IMDb (an
abbreviation
An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
of Internet Movie Database) is an
online database An online database is a database accessible from a local network or the Internet, as opposed to one that is stored locally on an individual computer or its attached storage (such as a CD). Online databases are hosted on websites, made available as s ...
of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, plot summaries, trivia, ratings, and fan and critical reviews. IMDb began as a fan-operated movie database on the
Usenet
Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...
group "rec.arts.movies" in 1990, and moved to the Web in 1993. It is now owned and operated by IMDb.com, Inc., a subsidiary of
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
.
the database contained some million titles (including television episodes) and million person records.
Additionally, the site had 83 million registered users. The site's message boards were disabled in February 2017.
Features
The title and talent ''pages'' of IMDb are accessible to all users, but only registered and logged-in users can submit new material and suggest edits to existing entries. Most of the site's data has been provided by these volunteers. Registered users with a proven track record are able to add and make corrections to cast lists, credits, and some other data points. However, the addition and removal of images, and alterations to titles, cast and crew names, character names, and plot summaries are subject to an approval process; this usually takes between 24 and 72 hours.
Registered users can choose their username, and most are
pseudonymous
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
. 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 titles on a scale of 1 to 10, and the totals are converted into a
weighted mean
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
-rating, with filters in place to mitigate
ballot-stuffing
Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...
.
User ''profile pages'' show a user's registration date and, optionally, their personal ratings of titles. Since 2015, "badges" can be added showing a count of contributions. These badges range from total contributions made to independent categories such as photos, trivia, and biographies. If a registered user or visitor is in the entertainment industry and has an IMDb page, they can add photos through IMDbPRO.
History
History before website
IMDb originated in 1990 with a
Usenet
Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...
posting entitled "Those Eyes", by the English film fan and computer programmer
Col Needham
Colin Needham (born 26 January 1967) is a British computer engineer who is known as the founder and CEO of IMDb. He has been general manager of IMDb since its acquisition by Amazon in 1998.
Early life
Needham was born in Denton, Lancashire, and ...
, 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 films and television series, correlated with actors and actresses appearing therein. On October 17, 1990, Needham developed and posted a collection of
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
shell script
A shell script is a computer program designed to be run by a Unix shell, a command-line interpreter. The various dialects of shell scripts are considered to be scripting languages. Typical operations performed by shell scripts include file manip ...
s that 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 fledgling
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
under the name of ''Cardiff Internet Movie Database''. The database resided on the servers of the computer science department of
Cardiff University
, latin_name =
, image_name = Shield of the University of Cardiff.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms of Cardiff University
, motto = cy, Gwirionedd, Undod a Chytgord
, mottoeng = Truth, Unity and Concord
, established = 1 ...
in Wales.
Rob Hartill
Robert Hartill (born 30 January 1969 in Pontypridd, Wales) is a computer programmer and web designer best known for his work on the Internet Movie Database website and the Apache web server and is notable for playing a key role in the initial gr ...
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
A mirror or looking glass is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the ...
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. General revenue for site operations was generated through advertising, licensing and partnerships.
As Amazon.com subsidiary (1998–present)
In 1998,
Jeff Bezos
Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ''né'' Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former preside ...
, founder, owner, and CEO of Amazon.com, struck a deal with Needham and other principal shareholders to buy IMDb outright; Amazon paid $55 million for IMDb and two other companies.
Bezos attached it to Amazon as a subsidiary, private company.
This gave IMDb the ability to pay the shareholders salaries for their work. In the process of expanding its product line, Amazon.com intended 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
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
. It provides a variety of services including film production and box office details, a company directory, and the ability of subscribers to add personal information pages.
From 1996 onwards, an annual newsletter email (archived on the website) has been sent from Col Needham to contributors on the first day of each calendar year. The annual newsletter lists various information about the past year on the site, including stats, top contributors tally for the year (the top 300 users, currently; fewer in previous years), and a perspective on the site's progress and future.
