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TiVo Goes After Sites Hosting Image Backups
TiVo User writes "TiVo has apparently decided to come down on sites that hosted 'image backups,' essentially tarballs of the OS for the machine, which just happens to be Linux. TiVo owners use the images to install on new, larger hard drives (increasing the recording capacity of the unit) or to recover a dead system. Why TiVo has a problem with this, but allows others to sell the same images for profit is beyond me." Read on for the rest of TiVo User's comments.
"The images are not used to create pirate TiVos (as a subscription service, TiVo justifiably controls access to their database tightly), so there wouldn't appear to be much harm in allowing them to be hosted. TiVo has always walked a fine line in allowing the user community to mod their units, perhaps they have finally stepped over that line, considering there are free alternatives that are less restrictive. To their credit, the legal mumbo jumbo in their cease letter is non-threatening compared to most other of this type, but it's interesting the letter draws no distinction between the portions of the software that are Linux, and therefore expressly distributable, and those that are proprietary to TiVo."
Isn't that illegal given the GPL?
There are plenty of free choices now, and they are geting better every day, seems like a bad time for Tivo to start upsetting their biggest fans.
This practice does not surprise me. About 4 months ago, I purchased a TiVo refurb for $200. In those 4 months, I have sent back 3 TiVo's. My fourth recently went bad (the screen gets all pixelated). Unfortunately, the 3 month warranty only counts for 3 months from when the TiVo was first purchased! Never mind that for the duration of the warranty period they never managed to send me a working product!
TiVo is a company with no scruples, this practice does not surprise me in the least.
If they are allowing other sites to sell their images for a profit, presumably they are getting royalties, and would therefore want to encourage the growth of this market by stopping people doing it for free. Follow the money...
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Since parts of Tivo/Linux are freely redistributable under the GPL, does Tivo the company have the right to order all of these images taken down? In other words, are they legally required to say, "You have to take this part down" (their proprietary stuff), but "not these other parts" (GPL'ed stuff)?
1. If Tivo has commercially-sensitive proprietary kernel modules, they are not obliged to distribute them, and AFAIK, the Tivo filesystem code falls into this category
:-) If I can do it, a lot of others can too...
2. They're bound to get a lot of people jumping on them "you must distribute", etc. See (1).
3. They're walking a fine line. I'm setting up a Mini-ITX/Hauppage 350 PVR with MythTV as a front-end. It looks cool, and it'll have a lot more features (like: burn a DVD as well as the normal PVR stuff
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Tivo's business model is upsetting everyone. Advertisers get commercials skipped, shows are getting ripped and download from the web... it doesn't surprise me that they're trying to keep their "source code" in house.
If it wasn't for someone having their image of the OS out there, I wouldn't have been able to fix my Tivo Series 2 that's less that one year old!
I know this is slightly offtopic, but what hardware is required for the free alternatives (MythTV/Freevo) to work smoothly?
Will a 1GHz VIA MiniITX board be able to do simultaneous encoding/playback (timeshifting) in MPEG2 or is an Athlon XP 1800+ necessary?
What hardware do YOU use?
Those are two different things. They are required to give out the source code to their version of Linux (if they modified something), but presumably they've written some proprietary software for Linux, which they are not required to give the source code for or otherwise allow distribution.
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. - Will Duran
They actually do give out the source code, it's been available since day one; just mosey on over to their website and look for yourself.
What, you mean like this source code?
Anyhow, I don't see how distribution of images is related to the GPL. The GPL doesn't require that TiVo provide binary versions of its software. Furthermore, just because TiVos are Linux-based, who says all of the software on a TiVo box is GPL'd? Surely they have their own proprietary programs on there that don't use GPL'd code, and those programs would not allowed to be distributed in TiVo disk images.
I am reminded of the Linksys router debunkle. TiVo is REQUIRED to give out the source code, if somebody asks for it. If you want to use the free source code, you have to follow GPL's rules.
Right, but they're under no such obligation with regards to the binaries. I doubt the images they're having a problem with are source-based...so I'm not sure how far the GPL would go in a situation like this. Then again, IANAL either ^^
TiVo better hope that they aren't trying to hide any "security by obsurity" subroutines.
Access to the GPL'd source may not tell you everything either...they (conceivably) could link into a binary-only non-GPL'd kernel module or library that does something...and aside from reverse-engineering it,l we wouldn't be able to tell what it was doing in there.
Opening the box, extracting the images, installing the images... all illegal under the DMCA.
Is it fair? No.
But it's the law -- an asinine and relatively untested law -- but the law nevertheless.
Get used to it. Your property is no longer your property. You merely own the license for its use.
Tivo's operating system is copyright 1991-2003 Linus Torvalds, FSF and others. Anyone distributing it requires a letter of permission from the copyright holders. The GPL just happens to give the necessary permission if and only if certain conditions are met.
So who exactly has done anything here that they shouldn't?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
How is this different to somebody hosting Windows ISOs? If there is software that is copyrighted by Tivo inside the images and they haven't given the people distributing them license to do so, then they are well within their rights to stop the distribution.
Maybe it is time for some of the Tivo faithful to move over to ReplayTV. I wouldn't give mine up. Tivo may be better of the average consumer but if for a geek, I think ReplayTV is the way to go.
The Tools Of Ignorance wanna be a tool?
Just because they're REQUIRED to give out the source code doesn't mean that the images are freely distributable.
Think back to when some distributions (notably Red Hat) included proprietary software on their official CDs. Just because the CDs also happened to include GPL'd software didn't mean that it was OK to freely distribute them.
