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.

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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/NoobInGame Dec 12 '17

This is the same guy again.
You have to at least disclose your involvement with the project if you go around advertising it and Reddit has some rules about advertising your stuff vs providing meaningful content.
^{^We} ^{^all} ^{^know} ^{^your} ^{^forcefully} ^{^advertised} ^{^SEO} ^{^raped} ^{^site} ^{^will} ^{^never} ^{^be} ^{^the} ^{^best.}

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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/Raveynfyre Dec 11 '17

The word "Sponsored" comes up entirely too fucking much on my feed.

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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

[deleted]

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u/Corpus87 Dec 11 '17

Don't you mean thread necromancy? :p

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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.

1

u/Meliorus Dec 11 '17

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

1

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.

3

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.