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

ultrabrutal Wrote:Pike, when commitmonitor showed me the commits spiff had done I felt really bad. I use the scrapers also hehe. Of course XBMC cannot violate any licenses, so I totally get spiff.

spiff, I didn't know about themoviedb.org. Do you use an api or really scrape the html? I don't see an imdb link, so you use the movie name as a param?

A basic themoviedb.org scraper just hit the SVN in revision 17035. Searches and IMDB-ID translation is done via their API.

FYI, it's the new default movie scraper ..

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?

No more imdb scraping is going to kill one of the best things about XBMC.

I've added a few things to themoviedb.org when movies were missing fanart but manually entering all the actors and plot details doesn't sound like much fun. I've exported my library as nfo files though so I wonder if there's any chance we could just upload all our nfo's to a central location (like themoviedb.org) for scraping?

The nfo's are based on copyright data so they are a violation also I think.

I don't think that manually entering the data is that hard when enough people contribute. It's our best bet.
You can use mymovies.dk but it only has movies which can be bought on media

I'm would realy like some one to quietly delete this thread so we can carry on in blissfull ignorance as if non of this unpleasantness occured

Jester Wrote:BIG NOTICE !

From 17033 the IMDB scraper DOES NOT WORK ANY LONGER !

they do not allow scraping their web site and XBMC is complying with this.

the new default scraper is themoviedb.org which needs help filling, so please go there and help them (and thus yourself) out

Does this also means that Media Companion and Movie info plus are not allowed to scrape there anymore?

My cached data is pulled from the imdb list files, it does not create an online database, is not a commercial application, it's not charging any fees, It does reference IMDB as the source of that data with links to there site.

MIP's cached data is in compliance with the imdb list file usage.

Quote:All data and software released by Internet Movie Database Ltd is
freely available to anyone within certain limitations. You are
encouraged to quote subsets of the database in USENET articles,
movie related FAQs, magazine articles etc. We do ask, however,
that you make reference to the source of the data and provide a
pointer to the database for the benefit of the reader.

MIP also does a standard http query and downloads the same full html page as any other browser, the difference is in how I display that data as I parse it into a different format again with reference to IMDB as the source of that data.

My cached data is pulled from the imdb list files, it does not create an online database, is not a commercial application, it's not charging any fees, It does reference IMDB as the source of that data with links to there site.

MIP's cached data is in compliance with the imdb list file usage.

Quote:All data and software released by Internet Movie Database Ltd is
freely available to anyone within certain limitations. You are
encouraged to quote subsets of the database in USENET articles,
movie related FAQs, magazine articles etc. We do ask, however,
that you make reference to the source of the data and provide a
pointer to the database for the benefit of the reader.

MIP also does a standard http query and downloads the same full html page as any other browser, the difference is in how I display that data as I parse it into a different format again with reference to IMDB as the source of that data.

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?

can you please be quite, once you are done everything will be a violation.

Thanks for the heads up on the license issues. Team XBMC will contact IMDb directly and ask for their approval if they are willing to give it.

For the meantime, take the opportunity to contribute to an open database such as themoviedb. If each of us take the time (an hour or so ain't that much) to contribute 10 movies from our collections (obviously NOT just resubmitting IMDb data!) then their collection will swell extremely quickly.

After all, look at how awesome thetvdb is now, thanks to user contributions from people like you and me.

I'll post back once I hear back from IMDb.

Cheers,
Jonathan