Magpie privacy policy

Revision 15

What we collect

Nothing about you or your media, apart from the one Binge Limit record described below. The software contains no analytics, no telemetry, no advertising or tracking software, no attribution or install-referrer software, and no crash reporting that sends anything to us on its own. We receive no name, no email, no device identifiers, and no information about your media.

Ayers Electronics Inc runs one thing your server can reach: watchmagpie.com. Your server contacts it only for the features you turn on — the network catalog listing, the starter lineup, and a network's Binge Limit usage check — and what each one sends is named below. None of them carry a viewer's identity or watch history. Your televisions, phones and browsers reach it too, as described under The marketplace.

WatchMagpie keeps one record. When a network anyone may watch, such as WatchMagpie, delivers something to play, it writes a row keyed by a scrambled form of your household's network address, with the seconds and bytes it served. That is how its Binge Limit counts. Only a network anyone may watch does this. A signed-in member is never charged. Reading your usage alone writes nothing.

We do not sell, share, or transfer information about you, because we do not have any.

Where your data lives

What your own server holds lives on the server you run: your profiles, your sign-in credentials, your watch history and resume positions, your favorites, your channels and schedules, your library catalog, and any provider keys or usenet credentials you configure. It is stored in a local database on that machine.

Client applications keep only what a client needs locally on the device: the server address you entered, the networks you added, the sign-in token each network issued, and the titles each profile started most recently.

A title that belongs to a network you joined is different. Its place, watched mark and favorite are kept by that network's server, not yours.

The credentials you type when you sign in go to your server and nowhere else. Magpie sends them to no other destination.

What the client applications connect to

A Magpie client connects to each network you add: your own Magpie server if you run one, another household's server, or WatchMagpie at watchmagpie.com. None is required. A tuner channel's picture comes straight from the stream address its source names, unless that source needs a login, when your server fetches it and passes it on. Artwork is described next.

The marketplace

Opening Networks reads watchmagpie.com for the list of Networks, their channels and what is on. It needs no account and no server of your own. It sees your network address, as any web request does. Ayers Electronics Inc runs it.

Networks you join

A network that asks you to sign in gives your profile a sign-in token of its own. That network lists it as a device named Shown On followed by your page's address. Your set keeps the token and sends it to that network only.

When you play, mark watched or favorite a joined network's title, that network keeps the place, the mark and the favorite, and its operator can see them.

Tuning a joined network's channel tells that network your profile name, the device and the channel, so its operator can see who is watching. A network's On Demand title posts no such session.

Your home server keeps each profile's list of joined networks: their addresses and names, never their tokens. It keeps the list so every television signed in to that profile shows the same networks. Removing a network removes it from the list.

Artwork

There are two sources of artwork, and they behave differently.

1. Artwork that lives on your server. Posters, backdrops, episode stills, and channel logos that were found beside your media or that you uploaded are stored on your server and served by it. The client fetches them from your server.
2. Artwork from TMDB. While Fill Details Automatically is on, the server asks TMDB about the films and shows in your library, downloads the posters, backdrops and cast pictures it needs from TMDB's image host, and keeps its own copies on your server.

Your televisions, phones and browsers get pictures from your own server or, for a title or channel that belongs to a network you joined, from that network; none of them contacts TMDB. The one exception is the console's artwork picker: when an administrator opens it, their browser loads the pictures on offer straight from TMDB's image host, as any web page would, with no Magpie sign-in token.

The browser-based web client draws images from your own server, from the Magpie catalogue at watchmagpie.com, and from any network your household has joined, because a joined network serves the pictures and streams for its own channels and titles to your televisions. Its content security policy names those addresses and nothing wider.

The console also draws a picture from any web address you enter in a picture field, so its policy allows a secure web address. The only addresses it loads are the ones you entered.

With Fill Details Automatically off, under Settings, Library, the server asks TMDB and MusicBrainz nothing, on any screen.

What leaves the house on its own

From the start the server makes one kind of request on its own. Fill Details Automatically is on from the start: the server asks TMDB about the films and shows in your library, by title and year, and downloads their pictures. Turn Fill Details Automatically off and it stops. The desktop tray is a separate program from the server: once a day it asks GitHub's public magpie-releases page whether a newer version exists, the same anonymous request a browser could make. Nothing about you or your library is sent, and no update is ever installed without your say-so. Turn the check off any time from the tray menu's "Update Magpie automatically" checkbox; a manual "Check for updates now" still works either way.

Every request Magpie makes names the program and its version, the way a web browser does. It carries no name, account or device id of yours.

What turning on a feature starts

Details from TMDB and MusicBrainz are on from the start and one switch turns them off. Every other item below is off until you set it up, and each uses your own account or your own address with that provider. Requests to subtitle, indexer, Internet Archive, podcast and tuner addresses carry a header naming the product and its version, which some of those providers require.