As an additional incentive for users, , 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 IMDb.de, in German. Also in 2008, IMDb acquired two other companies:
Withoutabox
Withoutabox was a website founded in January 2000 by David Straus, Joe Neulight and Charles Neulight which allowed independent filmmakers to self-distribute their films. The first product launched was the International Film Festival Submission sy ...
and
Box Office Mojo
Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb, which itself is owned by Amazon.
History
Brandon Gray began ...
.
The website was originally
Perl
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offici ...
-based, but IMDb no longer discloses what software it uses for reasons of security.
In 2010, the site was
filtered in China.
In 2016, ''The IMDb Studio at Sundance'' was launched, a talk show that is presented on ''IMDb'' and
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
.
In April 2017, IMDb celebrated its 25th anniversary. As of that year, Needham was still managing IMDb from its main office in
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
in the
Castlemead
Castlemead is the second tallest high-rise building in Bristol, England, after Castle Park View topped out in 2020. Designed by A.J. Hines and started in 1973, work was halted by a recession in the property market and it was completed in 1981. ...
office tower.
IMDbPro
Actors, crew, and industry executives can post their own resume and upload photos of themselves for a yearly membership fee to IMDbPro. IMDbPro can be accessed by anyone willing to pay the annual fee of 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. IMDbPro also allows existing actors to claim their name page. Enrolling in IMDbPro enables members who are industry personnel to upload a head shot to open their page, as well as 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.
Character filmographies
On October 2, 2007, character filmographies were 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.
Streaming services
In January 2019, IMDb launched an
ad-supported
Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...
streaming service called Freedive. This was the company's second attempt at a streaming service; it launched a similar service in 2008.
In June 2019, Freedive was rebranded as IMDb TV.
In April 2022, the service was rebranded again as Amazon Freevee.
Content and format
Data provided by subjects
In 2006, IMDb introduced its "Résumé Subscription Service", where an actor or crew member can post their
résumé
A résumé, sometimes spelled resume (or alternatively resumé), also called a curriculum vitae (CV), is a document created and used by a person to present their background, skills, and accomplishments. Résumés can be used for a variety of re ...
and upload photos for a yearly fee. 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 was included as part of an IMDbPro subscription and is no longer offered as a separate subscription service.
Copyright, vandalism and error issues
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. However, 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
Discogs
Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...
, or
OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed g ...
, or Wikipedia, in that contributors can't 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 a
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
license (CC BY) and the
GFDL
The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the r ...
. 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, unlike other AI-automated queries, does not provide an
API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...
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
A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...
tools provided. There is also a Java-based
graphical user interface
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
(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
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
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
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
,
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
, French, German,
Hungarian, Italian,
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
, Spanish and
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
**Romanian cuisine, traditional ...
). 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 :''Concerning rating scales as systems of educational marks, see articles about education in different countries (named "Education in ..."), for example, Education in Ukraine.''
:''Concerning rating scales used in the practice of medicine, see arti ...
that allows users to rate films on a scale of one to ten.
IMDb indicates that submitted ratings are filtered and weighted in various ways to produce a
weighted mean
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
that is displayed for each film, series, and so on. It states that filters are used to avoid
ballot stuffing
Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...
; 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
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
of the top rated 250 films, based on ratings by the registered users of the website using the methods described. , ''
The Shawshank Redemption
''The Shawshank Redemption'' is a 1994 American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont, based on the 1982 Stephen King novella ''Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption''. It tells the story of banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), w ...
'', directed by
Frank Darabont
Frank Árpád Darabont (born Ferenc Árpád Darabont, January 28, 1959) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. In his early career, he was primarily a sc ...
, is No. 1 on the list, and has been since 2008.
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:
where:
* is the weighted rating;
* is the mean rating for the movie, from 1 to 10;
* is the number of votes for the movie;
* is the minimum votes required to be listed in the Top 250 (currently 25,000); and
* is the mean vote across the whole report (currently 7.0).
The variable in this formula is equivalent to a Bayesian posterior mean (''see
Bayesian statistics
Bayesian statistics is a theory in the field of statistics based on the Bayesian interpretation of probability where probability expresses a ''degree of belief'' in an event. The degree of belief may be based on prior knowledge about the event, ...
'').
