IMDB logo / Photo Credit: IMDB
WHAT IS IMDB / INTERNET MOVIE
DATABASE? (In the Entertainment industry.)
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What is IMDB / Internet Movie Database?
The Internet Movie Database is the largest, most
comprehensive movie database on the Web. This amazingly detailed and rich
source of film data features top movies, movie news, movie reviews, movie
trailers, movie show times, DVD movie reviews, celebrity profiles, etc. The
Internet Movie Database (IMDb) truly is a mammoth depository of movie
information.
IMDb (Internet Movie Database) is an online database
of information related to films, television programs, home videos and video
games, and internet streams, including cast, production crew and personnel
biographies, plot summaries, trivia, and fan reviews and ratings. An additional
fan feature, message boards, was abandoned in February 2017. Originally a
fan-operated website, the database is owned and operated by IMDb.com, Inc., a
subsidiary of Amazon.
As of October 2018, IMDb has approximately 5.3 million
titles (including episodes) and 9.3 million personalities in its database, as
well as 83 million registered users.
Features
The movie and talent pages of IMDb are accessible to
all internet users, but a registration process is necessary to contribute
information to the site.
Most data in the database is provided by volunteer
contributors. The site enables registered users to submit new material and
edits to existing entries. Users with a proven track record of submitting
factual data are given instant approval for additions or corrections to cast,
credits, and other demographics of media product and personalities. However,
image, name, character name, plot summaries, and title changes are supposedly
screened before publication, and usually take between 24 and 72 hours to
appear.
All registered users choose their own site name, and
most operate anonymously. They have a profile page which shows how long a
registered user has been a member, as well as personal movie ratings (should
the user decide to display them) and, since 2015, "badges" are added
representing how many contributions a particular registered user has submitted.
These badges range from total contributions made to independent categories such
as photos, trivia, bios, etc. If a registered user or visitor is in the
entertainment industry and has an IMDb page, that user/visitor can add photos
to that page by enrolling in IMDBPro. There is no single index of contributors,
no index on each profile page of the items contributed, and (except for plot
synopses and biographies) no identification of contributors to each product's
or person's data pages.
Users are also invited to rate any film on a scale of
1 to 10, and the totals are converted into a weighted mean-rating that is
displayed beside each title, with online filters employed to deter
ballot-stuffing.
In January 2019, IMDb launched a free movie streaming
platform called Freedive, an ad-supported service offering Hollywood movie
titles and TV shows. Many Freedive titles are licensed from Sony Pictures.
History
History before website
IMDb originated with a Usenet posting by British film
fan and computer programmer Col Needham entitled "Those Eyes", about
actresses with beautiful eyes. Others with similar interests soon responded
with additions or different lists of their own. Needham subsequently started an
"Actors List", while Dave Knight began a "Directors List",
and Andy Krieg took over "THE LIST" from Hank Driskill, which would
later be renamed the "Actress List". Both lists had been restricted
to people who were alive and working, but soon retired people were added, so
Needham started what was then (but did not remain) a separate "Dead
Actors/Actresses List". Steve Hammond started collecting and merging
character names for both the actors and actresses lists. When these achieved
popularity, they were merged back into the lists themselves. The goal of the
participants now was to make the lists as inclusive as possible.
By late 1990, the lists included almost 10,000 movies
and television series correlated with actors and actresses appearing therein.
On October 17, 1990, Needham developed and posted a collection of Unix shell
scripts which could be used to search the four lists, and thus the database
that would become the IMDb was born. At the time, it was known as the
"rec.arts.movies movie database".
On the web
The database had been expanded to include additional
categories of filmmakers and other demographic material as well as trivia,
biographies, and plot summaries. The movie ratings had been properly integrated
with the list data, and a centralized email interface for querying the database
had been created by Alan Jay. Later, in 1993, it moved onto the World Wide Web,
(a network in its infancy at that time) under the name of Cardiff Internet
Movie Database. The database resided on the servers of the computer science
department of Cardiff University in Wales. Rob Hartill was the original web
interface author. In 1994, the email interface was revised to accept the
submission of all information, which enabled people to email the specific list
maintainer with their updates. However, the structure remained so that
information received on a single film was divided among multiple section
managers, the sections being defined and determined by categories of film
personnel and the individual filmographies contained therein. Over the next few
years, the database was run on a network of mirrors across the world with
donated bandwidth.
