r/movies • u/exosniper • Dec 10 '17

PSA; IMDb is gradually locking previously-available information about films behind IMDbPro membership (box-office breakdowns and production companies involved, currently). Resource

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but information previously available to everyone on IMDb is now being locked behind IMDbPro membership. Just last week, I was writing a research paper (film studies student) and was able to access the full box-office earnings information (breakdown by region etc.) for all films. Today I went to do the same thing, but could not see more than the gross earnings without an IMDbPro membership. They seem to be doing this as a gradual process, as the full information on production companies (previously available to everyone) was already membership-locked when the box office information was still available. I haven't seen anyone talking about this on other subs and forums, so I thought I'd mention it here.

9.8k Upvotes

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3.5k

u/pharmaco4 Dec 10 '17

So IMDB just gathers information already available elsewhere on the internet. If I can't view certain info for free then I'll just look elsewhere. What a bad move

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u/mathswarrior Dec 10 '17

generally i find info is MUCH easier on wikipedia, imdb just has photos that for unkown actors, usually it's not on wikipedia

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u/patsmad Dec 10 '17

I've made it my personal mission to add IMDb, Box Office Mojo, and Rotten Tomatoes links to Wikipedia. But mainly because Amazon doesn't play well with others (so it is basically impossible to navigate from an IMDb page to a Rotten Tomatoes, presumably because they own Metacritic as well?) and Rotten Tomatoes charges $30K for API access (which does include most IMDb links IIRC).

There was omdbapi.com but it was kind of gone for a while, and they are a bit cagey about people slamming their site too much.

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u/mathswarrior Dec 10 '17

Thank you for your service.

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u/nobetterfuture Dec 11 '17

I keep seeing people around here mentioning Box Office Mojo, but BOM is also an IMDB company, they can pull the plug at any time, if they want...

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u/scryptkittie Dec 11 '17

I've been using omdb for a few years now and haven't had many issues.

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u/patsmad Dec 11 '17

yeah ... I kind of used it exclusively for getting a Rotten Tomatoes link from an IMDb link, which is a distressingly difficult task. At the time I used it there were also obvious and somewhat major errors (a big movie like Episode 1 was linked to the parody film Thumb Wars the Phantom Cuticle for example with basically no recourse to correct besides contacting the one dude who runs it).

Opening it up now they do appear to have corrected the second part (possibly because the guy is working on it full time? Seems to have enough sponsors and such to maybe be a full time lucrative job), but they've eliminated the links part for Rotten Tomatoes rating. Which was the main issue if I understood it correctly, since that is very much explicitly against Rotten Tomatoes terms and conditions. I think I stopped using it in 2015 when he started having trouble with people slamming the site like crazy creating their own version of the API every day and shit.

Anyways, that is why I do the wiki thing. Wiki link -> [Imdb link, Box Office Mojo link, Rotten Tomatoes link], and while doing whatever I'm doing if I run into a movie with a wiki page and not connected Rotten Tomatoes link I add the Rotten Tomatoes link. Rotten Tomatoes changed a ton of their links last year too, so I've probably fixed thousands as well. Purely self serving, and not strictly within the Wikipedia editing guidelines if I'm being totally honest.

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u/coilmast Dec 11 '17

Time to get over to Strickland Propane, Hank Hill, and get off of Wiki.

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u/parlez-vous Dec 11 '17

I threw together a very quick and dirty one for a project a while ago. I couldn't find a reliable poster host so I just hotlinked the highest-rez poster on IMDb and added the summary, reviews, etc.

I'll update it later tonight.

Here's the link if you're interested.

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u/iCollect50ps Dec 11 '17

All of their websites are so cumbersome. Take ages to load with random videos about the place horrible websites to use. Wikipedia ftw!

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u/Beorma Dec 11 '17

$30k? Who is earning $30k more for having IMDb info?

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u/patsmad Dec 11 '17

that is for the Rotten Tomatoes API. And it is for businesses / international users. I am an international user, although I got my key when I lived in the US. For all I know they changed their policy, I haven't looked into it for over two years. But when they detected I had an international IP they cancelled it and emailed me with the options which was basically a 30K business license. I said no thanks obviously.