The IMDb also has a Bottom 100 feature which is assembled through a similar process although only 10,000 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.
Reference view
IMDb originally used a more sidebar/list-based view on title pages. However, in 2010 the site updated pages to more free-flowing layouts, and offered logged-in users an "advanced view" site preference setting called "Combined view", or this could be done on an ad-hoc basis by simply adding
/combined
to the end of the
URL
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...
(e.g. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2358891/combined), for users to choose should they prefer the older page view display method or to aid the editing of data.
In 2017, some alterations were made to this advanced view, and the setting was renamed "Reference view", again also able to be accessed ad-hoc by simply adding
/reference
to the end of the URL (e.g. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2358891/reference), with the former
/combined
URLs made to link to the newer
/reference
ones.
Message boards
Beginning in 2001, the Internet Movie Database also maintained message boards for every title (excepting, , TV episodes) and name entry, along with over 140 main boards. 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
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
. 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
Web scraping, web harvesting, or web data extraction is data scraping used for extracting data from websites. Web scraping software may directly access the World Wide Web using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol or a web browser. While web scraping ...
. Archive.org and MovieChat.org have published IMDb message board archives, which is legal under the
fair use doctrine
Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...
, because it has no effect on IMDb's potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Statistics
, IMDb has the following statistics:
Litigation
In 2011, in the case of ''
Hoang v. Amazon.com, Inc.'', IMDb was sued by an anonymous actress for at least because the movie website publicly disclosed her age (40, at the time) without her consent. The actress claimed that revealing her age could cause her to lose acting opportunities. Judge
Marsha J. Pechman, a US 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
Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party ...
claim against IMDb; a jury then sided with IMDb on that claim. The
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts:
* District ...
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
TiVo Corporation, formerly known as the Rovi Corporation and Macrovision Solutions Corporation, was an American technology company. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the company is primarily involved in licensing its intellectual property ...
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
The Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA, stylized as SAG·AFTRA ) is an American labor union representing approximately 160,000 film and television actors, journalists, radio personalities, record ...
-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
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
winners and another 71 nominated for Oscars,
Emmys
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
, or
Golden Globes
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
.
On February 23, 2017, Judge
Vince Girdhari Chhabria
Vince Girdhari Chhabria (born November 27, 1969) is a United States federal judge, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and formerly a Deputy City Attorney at the San Francisco, ...
issued a stay on the bill pending a further trial, claiming that it possibly violated the
First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
because it inhibited the public consumption of information. He also questioned the intent of the bill, as it was ostensibly meant to target IMDb.
Birth names publication policy
IMDb had long maintained that it would keep all valid information, but changed that policy related to birth names on August 12, 2019. IMDb will now remove birth names that are not widely and publicly known, of persons who no longer use their birth names.
This was done in response to pressure from
LGBTQ
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is a ...
groups against the publication of transgender birth names without their consent, which is called "
deadnaming
Deadnaming is the act of referring to a transgender or non-binary person by a name they used prior to transitioning, such as their birth name. Deadnaming may be unintentional, or a deliberate attempt to deny, mock or invalidate a person's gend ...
". Any name a person had previously been credited under, however, continues to be maintained in the credits section.
See also
*
All Media Network
RhythmOne , previously known as Blinkx, and also known as RhythmOne Group, is an American digital advertising technology company that owns and operates the web properties AllMusic, AllMovie, and SideReel.
Blinkx was founded in 2004, went publi ...
– a commercial database combining information from the older
AllMovie
AllMovie (previously All Movie Guide) is an online database with information about films, television programs, and screen actors. , AllMovie.com and the AllMovie consumer brand are owned by RhythmOne.
History
AllMovie was founded by popular-cult ...
and
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
sites
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Animator.ru
Animator.ru is a Russian website chronicling the films, people and studios of the animation industry in Russia, the former Soviet Union and (to a lesser extent) the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It also includes a forum, a news block, ...
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Bibliographic database
A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records, an organized digital collection of references to published literature, including journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publications, p ...