As an independent company
In 1996 IMDb was incorporated in the United Kingdom,
becoming the Internet Movie Database Ltd. Founder Col. Needham became the
primary owner as well as the figurehead. General revenue for site operations
was generated through advertising, licensing and partnerships.
As Amazon.com subsidiary (1998–present)
In 1998, Jeff Bezos, founder, owner, and CEO of
Amazon.com, struck a deal with Needham and other principal shareholders to buy
IMDb outright for approximately $55 million and attach it to Amazon as a subsidiary,
private company. This gave IMDb the ability to pay the shareholders salaries
for their work, while Amazon.com would be able to use IMDb as an advertising
resource for selling DVDs and videotapes.
IMDb continued to expand its functionality. On
January 15, 2002, it added a subscription service known as IMDbPro, aimed at
entertainment professionals. IMDbPro was announced and launched at the 2002
Sundance Film Festival. It provides a variety of services including film
production and box office details, as well as a company directory and the ability
of subscribers to add personal information pages with details at variance with
pages about them appearing in the database.
As an additional incentive for users, as of 2003,
users identified as one of "the top 100 contributors" of hard data
received complimentary free access to IMDbPro for the following calendar year;
for 2006 this was increased to the top 150 contributors, and for 2010 to the
top 250. In 2008, IMDb launched their first official foreign language version
with the German IMDb.de. Also in 2008, IMDb acquired two other companies:
Withoutabox and Box Office Mojo.
The website was originally Perl-based, but IMDb no
longer discloses what software it uses for reasons of security. As of May 2011,
the site has been filtered in China for more than one year, although many users
address it through proxy server or by VPN.
IMDbPro
Actors, crew, and industry executives can post their
own resume and upload photos of themselves for a yearly fee. This fee gives
them membership in IMDbPro. IMDbPro can be accessed by anyone willing to pay
the fee, which is US$19.99 per month, or if paid annually, US$149.99.
Membership enables a user to access the rank order of each industry
personality, as well as agent contact information for any actor, producer, director
etc. that has an IMDb page. Enrolling in IMDbPro for industry personnel,
enables those members the ability to upload a head shot to open their page, as
well as the ability to upload hundreds of photos to accompany their page.
Anyone can register as an IMDb user and contribute to the site as well as view
its content, however those users enrolled in IMDbPro have greater access and
privileges.
Television episodes numbers
On January 26, 2006, "Full Episode Support"
came online, allowing the database to support separate cast and crew listings
for each episode of every television series. This increased the number of
titles in the database from 485,000 to nearly 755,000.
Characters' filmography
On October 2, 2007, the characters' filmography was
added. Character entries are created from character listings in the main
filmography database, and as such do not need any additional verification by
IMDb staff. They have already been verified when they are added to the main
filmography.
Instant viewing
On September 15, 2008, a feature was added that
enables instant viewing of over 6,000 movies and television shows from CBS,
Sony and a number of independent film makers, with direct links from their
profiles. Due to licensing restrictions, this feature is available only to viewers
in the United States.
This feature has since been discontinued. As quoted
from IMDb.com video faq's "You won't be able to view the movie or TV Show
on IMDb. The videos on IMDb are Trailers, Interviews, Clips, Featurettes, and
other original content that dive deeper into great movies and TV shows."
Freedive: On January 10, 2019 free viewing option for
US locations was once again added. Freedive is available on the IMDb website
and on Amazon Fire TV devices. The difference is that this time the content has
embedded ads which cannot be skipped.
Content and format
Data provided by subjects
In 2006, IMDb introduced its "Résumé
Subscription Service", where actors and crew can post their own résumé and
upload photos of themselves for a yearly fee. The base annual charge for
including a photo with an account was US$39.95 until 2010, when it was
increased to US$54.95. IMDb résumé pages are kept on a sub-page of the regular
entry about that person, with a regular entry automatically created for each
résumé subscriber who does not already have one.
As of 2012, Resume Services is now included as part
of an IMDbPro subscription, and is no longer offered as a separate subscription
service.