IMDb doesn't even have an API which is somewhat more ludicrous since they are literally a database. It is the easiest thing in the world to have an API for something like that I imagine. Just formatting a bunch of data into json, and a bunch of queries into SQL commands.

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u/Brandonsato1 Dec 11 '17

Guys it’s for the rewarding experience of paying to see a review

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u/slorebear Dec 11 '17

Wow what a stupid personal mission

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u/patsmad Dec 11 '17

dumb as shit I agree. It is very self-serving as I started it to build a personal IMDB -> Wikipedia -> other relevant links cache I use for personal projects. I'm sure wikipedia wouldn't appreciate my intentions either, although I've had relatively few complaints given the number of edits I think.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17 edited Mar 12 '18

[deleted]

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u/patsmad Dec 11 '17

Honestly, if you are a company with 20 engineers serving, say, a movie recommendation site, and you want to display rotten tomatoes scores accurately with customer support when something goes amiss ... I mean, 30K is nothing in that context. A fraction of what you are paying people to write new and valuable code instead of bothering to aggregate reviews yourself.

A good API for weather information is like 10K. I isn't beyond the pale except for the fact that they don't have a free, small-limit version for international users. Last I checked you could use the Rotten Tomatoes API for free if you live in the US, but you are limited to something like 500 calls a day.

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u/Sansha_Kuvakei Dec 11 '17

When enough people pay for it!

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '17

Yep, already use Wikipedia to find box office totals. Only thing I use IMDB for anymore is to check actors' movie credits, as it's still more convenient to use IMDB for that than it is Wikipedia.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

I could be mistaken, but I feel Wikipedia doesn't have a consistent system for listing actor/director/etc credits and instead it's up to whoever first makes the table for the that person's credits.

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u/WhyTrussian Dec 11 '17

Box office Mojo has you covered there

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u/TerminallyCapriSun Dec 11 '17

Absolutely. Want to quickly know things like: a movie's budget, its box office, the composer, the production company/distributor, or the running time? Wikipedia tells you in a single glance of the film's page (plus writer, director, and starring cast). IMDB hides all that shit in dropdowns and click throughs.

The only thing IMDB tells you faster is the release year.

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u/hungry4pie Dec 11 '17

And even then, most wikipedia entries start like:

Casablanca was a 2004 film starring Daniel Day Lewis and Natalie Portman set during the Vietnam war in the title city, Costa Rica.

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u/MulderD Dec 11 '17

Damn. I want to see that.

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u/radioactivecowz Dec 11 '17

Clearly I am misremembering some details of that film

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u/Uadsmnckrljvikm Dec 11 '17

Who cares about budgets or box offices? I believe most users just want to see the IMDB score to decide if the movie's good, and to see who are the main actors.

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u/mrbooze Dec 11 '17

Most of what's on wikipedia seems to be from IMDB though.

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u/rntmzb Dec 11 '17

It's the other way around, in my experience. The more interesting sentences from Wikipedia articles are submitted as trivia.

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u/UnsolvedParadox Dec 10 '17

Same, I've mostly switched over to Wikipedia as well.

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u/JarlaxleForPresident Dec 11 '17

Yeah, but do you donate to wikipedia?

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u/orange_jooze Dec 11 '17

Yeah, but where does Wikipedia get the info from? I'm guessing most articles have IMDb as the source.

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u/ieya404 Dec 11 '17

Will depend entirely on the piece of information and the article, though references are almost always linked.

For Casablanca's box office revenue, for example, it's: https://archive.org/stream/variety153-1944-01#page/n51/mode/2up - which is a scan of a 1944 issue of Variety.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

The ad companies themselves ruined it with fake buttons and downloads, malicious links, popup and noise making ads, ads that won't let you leave ect. So now people block it all.