As to my understanding, they aren't removing the source code from their website, which can be found at http://www.tivo.com/linux/index.html. Instead, they are going after FTP websites hosting illegal images of their complete system, which doesn't break the GPL code. TiVo has copyrighted code, closed source code, in their system -- such as their nice on-screen guide. Because the people who run the FTP servers and such are redistributing these programs without TiVo's permission, they can go after them.
Fortress of Insanity
Link to Tivo Linux source code
I don't know why you would link directly to sourceforge project page for Freevo when they have a much nicer homepage, including screenshots, at http://freevo.sourceforge.net/
However, this is what you need to check on - with HP anyway, my warranty expired from purchase of first unit, but any replacement under warranteed had an additional 30 day warranty. So when they sent me a bad unit that arrived just after the original 6 months or whatever was up, they still had to take care of the issue. It's a minor loophole, really, but could possibly allow you to get what you paid for.
Give 'em a call and run it by someone, "hypothetically" at first.
The only thing more dangerous than a file named -rf is renaming it -rf\ /
For those GPL whiners. It took a whole 30 seconds to find this:
http://www.tivo.com/linux/index.html
The email from TiVo itself:
Your website (ftp.abs.net) has recently come to our attention. We appreciate your enthusiasm for the TiVo(R) DVR and we have some specific requests regarding your website.
We request that you cease hosting backup images of TiVo's proprietary software. The software represents valuable intellectual property of TiVo's, and making it available for copying and distribution is a violation of TiVo's copyrights. Such use is without our consent and is illegal under US federal copyright law. In particular, we are requesting that all of the files and directories located at ftp://ftp.abs.net/tivo/Backups/ be removed.
If they are correct in their statements, then this does indeed suggest that there is some proprietary code in addition to the GPL'd kernel in there. I suppose the best thing to do here is verify what can be distributed (under the GPL) and what can't, from the TiVo package.. (But I don't own a TiVo, so that may not be possible)
I follow the Tivo discusson forums, and there is one good reason Tivo may not want these images distributed.
The images for different Tivos are slightly different - a Phillips unit is not quite the same as a Sony, a DTivo is different than a stand alone Tivo, and of course Series II Tivos are MIPS rather than PPC based.
The common use case for these images goes something like this:
Joe L. Usr tries to upgrade his system. He, of course, does not back up his system. He adds a drive and botches the process.
Joe figgrs he will just download a new image and "fix" his system. So he pulls down the first image he can find, and BAM! his Tivo is now not merely broken, but toast.
Now, the upgrade sites actually require you to tell them what hardware you have, and thus (one hopes) can insure you get the correct image.
So Tivo MAY want to prevent folks from moron-izing their systems, but not have a problem with folks that don't have a history of doing so.
www.eFax.com are spammers
You obviously know nothing about Tivo for someone who has a series 2. There is no official Tivo commercial skip, just a widely known easter egg to enable a 30 second skip. That's quite different from a real commercial skip feature. Also, Tivo discourages shows getting ripped and downloaded from the web and I'm not really sure how one would accomplish this easily anyway though I haven't really looked much into modding besides adding capacity.
I remember way back in the day, when Tivo hacking was overly encouraged by the company, the president of Tivo posted on the boards pissed off that people were imaging. Evidently, several people had imaged a Philips image on a Sony system or vice-versa, and it was screwing up the company's update system. That may be why they're cracking down on the sites.
Then I come here and read stuff like "Since they use linux, they're required to send an engineer over to my house to explain how their data structures work." Great! Some microsoft exec is already planning a happy hour for their marketing group. Maybe you'll get invited.
Myth TV
It's better.
I hate to be picky, but I'm laughing so hard ... it's "debacle" (de-bark-ul), not debunkle.
It's Linux, right? There must be some way to extract the image yourself by pulling the drive out and using dd to copy it.
I know this is really off topic but I was just wondering if anybody has seen a setup like this. ATI All-in-Wonder Card hooked up to a streaming video of some kind Windows or Real Media. So that you can watch TV over streaming media from a remote location like say work. :)
Is GPL even recognized by law? Somehow I think GPL is a pipedream when it comes down to it. Unless it's recognized by law, it will never stand up to big business muscle.
First off, the DirecTivos probably have the worst QC of any DVR on the market and I found myself shipping my first DT off and waiting *are you ready for this* 4 months for a replacement. The fan decided to stop and burned out the card reader.
A few months later the HD broke. So I pulled it out and got the linux-based rescue CD-image from someone at the excellent tivocommunity forums. Luckily that old drive had a little life left in her and I managed to do a DD copy onto a new 80 gig drive.
What Tivo should be doing is producing better products and stop punishing us who are trying to fix the junk they sold us. Making money off of a fauly product is ridiculous and those with the skills to be able to fix these things deserve access to the images.
If Tivo thinks I'm going to waste another 4 months on warranty service or pay for a damn OS image that should be mostly OSS they've got another thing coming.
Tivo, I'm afraid (because I truly love their product) will be non-existant once the Comcast and Dishnetwork DVRs start coming free with the service. You can take at look at them at gizmodo. If Tivo wants to compete they need to kiss more customer ass, not spit on existing customers with lemons.
I'm setting up a Mini-ITX/Hauppage 350 PVR with MythTV as a front-end. It looks cool, and it'll have a lot more features (like: burn a DVD as well as the normal PVR stuff
I was considering doing this, but the screenshots on the MythTV site are just awfully ugly. Is the interface really this klunky? It seemed to me there would be no way for my wife to operate the thing once i set it up on our living room tv. People don't want to see filepaths in the final interface, and, again, it was just extremely raw looking.
I want to believe that MythTV is better than the screenshots would indicate....