Copyright, vandalism and error issues
All volunteers who contribute content to the database
technically retain copyright on their contributions but the compilation of the
content becomes the exclusive property of IMDb with the full right to copy,
modify, and sublicense it and they are verified before posting. Credit is not
given on specific title or filmography pages to the contributor(s) who have
provided information. Conversely, a credited text entry, such as a plot
summary, may be corrected for content, grammar, sentence structure, perceived
omission or error, by other contributors without having to add their names as
co-authors. Due to the time required for processing submitted data or text
before it is displayed, IMDb is different from user-contributed projects like
Wikipedia, Discogs, or OpenStreetMap in that contributors cannot add, delete,
or modify the data or text on impulse, and the manipulation of data is
controlled by IMDb technology and salaried staff.
IMDb has been subject to deliberate additions of
false information; in 2012 a spokesperson said: "We make it easy for users
and professionals to update much of our content, which is why we have an 'edit
page.' The data that is submitted goes through a series of consistency checks
before it goes live. Given the sheer volume of the information, occasional
mistakes are inevitable, and, when reported, they are promptly fixed. We always
welcome corrections."
The Java Movie Database (JMDB) is reportedly creating
an IMDb_Error.log file that lists all the errors found while processing the
IMDb plain text files. A Wiki alternative to IMDb is Open Media Database whose
content is also contributed by users but licensed under CC-by and the GFDL.
Since 2007, IMDb has been experimenting with wiki-programmed sections for
complete film synopses, parental guides, and FAQs about titles as determined by
(and answered by) individual contributors.
Data format and access
IMDb does not provide an API for automated queries.
However, most of the data can be downloaded as compressed plain text files and
the information can be extracted using the command-line interface tools
provided. There is also a Java-based graphical user interface (GUI) application
available that is able to process the compressed plain text files, which allows
a search and a display of the information. This GUI application supports
different languages, but the movie related data are in English, as made
available by IMDb. A Python package called IMDbPY can also be used to process
the compressed plain text files into a number of different SQL databases,
enabling easier access to the entire dataset for searching or data mining.
Film titles
The IMDb has sites in English as well as versions
translated completely or in part into other languages (Danish, Finnish, French,
German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian). The
non-English language sites display film titles in the specified language.
Originally, IMDb's English language sites displayed titles according to their
original country-of-origin language, however, in 2010 IMDb began allowing
individual users in the UK and USA to choose primary title display by either
the original-language titles, or the US or UK release title (normally, in
English).
Ancillary features
User ratings of films
As one adjunct to data, the IMDb offers a rating
scale that allows users to rate films on a scale of one to ten. It has been
alleged that the rating system is flawed, for several reasons.
IMDb indicates that submitted ratings are filtered
and weighted in various ways in order to produce a weighted mean that is
displayed for each film, series, and so on. It states that filters are used to
avoid ballot stuffing; the method is not described in detail to avoid attempts
to circumvent it. In fact, it sometimes produces an extreme difference between
the weighted average and the arithmetic mean.
Rankings
The IMDb Top 250 is a list of the top rated 250
films, based on ratings by the registered users of the website using the
methods described. As of 7 February 2019, The Shawshank Redemption is #1 on the
list. The "Top 250" rating is based on only the ratings of
"regular voters". The number of votes a registered user would have to
make to be considered as a user who votes regularly has been kept secret. IMDb
has stated that to maintain the effectiveness of the Top 250 list they
"deliberately do not disclose the criteria used for a person to be counted
as a regular voter". In addition to other weightings, the Top 250 films
are also based on a weighted rating formula referred to in actuarial science as
a credibility formula. This label arises because a statistic is taken to be
more credible the greater the number of individual pieces of information; in
this case from eligible users who submit ratings. Although the current formula
is not disclosed, IMDb originally used the following formula to calculate their
weighted rating:
The IMDb also has a Bottom 100 feature which is
assembled through a similar process although only 1500 votes must be received
to qualify for the list.
The Top 250 list comprises a wide range of feature
films, including major releases, cult films, independent films, critically
acclaimed films, silent films, and non-English language films. Documentaries,
short films and TV episodes are not currently included.
Since 2015, there has been a Top 250 list devoted to
ranking television shows.
