The SA MCE Community

An introduction

MultiChoice Africa is the sole provider of satellite broadcast television in South Africa and most of Africa via their Digital Satellite Television (DSTV) service. They are refusing to supply easily accessible information regarding their television programming in any electronic format that is useable within modern electronic devices.  These devices include Home Theatre Personal Computers (HTPC), Personal Video Recorders (PVR) and Set Top Boxes (STB). Furthermore, they are actively pursuing those attempting to provide this data to the public in an open and free manner.

An Electronic Program Guide (EPG) plays a fundamental part in the use of such devices, allowing the consumer simple and convenient access to upcoming TV programming information. This very same information is made available by MultiChoice in many printed publications and on-line at http://dstv.com/dstv_guide.

Many broadcast companies in various countries throughout the world have embraced these new technologies. They provide their scheduling data freely and willingly in order to take advantage of the advancements in the industry and keep up with the times. Most of these companies provide their own products, similar products to HTPC, PVR’s and STB’s, but they also believe in consumer choice and trust that their own products are a match or are better than the competition.  We hope to promote such thinking within South African too.

In order to receive DSTV content these HTPC, PVR and STB devices require a valid DSTV smart card and monthly subscription fee.  They often require a DSTV decoder and the TV signal going into these devices is typically supplied by the DSTV decoder.  The EPG is loaded on the device allowing the consumer to schedule recordings on these devices for later viewing.  The EPG is usually updated on a weekly basis.

We believe that these HTPC, PVR’s and STB devices along with this EPG information will enable consumers to move forward with new technology and reap the benefits of the technological advancements within the digital realm, by enabling consumers to sample more content than ever before, whether that be free to air such as SABC and eTV or via subscription based services such as DSTV and M-Net.

So how does this affect you?

For a number of years individuals in the various South African HTPC, PVR and STB communities have gathered this EPG off of the TV guide available at http://dstv.com/dstv_guide through a method known as web scraping. Web scraping generically describes any of various means to extract content from a website over HTTP for the purpose of transforming that content into another format suitable for use in another context. Read this page on Wikipedia for more information on this process. The communities then converted this web scrapped content into and XMLTV file and updated their HTPC, PVR and STB with this EPG data.

One of the individuals, Colin Savage, who not only assisted the South African Media Center community via his free service called ZaEpg but also members of other communities by providing XMLTV data files was sent a cease and desist letter by lawyers representing MultiChoice. He posted a blog post regarding the matter on his personal blog. You can read his post "He that fights and runs away..." here.

The net result of this is that Colin was forced to stop providing the ZaEpg service as well as the XMLTV files. The Media Center community in South Africa has had to resort to other more complicated methods to obtain EPG data.

The petition

As paying customers, we believe that we are entitled to EPG data that is accurate and up to date, furthermore, that the data is freely available in an open standards format.  An example of such a format is the XMLTV standard, a worldwide standard used to provide such data.  We believe that we, as customers, should be given a choice whether to receive this data in an open electronic format, via the printed monthly Dish magazine or both.

We believe that the resistance being exhibited toward the provision of this content is counter productive, both to the providers and consumers of such content, having an adverse effect on the uptake of digital technology in our country. We believe the negative actions and tactics of MultiChoice are being put into place to force customers to purchase their own PVR product.  The MultiChoice PVR device comes at a premium price point. It requires additional monthly subscription fee and may not offer the consumer the required level of functionality or the same feature set as competing devices.

We believe the actions of MultiChoice in this matter are counter to the principles of freedom of choice, not to mention the spirit of competition.

We believe that the decision taken by MultiChoice, to legally pursue individuals attempting to provide EPG data in a usable format is wrong.  This data is obtained from the TV guide which is freely available on the DSTV website and is simply converted for use in other systems by paying customers. No one, who is not already a paying customer, would have a use for the DSTV EPG data.  As far as we are aware, no individual obtaining and converting this data is selling it or using it to make money.  We would fully support MultiChoice in the event that they legally pursue any individual who is indeed making money by selling this data or any MultiChoice licensed content.

The MultiChoice response

Below is the official statement posted by MultiChoice on their forums in response to various questions regarding this matter:

Official Company Statement

MultiChoice has the responsibility to protect itself from actions which may harm its business or compromise the integrity of its broadcast platform. These actions may include the unauthorized use of its material for any other purposes.

MultiChoice would like to reiterate that our broadcast content is intended only for transmission to our set top box, and not for transfer thereafter, to any other third party set top box/ device in which our encryption / AC software is not present, as we cannot guarantee that it will not be copied or pirated.

Unfortunately the company will have to take action against parties who are copying our EPG for purposes of transferring, and pirating or copying our channel providers content.

The above statement only serves to illustrate that MultiChoice do not understand the issue at hand, or they do not want to address the issue.  The EPG data we are asking for does not promote or prevent piracy of their content.  Any person with a VCR or a TV capture card can capture, copy, reproduce and distribute content.  Not having access to the EPG data will not prevent a person from performing such actions nor will it assist anyone in these acts of piracy.  The issues of content piracy have nothing to do with the issue at hand.

So, what are we going to do with this petition?

This petition has been setup to raise awareness concerning this issue to the general public. 

At some point in the future, the petition data will be collated and forwarded to MultiChoice Africa, the competitions board of South Africa and the vendors of the various consumer devices and software. All parties will be made aware of the location of this petition to enable them to track the public opinion surrounding this issue.

Please make your feelings known by signing this petition. We need the various parties mentioned above to take this seriously. 

Thank you.