IIRC the tivo just operates the cable box using a LED plugged into a serial port, so I don't think ii would be much of a challenge to create a cable to do the same from a PC.....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Someone figured out if you restored image from a standalone Series 2 to a HD for a DirecTivo, you could get the full range of Tivo Series 2 functionality (USB Networking, etc.). The 'second generation' DirecTivos do not have a number of features that the standalone Series 2 Tivos have (DirecTV has chosen not to enable them).
It also caused problems with DirecTV's over-the-phone software update, as every night the machine would attempt to get new software but fail after applying the patch, tying up lines for several hours.
That's more or less exactly how these images were made. Early on, images were made using dd. Nowadays, people make images using a special program called "mfstool" which is capable of backing only the necessary parts of the Tivo drive, reducing the size of the created image. So all the sites recommend making your *own* image. But sites like abs.net existed as a just in case type of mechanism. If your system failed, and you never made a backup, here was a solution.
It was well known (or should have been) that distributing these was illegal, and this was in fact why I didn't allow posting links to these sites on the Tivo Community forums, back when I was running the Underground forum there. But they were well known nonetheless, and I myself sent links to abs.net to users in need.
Tivo is well within their rights to not have these images distributed, but it's a pretty sad thing that they now feel the need to exert those rights. I guess it's finally happened and Tivo is no longer "hacker" friendly. Oh well. It was a joyous time while it lasted, I guess.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Is it really an alternative? I don't mean that lightly, i mean is freevo really just as good as tivo in every single way so as to make it a prefectly viable alternative?
Or is this is a case of it'll work reasonably well, some things it'll do that Tivo can't, something won't work as well, the interface won't be quite so polished, it won't do everything you'd hope it did, it's got a few quirks here and there and above all the hardware actually costs more to purchase before you even start thinking about messing around trying to get it installed.
Or will it save you hours of pain if you just cough up the money and get something that works as soon as you plug it in?
Yes, I know there is KnoppixMyth, but can you really set that up and give it to your parents? Looking at the technical specifications for one record and one playback (1.4 GHz CPU and 384 megabytes of RAM) thats quite pricey and you haven't even considered the fact it'll be a huge box and you need a DVD drive, controller, HD and some serious soundproofing.
Not something that you can sit under the TV!
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
What do you mean by "recognized"? It is a license, which is essentially a contract. IANAL, but I do know that all licenses/contracts that do not explicitly violate laws and are by definition legal, hence "recognized" by law.
Now it hasn't been tested in court. It's possible that it violates some provision of contract law, which differ by country, but I've never heard anybody ever suggest any violation of law in the GPL, other than SCO's hallucinogenic diatribe about it being unconsititution, which doesn't pass the laugh test.
But AFAIK, my licenses to use just about any software on my computer (MS Windows, Office, Matlab, CorelDraw, etc.) have not been tested in court either. That doesn't make them "pipedreams". There really is no such thing as "recognized by law", only valid or invalid licenses & contracts, and you need an explicit violation to be invalid.
But if they've added drivers for TiVo specific hardware (don't know if there is any, don't have a TiVo) then it's down to the old binary modules argument, and if they've modified the kernel in any way then they need to release those modifications.
There is and they have. http://www.tivo.com/linux
The objection to distribution of images is that image necessarily contain their proprietary userland code, which is decidely not GPL.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
And the laughter continues as I wonder where you got the "r" - it's generally pronounced "dE-'ba-k&l" or "de-b&-k&l" (I've always preferred the latter). I thought debunkle was funnier though.....
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
The GPL is a contract (e.g. a contract to enforce a license to use software under the terms specified). Contracts (ones that are properly formed, e.g. voluntarily agreed to with consideration etc) that don't violate specific "public policy" issues (e.g. a contract to provide child porn or to kill someone) are valid. You and I can agree to just about anything we want with the proviso's above. The person gets the value (consideration) of the use of the software and the author gets consideration other ways (karma, having the benefit of the software being out their for others to improve etc).
The whole argument about the GPL not being tested in court are pretty meaningless. Think about it, *99.999999%* of contracts are never tested in court and they are valid. Just because it has never been tried in court doesn't mean it is perfectly valid. It just means that the owners of the software who provide it under the GPL have never decided to enforce it in court against someone who is infringing or that they have done so but settled before the issue was by a court.
In my opinion (and I AM a lawyer who has been a member of the bar for 11 years, who also am-jur'd in Conctracts...e.g. got the highest grade in the class. Also a BS in Computer engineering and MS in Comp Sci.) the GPL is easily enforceable as long as someone is willing to make the effort to do so. I think IBM would be a terrific one to pursue it given their deep pockets, incentive to do so etc.
NVidia almost certainly did not write their core graphics drivers with any knowledge or intent they be used on a Linux system. So their core is not a derived work, but the glue they wrote to lash it into Linux obviously is, and they do release it GPL.
Linus says that userland is not derived works. I would agree, but only insofar as userland uses standard public library calls or calls against libs covered by the LGPL (originally Library GPL, now "lesser" GPL). The moment userland calls/uses code covered by the GPL, then it becomes a derived work of that code too! Whence the reason for the LGPL.
I haven't seen TiVo's userland code, but I expect it's tightly tied to their own libs and module code. The modules are derived works of the Linux kernel, so subject to the GPL, which makes their libs derived works, also GPL, and the userland likewise. Fruit of the vine.
Why is that modded insightful? This has nothing to do with source code. This has to do with full drive images, which contain not only GPL software (which tivo has always released code for) but also proprietary software which tivo has absolutely no responsibility to release code for, and has every right to control distribution of.
Yep, that's what FFmpeg and FFserver is for. It's not even close to finished, but I've tested it and it streamed live TV as ASF and RM over a 512Kb DSL just fine.
