[mythtv-users] Feature Idea

Jeff Monks mythtv at skunkeye.com
Mon Jun 30 16:55:44 EDT 2003


> In other words, as you're watching a particular TV channel, you become a 
> seed where others can watch the same channel you're watching. As others 
> connect to your server to watch the stream, they themselves become servers 
> which others can connect to, and the video stream would remain intact so 
> long as the original seed continued to watch a particular station.

Setting aside bandwidth issues, I suspect this would lead to a massive 
assault by lawyers on the MythTV community.  We might be able to get away 
with it for a while by being under the radar, but the first whiff any TV 
network gets of it will see Isaac and anyone else whose name appears in 
the source code hauled into court.

Remember iCraveTV.com, the Canadian company that was webcasting TV 
networks without permission?  You might not, because they were sued out of 
existence after only a couple months of operations.

Remember ReplayTV's new "sharing" feature that would let you share 
recorded shows with people on the internet?  That prompted another 
lawsuit...  If memory serves, they took that feature out before it even 
hit the market.

I think it's a great idea, but in a climate where TV networks are suing 
over such a grey area as commercial skipping, a clear-cut case of 
copyright infringement will be irresistable to them.

That aside, wouldn't it be better to only share recorded shows?  Sharing 
Live TV channels as the user is watching it could be incredibly 
frustrating, if they decided that the last ten minutes of the show weren't 
worth watching and changed the channel.  That would also make it easier 
for people to search and do automated downloads - tell your Myth box to 
record all episodes of "Buffy", and it also goes out to the 'net and grabs 
other people's recorded episodes of "Buffy".  Most people don't have 
upstream bandwidth high enough to stream real-time, but you could download 
a show overnight and watch it the next day.



More information about the mythtv-users mailing list