• Details and artwork (TMDB). On from the start, with access built into Magpie; a key of your own is optional. The server sends TMDB the titles and years of the films and shows in your library, the words someone searches with when looking for a title you do not own, and the ids TMDB itself gave. No account and no personal information is sent. Fill Details Automatically, under Settings, Library, turns it off.
• Music details (MusicBrainz). When someone searches for a song to add, the server sends MusicBrainz the words typed; when a downloaded record is imported, it sends the record's artist and title. No account, no key and no personal data. Fill Details Automatically turns it off.
• Album covers (Cover Art Archive). When someone asks for a song or an album, the server fetches its cover from the Cover Art Archive, the album-cover library that goes with MusicBrainz, keeps its own copy and serves it from your own server; no client app contacts the archive. No account, no key and no personal data.
• Subtitles (OpenSubtitles). Requires your own OpenSubtitles account. The server signs in with it, using Magpie's own app key to identify the app to OpenSubtitles, to search for and download subtitles for titles you already own. Your OpenSubtitles username and password go to OpenSubtitles alone.
• Podcasts. Nothing is fetched until you subscribe to a show, or to a network's podcast lineup. From then on the server rechecks that show's own feed, artwork, and episodes on its own schedule. Unsubscribing stops it.
• Tuner sources, including the Magpie lineup. Requires you to add one by typing a playlist address. That points a tuner source at that playlist and its schedule. The Networks page adds nothing to a server. The server rereads whatever address you add on that tuner's own schedule, and when a tuner's stream needs that source's login the server fetches the stream itself and passes it to your televisions. Removing the tuner source stops it.
• An off-air picture or clip you point at. Only when the server administrator types an address for a channel's off-air look. The server fetches that one still or clip once, keeps its own copy in the server's state folder, and serves the copy from then on; the address itself is not kept and nothing is refetched.
• The network catalog. Off unless you turn on Share for a public network, on the Networks › Catalog page. While it is on, your server sends watchmagpie.com (or a self-hosted registry you point it at instead) what another household needs to find and tune your network: its name, description, genres, and public address; its channel lineup with each channel's logo and a short stretch of its guide; how many seats it has and how many are free; and a count of how many households are watching right now. The count is a number only. It never carries a viewer's identity or watch history.
• A network's Binge Limit usage check, from your server. Only runs while your server holds a tuner source from a network that publishes one, including the Magpie lineup if you added it. A small, cached usage number is requested from that network's own address; nothing about you is sent. Removing the tuner source stops it.
• Joined networks. Off until you add one. Your set then asks each network's own address for its titles when they are needed and for the words you type in Search, and plays its streams. A network may see your network address, the profile name you use there and what you watch, the way any server does. Removing the network stops it.
• A joined network's Binge Limit. While you watch a joined network's channels or titles, your set asks that network's own address how much of its limit is left, sending that network's token for your profile. The network counts your household by a scrambled form of your network address and keeps that number with the seconds and bytes it served. Nothing else about you is sent. The limit applies to a network's On Demand titles as to its channels; a spent limit greys the title and says when it resets.
• Networks reached through your server. On by default while a Magpie server of your own is running: Relay Networks Through This Server, under Broadcasting, Peer Networks. A television or browser that has your server as its home then asks your server for the networks it joined, and your server asks each network's own address on its behalf and passes the answer back, so the network sees your server's network address instead of the television's. Your server passes on the token the set holds for that network and nothing it holds for your own server, stores nothing it relays, and relays only networks someone in your household joined. Turning the switch off sends each set straight to the network again.
• Television management. Off by default. If the server administrator turns it on, under Broadcasting, Devices, and accepts Google's Android SDK licence, the server downloads Google's platform-tools from Google's own download address, or uses a copy already installed that the administrator names. The server then talks only to televisions on your own network that the administrator added and that approved this computer, to read their state and to change only the settings the administrator chose.
• Webhooks. Off until the server administrator adds one, under Settings, Webhooks. Each sends a short notice of the events chosen, such as a download finishing, to the address the administrator typed. A notice names the title and the library, never a password, a token, a viewer's name or address, or a full file path.
• Usenet providers and indexers. Requires the servers, indexers, and credentials you supply. Those credentials are stored on your server. Ayers Electronics Inc never sees them. The Internet Archive is also offered as a search source, on by default and needing no account of your own, but it is only ever asked when you run a release search or download something. Magpie has no BitTorrent support of any kind.
• A pipeline webhook. Only if you add one to your own acquisition pipeline. It sends whatever you configured, to the address you typed there.
• Reporting a problem. Filing a report from the on-screen "Report a problem" card queues it on your server. It leaves your server only once a relay address is configured; this build ships with none configured, so nothing is sent.
• The optional on-device assistant. Nothing ships with Magpie. If you enable it, the server downloads a runner and a model from their public download pages, then runs them locally on your machine, with no cloud calls of its own.
• Optional local captions. Installing a caption model contacts Hugging Face and its download delivery hosts, which receive the connection address and download request. Installation sends no media, subtitle text or library listing. After installation, Whisper transcribes audio locally on your server without a cloud service.
• Ask Magpie with a cloud model. Off by default. If you add a cloud provider's own API key (such as Anthropic or OpenAI), the question you ask and the library facts it needs to answer go to the provider you chose, under that provider's terms, and Magpie counts the tokens that provider reports to enforce the limit you set. Leave the local model selected ("on this machine") and nothing about your question ever leaves. Test It sends your key to that provider's own address to check it is accepted, and nothing else.
• Ask Magpie with a model on your own network. Off by default. If you type the address of a model server in your home, such as Ollama, the question and the library facts it needs go to that server and nowhere else. Magpie accepts only an address on your own network or this machine.
• YouTube trailers. Off by default. If the server administrator turns on YouTube Trailers, under Settings, Library, a title with no trailer file of its own can play its trailer from YouTube: when someone presses Watch Trailer, their television or browser loads the video from YouTube's privacy-enhanced player (youtube-nocookie.com), so YouTube receives the video's id and the viewer's network address and may show ads. The server sends YouTube nothing. Each adult can turn it off for themselves in Settings, and kids profiles never get it.
• Direct trailer addresses. When an administrator adds a trailer URL, the server contacts that host to check the address and media type. When someone plays the trailer, their browser or television streams it from that host. The host receives the trailer address and the network address of the server making the check or the viewer playing it.
• Trailer downloads. Off by default. If the server administrator turns on Download Trailers Automatically, under Settings, Library, the server fetches the yt-dlp tool and the deno runtime from their own release pages, checks them for updates once a day, and yt-dlp then contacts YouTube to download each film's trailer and saves it beside the film. YouTube's terms do not allow downloading its content; the choice and its consequences are the household's. Nothing is sent to Ayers Electronics Inc.

