Does XBMC and XBMC Media Center end-users have permission to scrape imdb.com website?

Yep.

would it not be quicker to back up your existing imdb.xml and the overwrite the new one

ultrabrutal Wrote:The first thing that springs to mind when looking at the site, is... Who owns the copyright of fanart and posters? I think there is a grey area there also I'm afraid

offtopic: spiff, have looked into the api info. looks easy to use. any indications on speed vs the others?

For what it is worth, just the act of backing up your movies onto a hard drive violates DRM laws. The use of any photos and/or artwork without the original artists consent is a copyright violation...You pointing it out doesn't do anything but require the team to either act like they didn't see your post or remove those features to avoid getting in trouble. Without your comments, they can simply wait until they are contacted by the offended parties and asked to remove the infringing features (which may never come). If you want something like XBMC that is 100% legal then I would suggest you shell out the $20,000 for a Kaleidescape system...otherwise I would kindly ask that you stop trying to find everything that could possibly be wrong with XBMC and enjoy it.

smcnally75 Wrote:For what it is worth, just the act of backing up your movies onto a hard drive violates DRM laws. The use of any photos and/or artwork without the original artists consent is a copyright violation...You pointing it out doesn't do anything but require the team to either act like they didn't see your post or remove those features to avoid getting in trouble. Without your comments, they can simply wait until they are contacted by the offended parties and asked to remove the infringing features (which may never come). If you want something like XBMC that is 100% legal then I would suggest you shell out the $20,000 for a Kaleidescape system...otherwise I would kindly ask that you stop trying to find everything that could possibly be wrong with XBMC and enjoy it.

So basicly what you are saying is that it's ok to "steal" as long as the person you steal from doesn't find out. If he finds out you kindly give the "stolen" goods back and all is forgotten.

The DRM laws does not apply to all countries. USA law is not global you know.

I never asked spiff to remove the scrapers. I just wanted to know if XBMC had permission. XBMC does not violate any laws more than a legal gun in your drawer does. XBMC is licensed under GPL so it wants others to respect this license right? Why should XBMC not follow others licenses? Because you don't care about licenses?
If a feature in XBMC violates a law in your country I think it's up to you to refrain from using the feature basicly.
I don't think IMDB would sue XBMC... For once, there is no money in XBMC, secondly again USA law does not apply to the world. However IMDB's business is their website and their database and not providing their data freely to anyone who wants it.

As for the fan art. Ofcourse the copyright belongs to the studio, but aren't it often based on free press kits? I can only see it as good free adverticing for the movies. The info typed into imdb's database however is another story. The info is not owned by the studios. Ofcourse a written consent about using the art work from the studios would be prefered but how would one come about it? But I think this is another story than borrowing data from imdb's database without their consent

I would honestly like to believe this is going to be a non-issue in another week or two. Bringing it up is fine; and Team-XBMC is already talking with IMDB to secure proper permission to use their data. Should IMDB refuse (as is their right to do,) others have suggested some solid ways to resolve this problem.

I'd be frustrated to lose IMDB too--but you never know until you ask.

ultrabrutal Wrote:So basicly what you are saying is that it's ok to "steal" as long as the person you steal from doesn't find out. If he finds out you kindly give the "stolen" goods back and all is forgotten.

No, what I'm saying is that there are a lot of gray areas with stuff like this. For the most part, a lot of companies wouldn't bother giving the team a hard time about it unless someone made a stink about it. Just as the movie industry wouldn't crack down on a person in the US storing their own DVD's on a hard drive unless somebody else was crying foul and they needed to set an example. IMO, it isn't our place to bring up what could be legal and illegal. Just as you said yourself, US laws aren't global...We should leave those decisions up to the team and if any corporations get upset they will let the team know right away by ordering a cease and desist letter. I personally think calling site scraping for movie data "stealing" is a stretch. Especially when all the info on IMDB is user submitted.

smcnally75 Wrote:No, what I'm saying is that there are a lot of gray areas with stuff like this. For the most part, a lot of companies wouldn't bother giving the team a hard time about it unless someone made a stink about it. Just as the movie industry wouldn't crack down on a person in the US storing their own DVD's on a hard drive unless somebody else was crying foul and they needed to set an example. IMO, it isn't our place to bring up what could be legal and illegal. Just as you said yourself, US laws aren't global...We should leave those decisions up to the team and if any corporations get upset they will let the team know right away by ordering a cease and desist letter. I personally think calling site scraping for movie data "stealing" is a stretch. Especially when all the info on IMDB is user submitted.

So now you want to censor me? wtf

Yes the decisions are up to the team. I just kindly asked because I was curious. I never told spiff to disable the two scrapers! Heck I use IMDB scraper too you know!

I used stealing as a parallel to what you were saying, dude. IMDB clearly states that they won't allow scrapers and robots to grab their data. If XBMC does not respect this, then they can shove their GPL up their butts. How can you ask for respect if you give out none yourself?

glances up at the subforum description:
Scraper Development Developers forum for meta data scrapers. Scraper developers only!
Not for posting feature requests or end-user support requests!

can we stop this now as this is starting to get out of hand....

One of the fun things about the law is that each word has its own meaning. If you use the wrong word, you mean something else.

The reason I bring this up is to point out that "stealing" is not against the law in any state, to my knowledge. "Theft" of personal property (i.e. physical objects) is. However, intellectual property (code, ideas, etc.) is not personal property (once again, a physical object), which means the improper use of it is technically not theft.

What it technically is can be a whole bunch of other things, like "copyright infringement." As such, smcnally is more accurate in saying there is gray area here, since most copyright law is relatively new and/or untried in federal/state court, so none of us (being lawyers) know what any of the rules are, exactly. This is doubly true for computer-related IP, as fair-use laws and rulings are a maximum of about 35 years old.

So, just to make my point wholely clear, so long as no one is making a profit or causing others to massively lose profit, odds are no one is going to sue anyone else, because the cost of figuring out exactly what the law is in court is COMPLETELY not worth it.

Of course, with that said, asking permission is always a good idea.

X2

IMDB cannot claim intellectual property rights over mere factual data. Titles and cast lists of movies are mere factual data and most of the plot synopses are user-contributed, so IMDB has no claim of right over them anyway, unless there is a clause saying that any user-contributed data becomes the intellectual property of IMDB.

Even so, the fact that XBMC is rearranging and reformatting the data could qualify it for fair use exceptions even if the data were intellectual property.

In short, a website's TOS is not a legally binding document. IMDB's policy on screen-scraping amounts to nothing more than a request which users may decline at their option.