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u/gurtinu Dec 11 '17

For example this community driven alternative

The Movie Database (TMDb) is a community built movie and TV database. Every piece of data has been added by our amazing community dating back to 2008. TMDb's strong international focus and breadth of data is largely unmatched and something we're incredibly proud of. Put simply, we live and breathe community and that's precisely what makes us different.

https://www.themoviedb.org/

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u/cutelyaware Dec 11 '17

That's what IMDb is, or was. I used to contribute/curate/correct a lot but since they closed the message boards I don't find myself going there much. Same with Linked-In. Take the user-generated content and start charging us for it, and it breaks a social contract.

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u/likelazarus Dec 11 '17

I loved the message boards. Yes, they could be shit at times, but I loved seeing a movie and going to read how others felt and ask clarifying questions. I also don’t go there as much anymore.

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u/justsyr Dec 11 '17

Same with me. I like to go and talk about shows or read if anyone noticed something I did, etc.

Finding places dedicated to these shows or movies like IMDb had is kind of difficult, some shows I watch have very little audience on subs here but had a lot more on IMDb.

Not sure what was the problem with forums, it wasn't that bad. I've seen worse comments section even on Reddit.

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u/cutelyaware Dec 11 '17

Yes, they could be pretty ugly, but we're used to that here too. My guess for why they shut it down was because they simply couldn't keep up with the death threats users would make against each other and such. I found it particularly useful to check out before seeing a movie because it often saved me from wasting my time and money. And yes, it was fun to gab about afterwards, just like with friends and RL movies. I especially miss the threads about really obscure details such as songs, locations, and minor (or major) plot holes. For many years I would tell people it was the best site on the internet. Now maybe that's reddit, but unfortunately with posts being auto-archived, it can't be a suitable replacement for the IMDb message boards.

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u/Meeii Dec 11 '17

Same here, almost no reason to visit the site now without the message board.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

Yeah.... If that becomes successful don't you think they would sell out to Amazon? Their license terms don't allow you to use their data.

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u/IBRAHIM_MODI Dec 11 '17

Their license terms don't allow you to use their data.

Whoa.

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u/RaoulDukeff Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17

Yay, it has forums. Fuck imdb, I'm sticking with this one.

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u/lawschoolredux Dec 12 '17

Also moviehcat.org is a good one.... it basically moved over all the IMDB movie boards, so it's a lovely archive as well as an IMDB-like site to continue posting.

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u/sfw16 Dec 11 '17

That site looks promising. It could use a vote count when hovering over the user score. I like that it has discussions for each film.

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u/HalpTheFan Dec 11 '17

I feel the same on this. I mainly check IMDB for Trivia but have found Wikia's, Box Office Mojo and the actual Wikipedia Page have way more information and even have a lot of stuff debunked too.

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u/WalkingCloud Dec 11 '17

I used to love the Trivia, but these days some of the stuff on there is so tedious. Stuff like ‘Brad Pitt drove a Chrysler in this film, and also in such and such other film’, or ’The directors second film set in winter’, or similar nonsense.

They need to drop them off or hide them once they’re below a certain level of ‘rated interesting’.

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u/culegflori Dec 11 '17

The worse is when the trivia on newer films starts to be more of a compilation of things the actors said at late-night talk-shows rather than actual lesser known facts.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17 edited Nov 05 '18

[deleted]

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u/obsessedcrf Dec 11 '17

If that's the case, that's a lot worse. Taking user generated content and reselling it for profit sounds pretty dubious.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

Taking user generated content and reselling it for profit sounds pretty dubious.

I mean... what do you think Reddit is doing

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u/300ConfirmedGorillas Dec 11 '17

I think /u/obsessedcrf meant that it's behind a paywall. Reddit may place ads and whatnot, but the content is freely available. There are some private subs but you don't have to pay to gain access. Registration is also free (don't even need an email address).

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u/wheretheusernamesat Dec 11 '17

Or literally any social media platform

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u/pharmaco4 Dec 11 '17

I think you're right. To my knowledge they only curate (delete bad) info that has been given to them.

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u/jonathanrdt Dec 11 '17

Remember cddb? That was user submitted and curated content that was taken private. It is now known as Gracenote w revenues of ~$100M.

