Posted from labs.Zap2it.com; Zap2It is the provider of free tv listings used in Mythtv extensively.
IMPORTANT MESSAGE:
For several years we have offered a free TV listings service to hobbyists for their own personal, noncommercial use. In October of 2004 we posted here an open letter saying the future of Zap2it Labs was at risk because of certain growing misuses of the Zap2it Labs data. Unfortunately this misuse has continued and grown. These misuses, combined with other business factors have led to the decision to discontinue Zap2it Labs effective September 1, 2007.
We thank those users who have honored the terms of the agreement, and we suggest you consider the many TV listings options offered by the commercial licensees of TMS TV listings data.
If you would like to discuss how to license TV listings for commercial use, please let us know by e-mail (labs@zap2it.com) and include your company name, telephone number and the best time to reach you. We will respond to your inquiry as soon as possible.
We anticipate this decision will generate discussion and invite you to respond via the Zap2it Labs forum. We will do our best to respond to relevant questions posted on this forum in a timely manner.
Back in 2004 the Mythtv crowd would scrape xml data from free sources which is slow and inaccurate at times. Zap2It started offering free data service and this was very good! I want to somehow convince them to rethink things. I have submitted a comment in their forums offering a small monetary payment. This would have to be a tenth of what Tivo service offers or something in that range. Digg the article in My Digg Dugg links to raise an internet buzz about the issue so that they will reconsider or offer an alternative.
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