A few years ago, TV listings on your handheld made a huge stink.  Companies like TV Guide were up in arms because people were scraping their site, taking their published data and using it outside of their interface. One program, Pocket TV Listings (or PTVL), originally made use of TV Guide’s data until the company sent the author a very nice, but stern, cease and desist letter. Shortly after that, the author reengineered the app so it used an alternative source of data from Zap2it Labs, and/or XMLTV.org.

Provided you don’t sell an app that uses the data from Zap2it Labs, you can use their data for free. I’ve been using PTVL for about 4-5 years, and love what it can do. My biggest use comes during Pro Football season, as I like to have most of the games on my calendar so I know who is playing whom at what times.

I found out today that Zap2it Labs is shutting down, effective 01-Sep-07:

"Tribune Media has announced the termination of it’s Zap2IT Labs service on September 1st. This will disable the tvgrabna_dd grabber.

A non-profit organization has been formed Easy TV DATA to replace Zap2IT Labs in offering data to users of free and open source applications. We expect to have a solution in place before the Sept 1 deadline. Stay tuned to XMLTV.org for more updates."