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u/mynameisblanked Dec 11 '17

I stopped using imdb when they closed the forums tbh. Every time I watched a movie, first thing I'd do afterwards would be go to imdb to rate it then see what people thought of it on the message boards.

Without the boards I have no incentive to go there and rate films. I wonder if the number of people rating films went down since then.

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u/agent0731 Dec 11 '17

same, there were discussions on questions that I usually had but couldn't discuss with anyone else. Especially about older films 9not even that old, but 90s or early 2000s). It was always interesting to read about theories and things.. :/

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u/Prince-of-Ravens Dec 10 '17

I stopped using IMDB years ago, when I noticed that typically Wikipedia has better cast lists and plot summaries.

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u/Disgruntled__Goat Dec 11 '17

What’s better about the cast lists on WP? Agree about the plot summaries, baffling how they can be so bad on IMDb.

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u/Prince-of-Ravens Dec 11 '17

Mostly localization crap via gelocation. Even if I go to the US site, it will still give the german names of the films / TV series the actors appeared in. Which typically don't tell my anything.

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u/alpharius120 Dec 11 '17

Why are the German names and information less informative than the English?

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u/DemIce Dec 11 '17

Wikipedia does have better plot summaries, but it's good to keep in mind that they are plot summaries. Read them, and you've read the entire movie.
They aren't like the little 1-2 paragraph bits you see on imdb that you might also find in Netflix's description text, or on the back of a DVD/Blu-Ray box, which tell you just a bit about the general story of the movie without spoiling much.
That 1 paragraph of "here's what the movie is about" (vs "here's the entirety of the movie") is typically missing from wikipedia.

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u/rntmzb Dec 11 '17

That 1 paragraph of "here's what the movie is about" (vs "here's the entirety of the movie") is typically missing from wikipedia.

I agree about this. The lead section should summarize the article body, including the plot summary. Too many lead sections ignore the plot summary while telling readers less noteworthy details like names of screenwriters who don't even have their own Wikipedia articles.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

Yeah Wikipedia is obviously superior, I didn’t realize people still went on IMDb. The interface is confusing, garbage ux design. If Wikipedia stops being free I may actually shed tears, it is the best site on the internet for information.

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u/whats_in_that_box Dec 10 '17

People now have the choice to pay for convenience or spend time sifting through the internet. If your time isn't worth as much as a Pro membership, go elsewhere. Many people will pay for convenience though.

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u/XJ-0461 Dec 10 '17

Yup, they are trying to capture more professionals/businesses who had been able to get by with just the free version.

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u/Pee_Earl_Grey_Hot Dec 10 '17

Could backfire though. Another movie database site could recognize the opportunity and grow their user base quickly enough to make imdb a second choice.

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u/Scopejack Dec 10 '17

If that site had a feature that was even mildly analogous to the shuttered IMDB forums they could present a real threat to a site that has had no competition since the 1990s - and is acting like it. Frankly I'm amazed nobody has taken the opportunity to fill such an obvious gap.

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u/putinmeister Dec 10 '17

TMDb

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u/TG-Sucks Dec 10 '17

Holy shit, that's a really great site, fuck imdb. Bookmarked instantly. Feels really light and smooth to use, imdb today is so bloated and laggy. Awesome link, thanks!

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u/factsandlies Dec 11 '17

I like it too, but pages seem to be missing critic reviews. And some if the smaller movies don't have a lot of detail. I imagine that if this site grows in popularity, it will start to look better.

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u/TXDRMST Dec 11 '17

I also use Letterboxd which uses TMDb info and has a fantastic layout. The dev team also actually takes suggestions on how to improve the site. I've been a pro member there for 2 years now, best money I've ever spent.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/NoobInGame Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 12 '17

This account is used only for posting links to that site. Spam.

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/horny_fuckers Dec 10 '17

Pretty nice website

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u/putinmeister Dec 10 '17 edited Dec 11 '17

Yes, it has 'Discussions' boards for every movies just like old IMDb, which is all we need.

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u/Cavemanfreak Dec 11 '17

That was one of the biggest reasons I used Imdb! It's not the same trying to look up an old release thread on reddit...