Slagborr
This doesn't stop anyone upgrading their hard drives, or adding ethernet to older models, or anything else really. The first thing anyone needs to do if they're going to tinker is back up their disk to an image. If they don't do that, and they then find they need an image from somewhere cos they hosed their Tivo, who's fault is that?
That the GPL is illegal, SCO said so! ;)
That Linus guy is probably a terrorist or something
Legally, there is TiVo copywritten software in those images, and distributing those without consent is not legal. However, everyone on /. is complaining about how this is a strong message for TiVo being assholes, and pissing off hackers, etc. etc.
Those of you who need the images, know where to get them, just as if you need a windows ISO, or whatnot. They will always be out there, and nothing prevents you now, from buying a TiVo and backing up the image yourself.
If I was one of the ppl at TiVo, and i heard reports about users of my hardware that installed the wrong images to their Tivo, on purpose, or even more importantly, on ACCIDENT, and this in turn caused the upgrade process to become screwed up, I would be concerned. Perhaps they thought people were taking the images and hacking them to mess with other settings, to get free service, or whatnot. Of course you should have the right to mod your box, but modding it to get free service isn't exactly legal, OR moral, IMHO.
Driving the ISO's "underground" as it were, prevents Joe Shmoe from screwing his box over, but still lets the determined do their work.
IIRC, at least in the US, there have been a number of cases in which the validity of the GPL was a factor. All those cases were settled (in favor of the GPL) because there are no "very substantial" flaws in the GPL. If the terms of a license are clear enough, there is nothing to litigate and so it never reaches the point where a judge/jury has to render a decision.
I do expect that the grey areas at the edges of the GPL will need to be litigated one day. For instance, the GPL is not crystal clear on the status of binary only loadable modules. The application of the GPL to run-time linked software like that written in Java is also questionable. The fundamental status of the GPL is quite clear, however.
Civil courts are mediums for dispute resolution. They only come into play when in these types of cases when a contract like the GPL did not specify unambiguously how it should apply to a particular set of circumstances. If the application of the contract to a particular set of facts is not ambiguous, the judge will give one of the parties to the dispute a kick in the ass and tell him to stop wasting the court's time. Hence no decision is renedered.
Why TiVo has a problem with this, but allows others to sell the same images for profit is beyond me." That one's obvious, because the "for-pay" images channel parts of the profit back to TiVo somehow, either through advertising, or commission on sales, etc...
"I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true - I no longer know how to use my telephone."
(Bjarne Stroustrup)
Television can't possibly be worth all that effort....
I would switch to a freevo like program in a second, you point me to the card for my PC that can decode DirecTV, or for that matter digital cable. I have directv and a couple of TiVos the integration is seemless and workds great, my family has digital cable with a stand-alone tivo that automatically changes the channel on the cable box, it is super annoying and I don't know how they put up with it (not to mention the advantage of dual recievers) - I even know someone who has a TiVo that can't change the cable box's channel if the number has consecutive digits (ie 33 or 44) TiVo says its a problem with the box, and vice versa.
:) - either way as soon as I see a PCI card that does directv I'll order it immediately (price factoring in of course)
The service providers hold thier hardware close to the chest, as long as all I can do with a PC card is standard broadcast or remote IR control I am locked out. The service with a single integrated unit it too good.
I don't even dump video to disc or anything, I don't care about TV enough to do it, but the cable/satellite people don't release PC based decoders because they are afraid of what may happen (I am not really sure why, the ones that aren't content providers shouldn't even care what we do with the feed)
Maybe the "broadcast flag" will give them an excuse to make computer peripherals that work with satellite and digital cable ? (slim chance I know but I can hope
As annoying as commercials may be, it could be a lot worse. If people start simply forwarding through the commercials, advertisers are going to get networks to embed them within the program/show itself.
As much as commercials may suck, you definitely don't want a constant ticker at the bottom of your screen for coke/tampons/etc.. It could be even worse with those little ads you find on Discovery and History Channel and the rest, in the bottom right or left corner of the screen. They're usually for upcoming shows. These things keep taking up more and more room and sometimes obstruct pertinent information on the screen.
I've been researching switching from DISH\ReplayTV for about 3 weeks now. Ever since I found out that the S2 DTIVOs had been hacked enough to allow extraction of video and DISH pushed back release of their 921 unit (for who knows HOW long!) I've been looking. DISH has pissed me off for the last time - none of their PVRs are halfway decent and my replay is a Kludge. The DTIVO dual tuner units are supposed to be WAY better. Now this. I'm supposed to pickup an S2 DTIVO tonight that's not RID chipped, it was cheap too. Now I'm not so sure I wish to give DTV my business but there's nothing better out there. If they begin going after the folks who have been hacking their boxes I will drop their service like a hot potato - the hackability of the boxes is WHY I wanted one! What will they be doing next? This SUX!
Dealdatabase.com is a VERY good resource. The AVS video forums are decent but mention extraction and you're banned. Tystudio and Tytool allow extraction but not as easily as the ReplayTV tools. Dual tuners and better scheduling, THAT is what I wanted. Really pisses me off that yet another company is sticking their head up their ass to ruin a good user community.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
But I'm not worried. The GPL is here to stay. (Unlike SCO....)
Stop the Slashdot effect! Don't read the articles!
I like the idea behind MythTV, but the setup looks like too much of a PITA (especially when I already have a Tivo and a Panasonic E80 DVDR).
Is there Knoppix-type distro that you can boot off a CDR? That would be great.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
No "free alternative" can compete with an integrated unit with dual tuners and direct digital capture of the original DirecTV data streams combined with a mature GUI for (as of today) $99. Generic PC solutions will rarely beat a specialized device with embedded components dedicated to a single function.
