# Zippered Tivo on eBay?



## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

I guess it must be okay to sell a zippered Tivo on eBay now. I am thinking not but maybe things have changed.

300126744556


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## PortlandPaw (Jan 11, 2004)

Hey, look what it's getting -- almost $180 with three days to go! I'd take that as a tribute to rbautch and gunnyman.

I can see where this is a little bit of a gray area, but it's not like the guy is selling The Zipper by itself. I guess he could "unhack" the TiVo in order to sell it, but that's a little pointless, isn't it?


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## tivoupgrade (Sep 27, 2000)

magnus said:


> I guess it must be okay to sell a zippered Tivo on eBay now. I am thinking not but maybe things have changed.
> 
> 300126744556


Its actually still not OK because to use the zipper, you still need to use killhdinitrd to modify the kernel, and 'unlock' things. That's something we paid for the right to do, exclusively.

Not going to make a stink about it, but its definitely not OK, and anyone thinking of doing it should think twice.


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## Gunnyman (Jul 10, 2003)

+1 to lou
report that seller.


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## tivoupgrade (Sep 27, 2000)

Well, I'm not going to file the VERO complaint and I've never done it when an individual just appears to be selling his own hacked unit. The concern I've always had is when someone starts selling them in volume, and there are a few who have done that. Felt it was important to chime in on this thread, for the record, so that noone mistakenly thought that it was no longer an issue and started to get aggressive.

Thanks Gunnyman - your support is always appreciated and clearly you and Russ have made things a lot easier for a lot of folks!

Lou


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## rbautch (Feb 6, 2004)

Not a bad price for an HR10-250. I paid over $300 for mine last year. I expect a bunch of HR10-250's to start showing up on Ebay now that DirecTV is finally coming through with the additional high def Mpeg-4 content.


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## captain_video (Mar 1, 2002)

Selling pre-hacked units on ebay is definitely not legit, at least not when you start selling in volume. All of the hack software that gets installed with the Zipper is copyrighted and cannot be distributed without permission from the authors (i.e., copyright holders). However (and don't hold me to this), since the hacks are permitted for personal use I believe it may be OK if the unit being sold is your personal Tivo and not one that you modified for the purpose of selling for profit. I know for a fact that some of the hack developers don't want their work distributed in any way so it's always best to purge before you sell. As Lou indicated, DVRUpgrade is the only licensed distributor of the killhdinitrd hack so anyone else that's selling pre-hacked Tivos is in violation of copyright laws.


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## PortlandPaw (Jan 11, 2004)

I agree with the captain...selling a single unit as a personal sale should be OK, but nix on volume selling -- definite no-no.

The unit in question went for $182.50.

Here's another one that the dude is selling for $625 minimum, $645 buy it now.

No takers, as yet.


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## MungoJerrie (Mar 30, 2006)

Interesting. He now has seven (7) different units for sale on ebay. Perhaps he read this post because he removed all references to the zipper and now just describes them as "modified." Looks like it's more than just his "personal" tivo now.


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## ttodd1 (Nov 6, 2003)

But have you looked at his history of selling. He has sold alot of them. Nice how he makes money on someone elses work.


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## Gunnyman (Jul 10, 2003)

I've given up on reporting the guy to Ebay
they don't seem to care about software copyright unless you are big enough to sue them.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

Gunnyman said:


> I've given up on reporting the guy to Ebay
> they don't seem to care about software copyright unless you are big enough to sue them.


I'm 300'. Want me to sue them for you? I should be big enough


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## Gunnyman (Jul 10, 2003)

that made me laugh


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## Da Goon (Oct 22, 2006)

:down:

F***ing douchebags. I haven't looked at any of the auctions advertising the units being hacked by the zipper but IMO that's even a step lower than someone selling a manually hacked tivo. Tivos are cheap on ebay and cost exactly $0 to hack (unless you can't find a killhdinitrd compatible kernel). But if you used the zipper and then sold the unit for a hefty price, YOU ARE A F***ING *********. I could write a shell script in just a few minutes to install a bunch of hacks and sell that product if I wanted to, and at least I would have put SOME effort into it. You didn't even hack the damn tivo, Russ did  You at least owe him tribute since you probably couldn't have installed all those other hacks without using his.

I'd hate to naively purchase one of those units and then (God forbid) happen to need assistance with a problem on down the line. No one here would have any idea how the hacks were done (the seller probably has less than a clue also), so you'd probably end up starting from scratch, effectively wasting the HUGE purchase price originally paid. I hope anyone selling multiple hacked tivo's on ebay reads this thread, and other members continually bash them in this thread, just for future reference. Maybe, some inkling of human decency will shine in and they'll think to themselves (as mentioned above) "I'm a F***ing *********."

I'm sure one of the main reasons so many "TiVo-Gods" have dropped off the radar and new hacks are becoming fewer and fewer, is due to these morons whoring out other's HARD WORK. Killhdinitrd was released almost 3 years ago and there is still no evidence of any other (public) exploit other than PROM mods. Do the community a favor, and

```
Don't Be A *********
```
And I'm sure as others have stated, Ebay probably turns a deaf ear on these kind of complaints. My advice, message the bidders for these tivos, and direct them to the appropriate forums full of knowledge and not THEFT. Maybe they'll be able to retract any bids made, and slowly cut of the stream of stolen revenue.

./endrant
(sorry for using the term ********* so many times, it just felt OH-SO appropriate)


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## captain_video (Mar 1, 2002)

> Here's another one that the dude is selling for $625 minimum, $645 buy it now.


That guy has been around for years selling pre-hacked Tivos. The sad thing is that people scarf them up and pay his inflated prices. Ebay probably won't touch him because of the volume business he generates, which equates to lots of final value and listing fees for ebay, not to mention the PayPal fees that go along with it. The software installed on the Tivos isn't commercial software so ebay is less likely to just take someone's word for it that they contain copyrighted software without some sort of evidence.


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## tivoupgrade (Sep 27, 2000)

Gunnyman said:


> I've given up on reporting the guy to Ebay
> they don't seem to care about software copyright unless you are big enough to sue them.


I haven't. I just filed a vero complaint.

Its interesting how many support requests we get from people who have purchased units like this on ebay.

I have to agree with Da Goon in his assessment. I know there were many (and probably still are a few) who think I was being a low-life when I started the upgrade business, but at least we take care of our customers and pay the folks whose stuff we redistribute. I think even some of the stalwarts at DDB that thought we were going to create some sort of mad rush for generic support questions now realize that our presence hasn't really cluttered DDB with too much newbie noise; I hope that is still the case.

But meanwhile, these ebay clowns come in and compete with us without paying the price, AND they layer on things that we can't legally offer (like video extraction) and just end up hurting the market for everyone who is trying to do things legitimately.

Best advice I can give is to ignore these guys and don't give them any undue attention so that they don't get the "free advertising." If you have the authority, file vero complaints, whenever possible.

I try not to sweat it too much because these guys really are small time, but it is aggravating to see these guys prosper without paying into the system in any way whatsoever (and they ARE taking money out of my pockets, as well, which is no fun to think about).


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