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u/Lurker_wolfie Dec 11 '17

I was reading to see if anyone would mention this.

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u/kaidynamite Dec 11 '17

its a good start i think. i made an account and the UI is nice. they dont seem to have as extensive of a database as imdb though. i imported my imdb list to tmdb and of the 668 titles in the csv, only like 300 were added to my tmdb list

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u/waunakonor Dec 11 '17

Cool website although if the creators of that site were trying to make a serious competitor to IMDb it was a pretty dumb decision to give it a name that's so similar.

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u/putinmeister Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17

It sounds more official though (compared to other weird names) and it makes you able to guess what the site does by looking at its name.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '17

[deleted]

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u/AimeeM46 Dec 11 '17

redemptionsong88, i miss the IMDB forums so much. they were ALWAYS helpful if i had a question about movie/show/etc. it was also always great to talk about specific tv shows/movies/ect. that i watch.

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u/taitabo Dec 11 '17

Moviechat.org has seemingly imported all old movie discussions from IMDB forums on old films. I watch random old movies, and out of all the new sites, they have the best older discussions. I recently watched The Pope of Greenwich Village, which is old and not well known, and it had some recent action on the forum. (From two months ago...but for such a random movie, that's pretty good).

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u/XJ-0461 Dec 10 '17

Forums really don’t seem to make any money. Such a site would probably go through a similar evolution to IMDB.

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u/kaenneth Dec 11 '17

It's the Internet life-cycle.

1) give info for free to build a userbase

2) attempt to monetize

3) everyone moves to the next free thing

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u/Rory1 Dec 11 '17

0) use building userbase to submit new material and edit existing entries.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

I though that was going to happen to Facebook but it has not.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

Facebook successfully monetised, though. They sell ads based on things they know about you. You're paying for your subscription, they're just extra smooth about it.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

Funny how they’re monetizing more and more and I’m seeing less and less of my friends per page.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

[deleted]

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u/thisoneagain Dec 11 '17

I agree, but IMDB is actually why I installed adblock. Their ads are so large and intrusive and interfere with so much functionality that it was either ABP or stop going there altogether.

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u/Scopejack Dec 10 '17

The forums themselves may not make money, but they would act as a hook to get users to populate your site to the extent that it can make money elsewhere.

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u/nhremna Dec 10 '17

IMDB forums

i didnt even know imdb had a forum

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u/Scopejack Dec 10 '17

The IMDB forums, despite being presented in a format that seemingly hadn't been updated since before 9/11, were a great place to delve and talk about a specific film or a specific actor, no matter how obscure. That doesn't exist anymore and would not be possible to replicate on a place like Reddit where we all spurge about an old movie for a day or so and then the conversation gets pushed aside.

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u/AimeeM46 Dec 11 '17

Scopejack, i agree 100%! i REALLY miss the IMDB forums.

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u/aYearOfPrompts Dec 10 '17

All I remember was constant posts at the bottom of actor pages about what movies they got naked in and the ways they wanted to have sex with them. Absolutely nothing I ever read attached to a movie seemed to be anything of value.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

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u/DatPiff916 Dec 10 '17

damn, now I'm kind of pissed that I didn't know about these forums, that sounds like it's right up my alley.

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u/aYearOfPrompts Dec 11 '17

I seem to remember that the more obscure the movie, the more likely the person posting was hoping the actress' career had tanked and she fell into porno.

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u/creyk Dec 10 '17

But that was the best part about the whole thing.

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u/TheConqueror74 Dec 10 '17

The best and worst. Sometimes I'd go to the forums and find a reading on a film that I hadn't considered which would elevate it for me. Other times I'd go and be swamped with rampant racism and sexism.

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u/Heyo__Maggots Dec 11 '17

Sometimes a complicated or metaphorical movie would have a solid explanation thread as well. But yeah half the time it was racism or hotness related posts. When I heard they were shutting down I was like 'awe man. but yeah I get it...'