The fanatics will cry about the monthly fee because, as far as I can tell, they place zero value on their time. Honestly, I sometimes get an image of these guys stuffing their uncashed paychecks into their mattresses while in the other room they are trying to reinvent the wheel.
--- Ban humanity.
You mean the 921 PVR that was supposed to be released by DISH a YEAR ago? the one that was supposed to be out this year in time for Christmas? The one that just got pushed back AGAIN until mid Spring to Summer? Or perhaps the 2 tuner 522 box they FINALLY got out the door - that is so stupid if you schedule to record 2 shows at the same time YOU must tell it what tuner to use for each show because it's too stupid to know how to use the dual tuners to resolve conflicts? http://satelliteguys.us just reviewed that one and it started out sounding good - then sucked! DISH has never delivered on their promises and continues to piss me off. If you're an existing DISH user they will only sell you old hardware or new stuff for a million bux, I've had it.
It is for these reasons that I'm looking to sitch to DTV and get a DTIVO. Supposed to get one tonight - dammit!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Not new.
That could be done with VCRs also.
Yeah, ebay is lame and they broke the link. I'll try to fix it.
I'm guessing that they realize how many drives go bad, and how much money they are missing out on - by you buying a new hdd, installing an image VS dead tivo / new tivo needed.
Presumably, the grandparent poster is not North American, and doesn't pronounce the "r" as such. To quote Christopher Robin in the introduction to Winnie the Pooh "Don't you know what ther means?"
In the case of later Tivo's you can't build your own *working* kernel because you can't sign the code
Then the source code, as defined by the GNU General Public License, is not complete. The GPL defines the "complete source code" of an executable work as "all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable." If compilation and installation of the executable includes a digital signature, then it could be argued that the scripts would have to include the private key used to sign the executables.
If skipping commercials was a problem, then advertisers would have been bitching since the dawn of the VCR. Tivo doesn't make it any easier to fast forward through a commercial.
All advertisers need to do is make their commercials interesting and relevant. I hardly ever skip the commercials during Adult Swim because they're so fun to watch.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
To be fair to Tivo, they have never really tried to stop people from making backups of the images from Tivo that they do own. I don't think it can really be said that they're trying to stop people from repairing or upgrading.
I think I could understand a company not wanting the software that makes their business viable distributed for free without permission. The only reason this is coming up at all is that Tivo has been suuportive of the hack community in the past.
as far as I can tell, they place zero value on their time.
Because nobody is hiring computer science graduates in my hometown, the market places zero value on my time, you insensitive clod!
This whole misunderstanding is about the use of the term "Operating System": most residents of Slashdotland take it to mean "the kernel". In the case of a single-use device, though, the operating system is all the software it needs to do its task -- OS layer, application backends, UI/frontend... the whole caboodle: each part is required for the operation of the system as intended. From the users' point of view it is all just part of the magical TiVo black box, even if in software engineering terms this is more than a vast oversimplification.
HTH, HPH
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
the cable/satellite people don't release PC based decoders because they are afraid of what may happen (I am not really sure why, the ones that aren't content providers shouldn't even care what we do with the feed)
The contracts between the cable companies and the providers of copyrighted feeds probably dictate that the hardware's interfaces be kept a trade secret, precisely because the providers of copyrighted feeds do care what consumers do with the feeds.
One issue that TiVo may have with users downloading the images is that if you ever put a Brand X image into a a Brand Y TiVo, it's going to give the appearance of working, but the software version will not match the most current release number for the Brand Y model. During the daily call, the device will then try to download the most current release of Brand Y software, only to fail because Brand Y software can't be installed over Brand X software. TiVo ends up having to pay through the for long modem calls until the mistake is noticed and the user is forced to install proper software. TiVo's fine with user hacks that don't threaten them, but having the images "out there" gives users a path to hacks gone wrong.
TiVo's most likely letting the commerical vendors continue to distribute the software because they're smart enough to ask users what brand of TiVo they're using, and only ship the matching release of software for their machine.
The "choices" are all shit. No, really. Compared to a Tivo, they are expensive *and* crap. Basically you need a PC to dedicate to the task, that alone is more expensive than a Tivo and then you need to fuck about with it for days to get it half as functional as a lobotomised Tivo.
The software in the Tivo images contains Tivo's code. Taking that code and distributing it without permission is very simply and plainly copyright infringement. You just shouldn't do it. By all means take a backup, but the code is not yours to give away.
Tivo do comply with the GPL, (http://www.tivo.com/linux/) so if you want the GPL'd code, go get it.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
You know, I'm really sick of reading all these predictions of the death of TiVo from various soothsayers here on Slashdot. If you doubt TiVo's staying power, I suggest you stroll down to your local Best Buy and see how many TiVos they have stacked up ready to sell for the holiday season. Best Buy is predicting large sales of TiVos; the same for the Xbox this season.
TiVo has buzz. Yes, it is true that Dish has been hurting TiVo by giving away the inferior DishPlayer PVR as standard fare and thus DirecTV has been putting pressure on TiVo to renegotiate their contract to keep price competitive, but when people hear what a PVR is, they think TiVo. Look at the current DirecTV promo; up to 3 rooms for $38.99 per month (plus the $99 sign-up fee) and you can get the master receiver as a TiVo Series2 unit for only $5 per month more (service fee) or free if you bump up to one of the Total Choice Packages. That's a great deal. Unfortunately, DirecTV has chosen not to enable the Home Media Option for whatever reason.