(Internet Book Database; IBookDb)
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Big Cartoon DataBase
The Big Cartoon DataBase (or BCDB for short) is an online database of information about animated cartoons, animated feature films, animated television shows, and cartoon shorts.
The BCDB project began in 1997 as a list of Disney animated featu ...
(BCDB)
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DBCult Film Institute
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Discogs
Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...
– music release reference guide and sales site
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Douban
Douban.com (), launched on 6 March 2005, is a Chinese online database and social networking service that allows registered users to record information and create content related to film, books, music, recent events, and activities in Chinese c ...
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Filmweb
Filmweb is an online database of information related to films, television series, actors and film crew personnel. Since 2011, the database also contains video games. Filmweb was launched on March 18, 1998. It is a Polish-language site, and the la ...
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FindAnyFilm
FindAnyFilm is an online film search service, which aggregates film and film availability information into one place. Users are able to find movies based on search terms including titles, actors, genres, or cinema names.
It was launched on 28 Ja ...
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Flickchart
Flickchart is a Florida-based movie-ranking and social networking website.
Description
Launched in September 2009, Flickchart is the brainchild of web programmer Jeremy Thompson and web designer Nathan Chase. The impetus behind the site's crea ...
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Goodreads
Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and read ...
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Grand Comics Database
The Grand Comics Database (GCD) is an Internet-based project to build a database of comic book information through user contributions. The GCD project catalogues information on creator credits, story details, reprints, and other information useful ...
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Internet Adult Film Database
The Internet Adult Film Database (IAFD) is an online database of information pertaining to, in United States, the pornography industry: actors, actresses, directors, studios, distributors and pornographic films.
History
The predecessor to IAFD ...
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Internet Movie Cars Database
Internet Movie Cars Database, often abbreviated as IMCDb, is an online database of auto, motorcycle and other motor vehicle appearances in films. The website was created in 2004 with a name similar to Internet Movie Database.
History
The proj ...
(IMCDb)
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Internet Movie Firearms Database
The Internet Movie Firearms Database (IMFDb) is an online database of firearms used or featured in films, television shows, video games, and anime. A wiki running the MediaWiki software, it is similar in function (although unaffiliated) to the Int ...
(IMFDb)
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Internet Broadway Database
The Internet Broadway Database (IBDB) is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It was conceived and created by Karen Hauser in 1996 and is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade assoc ...
(IBDb)
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Internet Off-Broadway Database
The Internet Off-Broadway Database (IOBDB), also formerly known as the Lortel Archives, is an online database that catalogues theatre productions shown off-Broadway.
The IOBDB was funded and developed by the non-profit Lucille Lortel Foundation ...
(IOBDb)
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Internet Speculative Fiction Database
The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) is a database of bibliographic information on genres considered speculative fiction, including science fiction and related genres such as fantasy, alternate history, and horror fiction. The ISFDB ...
(ISFDb)
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Internet Theatre Database
The Internet Theatre Database (ITDb) is an online database with information about plays, playwrights, actors, legitimate theatre, musical theatre, Broadway shows, and similar theatrical information.
The website is run by several volunteer theatre ...
(ITDb)
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Letterboxd
Letterboxd is an online social networking service co-founded by Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow in 2011. It was launched as a social app focused on sharing opinions about, and love of film, and is maintained by a small team in Auckland, New ...
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Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
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Open Movie Database
Open or OPEN may refer to:
Music
* Open (band), Australian pop/rock band
* The Open (band), English indie rock band
* ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969
* ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999
* ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001
* ''Open'' (YF ...
(OMDb)
*
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
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The Numbers
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TheTVDB
TheTVDB.com is a community driven database of television shows. All content and images on the site have been contributed by the site's users; the site uses moderated editing to maintain its own standards.
Purpose
The stated aim to be the most co ...
References
External links
* – official site
{{Authority control
1990 establishments in the United Kingdom
1998 mergers and acquisitions
Amazon (company) acquisitions
American film websites
British companies established in 1990
British film websites
Entertainment companies established in 1990
Internet properties established in 1990
Online film databases
Online person databases
Recommender systems
Social cataloging applications
Television websites
Webby Award winners