Anyone know anything about tvcentral?

[Ben Scott]

On 4/1/06, Steven W. Orr <steveo at syslang.net> wrote:
> Every so often I screw up and miss a show that I wanted to tape.

  Tape?  Oh, yah, I remember that.  You need to get Tivo.  Or MythTV.

> I found something called tvcentral that allows you to download any tv show for
> annual fee.

  That site is a near-scam.  It's essentially just charging you money
for access to existing, third-party, peer-to-peer networks.

  From their own FAQ:

> I thought the software was free. Why am I being asked to pay?
> The software is free. You are paying for the online help and support and the online tutorials > for the lifetime of the membership.

  From their legal disclaimer:

> The purchase of a membership, however, is not a license to upload or download
> copyrighted material.

  So, basically, you're just giving them money to (1) download
software that's already free, and (2) get instructions that will say,
in effect, 'Nothing you are looking for is available legally this
way'.

  The media cartel doesn't want you downloading TV shows.  They've
bought legislation that generally makes doing so illegal in this
country.

  There are numerous peer-to-peer systems that have TV shows for
illegal download.  Napster was the first.  These days, I guess Kazaa,
LimeWire, BearShare, and eDonkey are the popular P2P systems.  At
least, that's usually what I find on home PCs I have to remove the
spyware and viruses from.  (There may be a connection there.)  There
are also sites that track illegal (in the US) BitTorrent downloads. 
One of the most famous is "The Pirate Bay".  They've been in the news
several times.  They are hosted in Sweden, where the laws are
different.  Their "Legal Threats" section is quite entertaining:

http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php

  My personal favorite:

DreamWorks writes them a threat letter that says, in part:
> As you may be aware, Internet Service Providers can
> be held liable if they do not respond to claims of
> infringement pursuant to the requirements of the
> Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Pirate Bay response, in part:
> As you may or may not be aware, Sweden is not a state in the United States
> of America. Sweden is a country in northern Europe.  ...
> It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are fucking morons ...

-- Ben