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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."
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?
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?
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
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.
TiVo software is tied to the hardware anyway, there's no use for it other than on a TiVo. They are legally within their rights (as long as they don't go after people only distributing the GPL'ed bits), but morally it's a shakier situation. In essence they're using their copyrights to go after people who modify their kit; and they have no other legal avenue or compelling interest to go after people modifying their own, fully owned hardware. If you'll remember, people get uppity about such things (e.g. DMCA, modchips) all the time..
And for a windows example; why do you need a separate license to put your IT departments image of windows XP on a Dell that comes with an OEM version of XP? It's the same collection of bits, just from a different source. It's a rip off.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
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