Bottom line is, TiVo will be profitable by Q1 2004 (with the increase of subscribers), both to the chagrin of lots of advertisers, the Nielsens, the chief of Turner Broadcasting, the new owners of Replay, Microsoft, and some Slashdotters who refuse to support a company that is actually putting Linux devices at the heart of entertainment centers throughout the nation...of course, without TiVo as a subject, these same posters would be ranting about the deaths of Apple or Sun instead...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Holy mackeral. Such outrage at what (for a lawyer) was a fairly straightforward request. Is is possible that there might be a middle ground, allowing partial or logged access to the images with the permission of TiVo.
Sure, TiVo has had issues with some of the hacking done, especially wrt video extraction. Overall, however, they have been very laid back about the tinkering with the internals of a consumer electronics box. They appear to be scared stiff about running afoul of content distribtuion laws, but they don't want their business model (and hard work) to go up in smoke because of over zealous users to whomo they provided assistance. The assistance of TiVo is what has given it the core of it's cult following.
Perhaps if abs.net opened a dialog, a solution might be found which keeps some or all of the images online. And of course, as mentioned in other posts, if the host goes down the folks who are smart enough to use the images are also smart enough to know where to find 'em without an ftp site.
Cracking/theft of service...now that's just not nice, and TiVo has every right to pound 'em into the ground.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Because they're in the midst of releasing updates to the OS to work with Apple's AAC format with Home Media Option. I bet there's some code that Apple doesn't want to share (I don't blame them). Apple probably told them to stop allowing image downloads if they're going to get on the AAC front.
Just my $0.02.
"Electric Relaxation" - ATCQ
- Bwana
But we must recall that not all (1Ghz or otherwise) processors are created equal, and other factors will affect this too (RAM speed/amount).
I have heard quite often that the VIA 1Ghz processor used in the mini-ITX is not directly comparable to an Athlon, and for that matter even comparing Mhz on AMD/Intel processors is more than a little skewed nowadays.
I think you'll find that Tivo do in fact comply with the GPL but ironically, those distributing the binary disk images *do not* comply with the GPL. If the FSF were to go after anyone, it would be those providing the binary only backup images...
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Tivo themselves comply fully though.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Although your point about the proprietary software is completely valid. Alot of people seem to be missing something. Just because tivo can or can't or doesn't have to do this that or the other, it doesn't change what I and every other user can do with the gpl'd source code.
Tivo doesn't have to give out binary images, but there is no reason I can't distribute a binary of the gpl'd software regardless of whether or not they choose to.
From some of the posts online, you'd think some people have no idea how the law works and/or how a Tivo works.
Tivos) The images for series1 and series 2 tivos are essentially the same, allowing for differences in the hardware. The capabilities each Tivo has is dependant on what they are "allowed" for. Ie, home media option and such is enabled when the Tivo connects to the server and determines that it should be enabled.
Along that note, the things which a downloader of a Tivo image would be potentially "stealing":
The GPL states that if you modify the kernel itself and distribute it, you will need to distribute the modified source code as well. Tivo HAS done this. They have placed the GPL related portions along with their own direct modifications to the kernel for download on their web site.
Kernel modules and other object linked source code is still being hotly debated, for better or for worse. The stance most companies take is to distribute binary modules.
The application which runs on top of Linux, however, is NOT gpl'd. Nor are all of the other control mechanisms which Tivo has written. Nor are the images and other creative works put into the Tivo system.
By offering an image of the drive for download, that Tivo user is offering both GPL'd(which is ok) and Copyrighted(which is not okay) works. And since just backing up the GPL portions of the Tivo system will not restore the system, the image that user is offering is in violation of Copyright laws and Tivo has the right to and needs to tell them to stop.
Just because you use a GPL base for an OS does NOT make your application GPL as well. Graphical libraries are another matter and hence the LGPL, the BSD license, and a few others.
People need to understand that it isn't about being against GPL. It is about protected the portion which ISN'T GPL. And people aren't seeing that distinction when they should.
I've been a user of a Series2 Tivo for 2 years now and love it. One of the first appliances I bought when I moved into my current place. I upgraded mine and have had no problems with it. Though I'm thinking I'll be doing some routine maintenance myself to make sure the drives are okay, but otherwise, I have no complaints about image quality or any other problem with the system. (Except maybe the USB1.1 port which limits me to 11mbps when I really want 100mbps... :)
Tivo has been a great company and has always been courteous when I had problems or questions of them. They see something wrong happening and they are doing what needs to be done to rectify the problem.
They should not be dinged when they try to protect something legitimately, unlike another company which comes to mind.
Winged Power Photography
This is why TiVO should have developed on BSD instead of Linux. Then TiVO would own all the code that they spent their own time and money on.
I think it's probably the sad result of Tivo hacking becoming too widespread - too many people not qualified or willing to take responsibility or be sufficiently cautious futzing with the internals of their machines, then expecting support for the process. It's also the fault of Tivo Inc. for the fact that they've recently made certain changes to their software that apparently make it too easy to wreak havoc with their own system (if you can install a unified drive image on any S1 Tivo, you can imagine you might confuse something somewhere along the line). Ah well, I have an abs.net Philips HDR212 image sitting here so I can always restore if something goes wrong for me.
But your entire argument is based upon the notion that TiVo's apps are distributed separately from the GPL portion. They are distributed in one chunk (on a single hard drive; and even updates are downloaded with a combination of GPL software, the core OS, and TiVo's proprietary apps); and are therefore subject to redistribution, as the GPL outlines very specifically.
Really the argument here should be whether TiVo should forced to reveal their source code (I am not a proponent of this) as part of remaining compliant, however redistribution of the software is clearly stated within the GPL.
