Internet Movie Database

Internet Movie Database to acquire indie-film service
Amazon.com is delving even deeper into the film industry, with subsidiary Internet Movie Database signing a deal to acquire Withoutabox.

Withoutabox develops online tools and operates a service to aid independent filmmakers in submitting their work to festivals worldwide and in promoting their films.

Withoutabox, based in Los Angeles, said it has worked with 150,000 filmmakers since its founding in 2000. The Internet Movie Database draws more than 50 million unique visitors each month with its searchable database of movies, TV, and entertainment programs.

The definitive agreement, announced Thursday, is designed to offer a wider selection of films to Internet Movie Database users and to vastly broaden the audience for filmmakers that use Withoutabox.

"For eight years, Withoutabox has enabled filmmakers and festivals to reach the widest audience possible," David Straus, Withoutabox's CEO, said in a statement. "Now, they will be able to connect directly with the 50 million film lovers who visit (IMDB.com) each month."

Amazon itself has been dabbling with Hollywood content for years, including selling and renting downloads of movies and TV shows via Unbox.

Under the agreement, the Internet Movie Database will operate Withoutabox as a standalone entity.

The terms and timing of when the deal might close were not disclosed. As the saying in Hollywood goes, it's "hush, hush."

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information related to movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. IMDb launched on October 17, 1990, and in 1998 was acquired by Amazon.com.

The IMDb website consists of the largest accumulation of data about films, television programs, direct-to-video products, and video games, reaching back to each medium's respective beginning. In many cases, the information goes beyond simple title or press credits to include complete cast and crew credits, uncredited personnel, production and distribution companies, plot summaries, memorable quotes, awards, reviews, box office performance, filming locations, technical specs, promotional content, trivia, and links to official and other websites. Furthermore, the IMDb tracks titles in production, including major announced projects still in development. The database also houses filmographies for all persons, cast and crew, identified in listed titles. Filmographies include biographical details, awards listings, external links, and information about other professional work not covered by title entries in the database such as theatrical and commercial advertising appearances. The IMDb also offers ancillary material such as daily movie and TV news, weekly box office reports, TV listings, cinema showtimes, user polls and ratings, and special features about various movie events such as the Academy Awards. The website also has an active message board system. There are message boards for each database entry, found at the bottom of each respective page, as well as general discussion boards on various topics.

The IMDb website is essentially a free site. All of the basic database information is available without registration and without providing any personal information. However, to submit information or to use the message boards or some other features the IMDb requires registration. Some advanced features require verification which can sometimes require some personal financial information such as credit card details. Any person with an e-mail account and a web browser that accepts cookies can set up an account with IMDb that allows them to submit information and engage in many other site activities. IMDb has 57 million visitors, 17 million of which are registered users, as of October 10, 2007.

Site visitors wishing only to view information without accessing interactive features are able to do so without registration and without providing any personal information. Database content is largely provided and updated by a cadre of volunteer contributors; although 20 members of the IMDb staff are dedicated to monitoring received data.For automated queries, most of the database can be downloaded as compressed plain text files and the information can be extracted using the tools provided, typically using a command line interface.

In 2002, the IMDb spun off a private, subscription-funded for profit site, IMDbPro, offering the entire content of the database plus additional information for business professionals, such as personnel contact details, titles in development, movie event calendars, and a greater range of industry news.

In 2006, IMDb introduced its "Resume subscription service", where actors and crew can post their own resume and upload photos of themselves for a yearly fee. IMDb resume pages are kept separately from the regular entry about that person, but a regular entry is automatically created for each resume subscriber who does not already have one