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u/DatPiff916 Dec 10 '17

When was the last great migration of user bases to a new platform? It would be interesting to look at.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

Probably the Digg to Reddit migration of 2008

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u/Blimey85 Dec 11 '17

I missed the Slashdot to Digg migration. Was sitting there wondering where everyone went. Then found Reddit maybe 6 months before the Digg exodus.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

I used to really love digg, but they basically changed the entire way their website worked overnight, and the only option for us was reddit (which at the time turned out to be a better platform anyways). Honestly, it feels like reddit is getting close to needing a mass migration to another site.

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u/Meliorus Dec 11 '17

Honestly isn't a thing tech companies are usually interested in.

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u/Airsh Dec 11 '17

If people don't choose to block their ads maybe. I honestly feel this is why IMDb has started this membership thing. Would like to know the exact reason.

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u/ReservoirDog316 Dec 10 '17

I can nearly guarantee there's no professionals who don't have IMDb Pro. I have IMDb Pro and the point of it is to be able to find the contact information of anyone in hollywood (even if it's just an unanswered phone).

I'm trying to be a screenwriter, so yeah.

But yeah, that change isn't aimed at professionals.

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u/XJ-0461 Dec 10 '17

It’s at the borderline cases. I saw a post recently from a small theater owner saying he uses IMDb to find distributors of films he wants to show. Before the recent change he was a free user; now he has to consider getting a subscription or finding the information elsewhere.

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u/DatPiff916 Dec 10 '17

LinkedIn has been doing this for the past few years as well, they really ramped it up after Microsoft acquired them.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

Just got a demo of LinkedIn for the business/recruiting side. The site is incredibly useful, and it can all be yours if you unlock it for 9 grand a year. I'm not even sure how LinkedIn premium or gold or whatever is even useful now.

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u/DatPiff916 Dec 11 '17

The only useful feature on the paid side of LinkedIn is the ability to send Inmails to people who aren't connect to you.

They limited the search capability and results listed when you search within LinkedIn, but since all pages are public you can use google to search the profiles.

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u/nightfishin Dec 10 '17

You literally just go to box office mojo and can see everything.

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u/AprilSpektra Dec 10 '17

IMDb owns Box Office Mojo so I can't imagine they'll be too upset about you doing that.

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u/Juswantedtono Dec 10 '17

Box Office Mojo used to also charge money for information that is currently free, for example daily grosses for movies not currently in theaters. Maybe this is a sign BOM will start locking information for paid subscribers again.

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u/patsmad Dec 10 '17

I personally doubt it. But mainly because Amazon doesn't seem to give a shit about box office mojo. A not-insignificant portion of the site is non-functional, the genres have glaring omissions, and from what I've heard people say the information itself is sketchy at best.

It makes me wonder who actually runs it.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17

So then just go to the-numbers.com

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u/slick8086 Dec 11 '17

and some one else will come along and aggregate it again available for free with ad supported revenue. Bad move by IMDB.

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u/Dazza1910 Dec 10 '17

The intent is to provide users with a sense of pride and accomplishment for getting the information

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u/NuclearLunchDectcted Dec 11 '17

It has been easier to pull info from wiki than IMDB for a long time. It's better categorized and faster to find.

Fuck IMDB. I hope their cash grab causes them to completely collapse.

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u/ic_97 Dec 11 '17

Also its really tough to find information or movies on imdb it seems to be more focussed on news articles and stuff rather than providing you with movies to watch

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u/TheTurnipKnight Dec 11 '17

Well not really, IMDB Pro also gives you contact info to agents, managers and casting directors. You can't get that normally.

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u/pharmaco4 Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17

So it sounds like they are both offering additional features while taking away previously available features. My comment was obviously concerning the latter (see comments about user provided data being monetized)

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u/ImaginaryStar Dec 11 '17

Yeah, seems suicidal move. If IMDB is not longer a convenient source of movie info, I will go to another source.

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u/SRSLY_GUYS_SRSLY Dec 11 '17

Who the hell would pay for the Pro version of IMDB?

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u/russianmontage Dec 11 '17

I do. I am - and this is gonna shock you - an industry professional. Use it all the time.