Whether a court of law would uphold this is another question.
The Convicted Monopolist's licence agreements do appear to take away virtually all your rights, they are much more likely to fail in a UK court. AFAIK, they have not been tested in court yet, but we have had laws for the protection of consumers for years now, which are there to protect us from that sort of unfair and one-sided licence. I think M$ KNOW that these licences would fail in court, because there is always a clause that basically says that if any part of it fails in court, the rest still stands. The know that not all of it would stand up in court, they take away all your rights and say that the product might not work as advertised, and they are in no way liable if the product does not work at all. That is contrary to consumer laws in most civilised countries.
The GPL basically says "here are your rights, you must make these same rights available to others, and don't blame me if it doesn't work". It does not attempt to remove any legitimate freedom. I think that where CONSUMERS are concerned, the law in most countries relating to consumer protection would be entirely compatible with the GPL. For BUSINESS use, it is another thing altogether, businesses are allowed to be mean and nasty to each other, but not to consumers. (Maybe it is the opposite in the US, but I hope not.) So, the GPL might have weakness as a licence for business use, but the effect would be that if the GPL was deemed to be void, there would be no way of using the software, due to the copyright which applies in any case. So if the GPL failed in court, it would not allow Gates to base his next closed-source OS on the Linux kernel, but rather it would not allow anyone to use the code without the permission of the copyright holders (as typically named at the top of each source file).
Now, people who write OSS want it to be seen, and used, so that would not be enforced, usage of GPL code would continue, technically illegally, until a new licence was created, and agreed to by the copyright holders. The point is that the licence acts in one direction only, to ALLOW the software to be used, no licence means no use, because normal, clear-cut and easily enforecd COPYRIGHT still stands. There is no legal way of circumventing copyright in any country signatory to the relevant conventions, the copyright holder alone can determine who can copy, and under what conditions. He and he alone can revoke the use in the event of breach of licence.
If, say, Bill ripped off some GPL code, I doubt that the judge would even look at the GPL, the case would be over in a few minutes because he would only need to see the copyright headers in the files. The GPL is irrelevant to PREVENTING copying, it is only needed to ALLOW copying.
I must admit that it would be fun being in court if Eben Moglen was up against Boies.....
Don't we still have the right to make a backup of any software we buy?
Is there anything ELSE that will run the TiVo software? (no)
So why not be able to download it if you were stupid and didn't back up? (like me)
So when my drive(s) crash, I get to frantically search for a backup somewhere or pay for a new unit when I could fix this myself...
I had a sucky sig.
So one enhancement makes the features they took away previously OK?
I've owned a TiVo since the current version of software was 1.3 (the TiVo itself came with 1.2 and upgraded to 1.3 within a few days). I have never suffered from an upgrade. Every upgrade has added features or functionality, not removed them. The only feature I can think of that was ever affected by an upgrade was the ability for pre-2.0 standalone TiVos to continue to function as brain-dead VCRs without a subscription. Initially, the 2.0 upgrade broke that capability for unsubscribed users, but TiVo did fix it. Any TiVo that shipped with 2.0 or higher (Series 2, for starters) does not work at all without a subscription.
Anything else that's ever been disabled by a TiVo upgrade was never an official feature, anyway (TeachTiVo, for instance).
I've personally used images from ABS to restored failed HDDs of friends. These were friends who had never opened their TiVo's and never hacked. All we did was restore a custom image to a replacement HDD of the same size.
I've got a backup image of my DTiVO DSR6K that I made the minute I got it, but that doesn't help friend who has a different model.
So try another town. Are you rooted to one spot?
--- Ban humanity.
A lot of discussions with Tivo enthusiasts and video wonks made me think it had to be a hardware problem. (I forget my chain of reasoning -- it's been over a year.) But then again it did start misbehaving right after one of those upgrades.
There's a lot to love about a Tivo -- when it's working, it's every bit as good as its most rabid fans claim. But there's also stuff about it's that's totally ridiculous. Like:
Sure it does. It's FAR more convinient. If you start watching the show 10-15 mins late, you can skip the commercials while the rest of the show is recording. Can you do that with a VCR?
While it's admirable to have a hack to change the channels, the fact that it's not part of these distributions along with the various remote codes for various cable boxes that the cable companies use is going to hamper adoption to a more mainstream market where the TiVo has penetrated. Now, if someone developed this a bit further and made up a database with the various codes for the different cable boxes out there and maybe packaged up some form of 'cable mouse' to sell along with it, we'd be all set. Sure, I could hack this together and get it working but you can't really preach this as a mainstream solution when it requires such hacking.
The whole idea that a kernel module needs to be GPL is absolutely absurd.
The whole idea that a third party can compromise the integrity of your kernel is absolutely absurd. It might work in the Microsoft world where flakiness is regarded as normal, but certainly not in an open source O/S.
If binary-only modules are to become acceptable in Linux, it will require an MMU-protected execution environment for them to be created, so that they can do their job with minimum risk to the kernel. Anything else is just dumb engineering.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
great now i know what i will NOT be buying people for christmas !
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
Of course it is. Why ever should it not be recognised by law?
It is a lot less contentious than the likes of the Microsoft EULA.
There is a reason why no-one other than SCO has attempted to challenge the GPL. There is absolutely nothing to challenge about it. It is totally watertight.
Quite simple really. Here is some copyrighted code. Distribute it under a licence from the copyright holder, or it is what some people call software piracy.
OK, there is the issue about whether or not dynamic linking represents a derivative work, but it is no more a problem for linking GPL code than for linking copyrighted code from anywhere else.