Ask Magpie never receives anything that came from TMDB. When you ask it to look for a title, it opens Search with your words, and Search works as it does when you type: it looks in your library first and, where your household allows it, asks TMDB. What Search finds is shown on your screen and is not given to the assistant.

Children

Magpie collects no name, email or account from anyone, including children. The one record WatchMagpie keeps is described under What we collect. Magpie is a player for media that you supply.

A kids profile's question to Ask Magpie never goes to a cloud provider, whatever the household has set up. It is answered by a model on this machine or on your own network, and by Magpie's own plain answers when there is no model at all.

Accounts and deletion

There is no Ayers Electronics Inc account, so there is no profile on our side to delete. WatchMagpie's Binge Limit row holds no name. Signing in signs you in to a server you or someone you know operates.

Profiles live on that server. To delete a profile and everything attached to it, the administrator of that server deletes it from the server's admin console. To delete everything at once, delete the server's data directory; uninstalling the server keeps it unless the administrator chooses to remove it too. Neither action involves Ayers Electronics Inc, and neither is something we can perform for you, because we have no access to your server.

Third-party processors

There are none. Ayers Electronics Inc uses no analytics vendor, no crash reporting vendor, no advertising network, and no attribution network. If you turn on a cloud model for Ask Magpie, that provider is one you picked and pay directly — it is not a vendor of ours, and we never see what you sent it.

Tools made by others

Magpie works with software and services made by other people. Each is theirs: their names, their terms, their views and their prices are not ours, and Magpie does not speak for them.

• MakeMKV reads your DVDs and Blu-rays. It is made by GuinpinSoft inc. and is installed by you, under its own licence. Magpie never ships it.
• yt-dlp fetches trailers when you switch Download Trailers Automatically on. Magpie never ships it; your copy comes from its own release page, and the choice to use it is yours.
• YouTube plays trailers when you switch YouTube Trailers on. YouTube may show advertising and sees that the trailer was watched.
• The Movie Database and MusicBrainz supply titles, artwork and details when Look Things Up is on. Magpie sends them the names of what you own, nothing about who watches.
• The Internet Archive and your own Usenet servers and indexers supply what Get Media fetches, under their terms.
• OpenSubtitles supplies subtitles when you ask for them.

Internet Access, in Settings, turns every one of these off. With it off, Magpie sends nothing out and asks nothing in.

Everything Magpie itself does is described above on this page. Nothing on this page is legal advice.

Changes

If this policy changes, the revised version is published with a new revision number and distributed with the software.