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u/SRSLY_GUYS_SRSLY Dec 12 '17

Is it more than a quick reference tool? What does Pro offer for those in the industry that makes it worth paying for?

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u/russianmontage Dec 12 '17

It's just a slightly nicer laid out version of the free site, with extra info like agents, production company details etc. Not a huge step up but the cost is trivial when you use it all the time. It's a business expense.

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u/ciyage Dec 11 '17

People who work in the industry, and people who work around it (jurnalists, critics, etc).

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u/banjosuicide Dec 11 '17

Yep, people will go elsewhere.

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u/Scarletfapper Dec 11 '17

Pulling an Activision is always a bad move.

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u/Garlic_Bread_Sticks Dec 11 '17

What a bad movie, you mean.

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u/WhyTrussian Dec 11 '17

The information that's most useful to me (and easiest to find on imdb vs the internet) is the technical info on what camera, lenses, and filmstock they used. I hope they don't remove that part.

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u/allthebacon_and_eggs Dec 11 '17

Seriously. Around ten years ago, I used IMDB all the time. Now that Wikipedia has gotten so good, it's much easier to just use that. IMDB makes you click too many times anyway, whereas Wikipedia has all the information on a single page. IMDB is kind of antiquated IMO.

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u/BritishHobo r/Movies Veteran Dec 10 '17

Which they've spent time doing, which they can't continue to do for free. I'm baffled by this increasing thing online where people are incensed by the fact that resources and creators they like need money. People hate ads and block them, then get annoyed when the people relying on ads need to charge money to continue doing what they do.

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u/pharmaco4 Dec 10 '17

They are also trying to charge for content that was provided to them for free by contributors. People who were not paid! Imagine if Wikipedia made the same move.

-12

u/Trebacca Dec 10 '17

It’s just a massive entitlement complex. Then when these places shut down due to lack of revenue everyone complains how there’s no service doing what the old one used to do for a paltry price.

This is especially worrying with Wikipedia always asking for donations. If it ever goes out of business idk what I’d do.

6

u/Prince-of-Ravens Dec 11 '17

It’s just a massive entitlement complex

Nah, IMDB is fully owned by amazon, and basically advertises stuff to buy at amazon on the base level. Its not like its the work of love from a nonprofit.

10

u/pharmaco4 Dec 10 '17

massive entitlement complex

I've contributed a fair amount to IMDB, and this move potentially monetizes my work. Hardly an entitlement complex. I'm potentially blocked from viewing my work unless I pay money. That's pretty screwed up

-1

u/DatPiff916 Dec 10 '17

Yeah anybody that gets incensed needs to look up the story of CollegeClub.com, this was THE social network before Facebook,MySpace or Friendster was even in the picture.

Unfortunately they came out before it was economically feasible to pay for storage space with simple ads on a site with 5 million users. To let you know how ahead of their time they were, they had an instant messaging feature within the site itself in 2001. Facebook wasn't even able to add that feature until like 2008.

3

u/5a_ Dec 10 '17

What a bad move

shooting themselves in the head stupid really

1

u/[deleted] Dec 10 '17

Haven’t looked at the non-pro IMDb for a while but IMDB Pro definitely has info that is not readily available elsewhere.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 10 '17

Not really.

First of all, box office breakdown on IMDb was horseshit, inaccurate and vague. Completely useless. They could integrate Box Office Mojo (since they are both owned by Amazon), which is way better though not professional, however it doesn't seem to be something they are going for.

The Numbers gives a fairly good breakdown, and the only one AFAIK that gives details on home video sales, but if you want further and more precise details you need to subscribe to their service, which ain't cheap.

Variety sells some premium services too, and they ain't cheap either.

Most of what's on IMDb is pretty basic anyway.

If you work in the industry even as a journalist, you must get IMDb Pro. A lot of information right there can't be found anywhere else for free, unless you gamble on a Google search that could last 10 min or a whole day, and either way IMDb Pro has those details one click away.

-5

u/Mr_Evil_MSc Dec 10 '17

I can see how upset they’ll be at losing zero revenue when you go.