DealDatabase forums has info about this. Are you SURE you've not simply grabbed a 1.0 NIC? There's a Linksys NIC that's 2.0 that is being used by many. Sleeper's ISO has the correct drivers for it...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
The solution I see is to have a bittorrent server overseas. Have a website that emails the bittorent file of the image you need after you agree that you own the model for which you're requesting a file. Then run "clients" on a number of high-speed links. So long as enough high-speed "clients" were kept running, images would still be served up to those who need them at a reasonable speed. I say "clients" as they could be running on some other dedicated servers.
I'm not a lawyer, but there wouldn't be any single person to go after and the overseas bittorrent server wouldn't need a ton of bandwidth. If someone gets served a letter, they just kill off the bittorrent client. So long as enough people keep stepping up to host, no big deal. Anyone with the client running can claim they were just trying to download it to fix their TiVo (which they should own in order to get the bittorrent server url email) and then forgot about it and left the bittorrent running in background.
There should be a compromise. The backup images should be of only the old backups, so then it would force them to start and download the software upgrades from Tivo directly... Or better, document what is needed for a bare backup, and have it standard to download the rest directly from Tivo...
;) Maybe if you a HDTV reciver w/ a firewire connector; but then you probably wouldn't be allowed to record.
Then Tivo would have all there stats on who is doing what, then they could see how they should be treating thier market. Inpaticular, the market of the Tivo Hackers... Maybe charge 2$ for more than 3 backup downloads, if they have too. Just something minor.
I just whish there was some DirecTv PCI card, then I would love MythTV. I want to to keep it all digital, in and out...
I don't think there's any big licensing issue here. Nobody sells just the images. They sell hard drives with image clones on them. Which makes them eligible for C&D letters too. And they probably get them. But rather than just go out of business, they forward the letter to their lawyers, who make it nontrivial for Tivo to shut them down. They probably could -- it's a question of how hard they want to try.
The way some companies are using the DMCA, I am surprised that screws have not been used as a form of copy-protection in court. Your honor "They broke through our copy protection, by unscrewing the case."If you tell someone how to open the case, and look inside you are breaking the law.
Could see some lawyers trying this. Maybe they could get really fancy and use the triangle screws from Gameboy, or a headlamp screw.
If it's on the Net, it can be scraped from the screen. A central service translating the data can be shut down, but if everybody scraps and translates their own data, there is nobody to come down upon unless they want to pull the information from the Net entirely. (There is no service known to me in this country, so I had to write my own downloader/extractor of TV guide and a program that automatically switches the TV on for news and sf, and downloads by keywords in the item description.)
They then can make the decoding more complicated by morphing the page generating template dynamically. But then the extraction can be done on parsed output, as the human-readable information is in known format; a time information looks one way, the title another way, the description too, and a set of suitable regexps can take care of it.
It's bandwidth-wasting in comparison with downloads of direct XML feed, but there is plenty of bandwidth on an average cable modem or DSL; or you can get a friend to fetch and pre-parse the data for you.
I believe it should be possible even to take a look at the page structure, analyze the layout of the tables and their content, and automatically recognize the data by their characteristics, omitting the need for a page-specific extractor at all; just tell the program how the data it looks for look and let it do the rest. Maybe there are some artificial intelligence experts here who could refine this approach?
Fuck if it doesn't. I don't watch ANY commercials on my Tivo. Three clicks and I am past them at battle speed.
Fuck them. I've watched too many already. They had their chance.
I've learned more from TV than I have from 13 years of required public education.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
If I gave a dime, I would have probably spell checked it to begin with.
While so many others learned how to spell words correctly the first time. (Especially when purporting to quote something.)
Frankly, I wasn't making the light-hearted observation for your benefit but rather for others who make the same mistake and now, with you as a counterexample, may be able to avoid it. Mistakes.
Infact, the GPL only grants additional rights for the public to use the source code in many ways that would otherwise be prohibited by copyright law. EULA's on the other hand and in my opinion, are non-binding statements that the company *hopes* you believe to be some kind of contract dealing with their distributed binaries.
It starts getting into a lot of opinion at this point, but just by the basics a GPL type license and EULA's are completely different, the only similar part is the "license" in the name. If you can argue that the GPL is non-binding and doesn't need to be adhered by, then all the code falls back onto standard copyright law, which is more restrictive. If you can argue that the standard binary EULA is non-binding and doesn't need to be adhered by, there is no legislation for it to fall back on saying MS has the rights to your first born child.
GPL == Accept the GPL or be more restrictived by copyright law, you're choice.
EULA's == Accept this agreement after purchasing our software, uhm, BECAUSE! We said so. Really. We mean it.
Beware blue cats moving at
Doesn't Tivo have an obligation to make the image available to people who have actually purchased a Tivo? It's forseeable that a harddrive will go bad, so doesn't a Tivo owner have a right to get a copy of the software that they purchased and put it on a replacement hard drive?
If not why the heck do OEMs ship CD's with new computers? It would seem that it would be cheaper to not create those CDs...
If Tivo were setup a site where registered owners could download their original image, would all of the bitching about this problem go away?
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.ph p?s=&threadid=115194&perpage=20&pagenumber =1
Contracts can take away the rights of those who sign them, but both parties must get something in return. Microsoft's EULA's obtain all their validity from the fact that the can afford a prolonged legal battle better than you. The GPL grants the right to copy the software, distribute it, and more. Under copyright law you need permission to copy it. EULAs only take away rights and thus are invalid almost everywhere. The original reason for EULAs was a loophole in US copyright law, which was fixed quite some time ago, that didn't exempt copying a program to memory from copyright law, so permission is required to use the software. Recent court rulings supporting EULAs have upheld them, because it is 'standard industry practice'.
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park