anyway, i'm still keen on my tvscheduling idea, just still somewhat philisophical on the issue, can time/channel/name/episode/duration info really be copyright information in NZ? I think it's bull**** but I don't know for certain.

I think you'll find under existing (and proposed) copyright laws the episode title and information can be/is copyrighted by the TV stations, the actual "timeslot" and duration information may not be copyright, but thats a very grey area.

But I'm sure Sky have deeper pockets than us (even collectively), and the only proper ways to obtain listings is from their website, the SkyGuide (magazine) or via the Set-Top box on-screen EPG display [all Sky copyrighted I'm sure].

So they could argue the case longer and harder if they so cared.

As an aside:
The G-Code people (who provide the G-codes for TV listings) are probably given a list of Channel names/start time & durations for all the TV listings they provide G-Codes for - they do not, and probably don't want to, know/care whats in each timeslot, and this helps stop the likes of TVNZ and TV3/Sky getting worried about leakage of their schedules to each other via the G-Code database

G-code only encodes the start-time/date and duration, nothing else.