Message boards
Beginning in 2001, the Internet Movie Database also
maintained message boards for every title (excepting, as of 2013, TV episodes)
and name entry, along with over 140 main boards. This began in 2001. In order
to post on the message boards a user needed to "authenticate" their
account via cell phone, credit card, or by having been a recent customer of the
parent company Amazon.com. Message boards expanded in recent years. The Soapbox
started in 1999 as a general message board meant for debates on any subjects.
The Politics board started in 2007 was a message board to discuss politics,
news events, and current affairs, as well as history and economics.
By February 20, 2017, all the message boards and
their content were permanently removed. According to the website, the decision
was made because the boards were "no longer providing a positive, useful
experience for the vast majority of our more than 250 million monthly users
worldwide", and others have mentioned its susceptibility to trolling and
disagreeable behavior. Col Needham also mentioned in a post some months earlier
that the boards received less income from ads, and that their members only made
up a very small part of the website's visitors. The boards were costly to run
due to the system's age and dated design, which did not make business sense.
The decision to remove the message boards was met with outspoken backlash from
some of its users, and sparked an online petition garnering over 8,000
signatures. In the days leading up to February 20, 2017, both Archive.org and
MovieChat.org preserved the entire contents of the IMDb message boards using
web scraping. Archive.org and MovieChat.org have published IMDb message board
archives, which is legal under the fair use doctrine, because it has no effect
on IMDb's potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Litigation
In 2011, in the case of Hoang v. Amazon.com, IMDb was
sued by an anonymous actress for more than US$1,000,000 due to IMDb's revealing
her age (40, at the time). The actress claimed that revealing her age could
cause her to lose acting opportunities. Judge Marsha J. Pechman, a U.S.
district judge in Seattle, dismissed the lawsuit, saying the actress had no
grounds to proceed with an anonymous complaint. The actress re-filed and so
revealed that she was Huong Hoang of Texas, who uses the stage name Junie Hoang.
In 2013, Pechman dismissed all causes of action except for a breach of contract
claim against IMDb; a jury then sided with IMDb on that claim. The Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court judgment in March
2015.
Also in 2011, in the case of United Video Properties
Inc., et al. v. Amazon.Com Inc. et al., IMDb and Amazon were sued by Rovi
Corporation and others for patent infringement over their various program
listing offerings. The patent claims were ultimately construed in a way
favorable to IMDb and Rovi / United Video Properties lost the case. In April
2014, the decision was affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals.
On January 1, 2017, the State of California
implemented state bill AB-1687, a SAG-AFTRA-backed anti-ageism statute which
requires "commercial online entertainment employment services" to
honor requests by their subscribers for their ages and birthdays to be hidden.
By the beginning of 2017, IMDb had received more than 2,300 requests from
individuals to remove their date of birth from the site. Included in this group
were 10 Academy Award winners and another 71 nominated for Oscars, Emmys, or
Golden Globes. On February 23, 2017, Judge Vince Girdhari Chhabria issued a
stay on the bill pending a further trial, claiming that it possibly violated
the First Amendment because it inhibited the public consumption of factual
information. He also questioned the intent of the bill, as it was ostensibly
meant to target IMDb.
Sources, References & Credits: Google, Wikipedia, Wikihow, WikiBooks,
Pinterest, IMDB, Linked In, Indie Wire, Film Making Stuff, Hiive, Film Daily, New
York Film Academy, The Balance, Careers Hub, The Numbers, Film Maker, TV Guide
Magazine, Blurb, Media Match, Quora, Creative Skill Set, Chron, Investopedia,
Variety, No Film School, WGA, BBC, Daily Variety, The Film Agency, Best Sample
Resume, How Stuff Works, Studio Binder, Career Trend, Producer's Code of
Credits, Truity, Production Hub, Producers Guild of America, Film Connection, Variety,
Wolf Crow, Get In Media, Production Beast, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, UCAS, Frankenbite,
Realty 101, Careers Hub, Screen Play Scripts, Elements of Cinema, Script
Doctor, ASCAP, Film Independent, Any Possibility, CTLsites, NYFA, Future Learn,
VOM Productions, Mad Studios, DP School, DGA, IATSE, ASC, MPAA, HFPA, MPSE,
CDG, AFI, Life Wire,
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IMDB logo / Photo Credit: IMDB
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