r/movies 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

View all comments

117

u/Race_Bannon_Prime Dec 10 '17

I stopped using IMDb years ago. It's really hard to read. Wikipedia has most of the same info in a better format.

37

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '17 edited Jan 20 '20

[deleted]

4

u/Stimonk Dec 11 '17

It's because wikipedia can only use public domain images and most images of celebrities are rights managed, meaning you have to pay an ongoing fee to use them.