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Updated Reviews of IMDb Message Board Replacements
Are the IMDb message board archives legal?
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You're welcome. Hope you found them useful.
<a href="http://movietvforums.com">MovieTVForums</a>
I second that.
<a href="http://movietvforums.com">MovieTVForums</a>
Hah!
<a href="http://movietvforums.com">MovieTVForums</a>
I really wondered about the copyright issue, too, so I did a lot of research on it. It can be found here:
<a href="http://movietvforums.com/imdb-message-board-archives-legal/">IMDb Message Board Archives: Are They Legal?</a>
I know it's a really long article, so I'm currently editing it for length, but it does cover a lot of the issues. I also have reviews of IMDb replacements on that site.
<a href="http://movietvforums.com">MovieTVForums</a>
Couldn't find forum statistics for Movie Chat. "Many" is a subjective word!
Some forums list stats; others don't. Some sites are on Alexa; others aren't (the free boards aren't). I initially wanted to list stats, but I couldn't find a good way to compare apples to apples, so I left it off. I'd still like to find a way to do it, though.
I agree with you completely. I believe, as you do, there were genuine financial and logistical constraints, but it was the way he announced the closing: so dismissive of the "small" but passionate community. "Small" is so demeaning. In other words, we don't matter. Like you say, if he had explained the genuine reasons, instead of giving us some vague explanation that really didn't make much sense, I would be a lot more forgiving.
I think part of the reason he didn't give us much notice about the closing was to discourage hackers from having enough time to download everything. So much for that idea.
Most of Col Needham's responses that I have published on my site were archived from a very long thread (over 25 pages) in IMDb's Contributor's Help forum before it closed. They are published legally under the Fair Use Doctrine.
Thanks, batman89. Hmmm . . . actors and celebrities. I guess I've been so focused on individual movie titles, that I have overlooked actors and celebrities. I promise it will be in the next update, which will be soon at this rate. Thanks for bringing that up!
Top cast members must be new, because it wasn't there last night. It's really hard to keep up with all the changes, because they happen every day. It does look like I'll have to update things regularly. Thank you for mentioning that.
Thank you!
It's a good question. In the eyes of the law, there's a huge difference (I worked in publishing for 16 years).
I often save web pages as html documents, or snap a screenshot, and save it on my hard drive. I can reference it whenever I want, and the copyright holder will probably never know. That's fine in the eyes of the law, and that's what IMDb gave us permission to do.
Making it public, or publishing it, on a website, or in a book, newspaper, magazine, etc. is an entirely different matter. You could benefit from someone else's work, and they could suffer because of it. That is what the copyright law addresses, and what this website could be in violation of. IMDb's terms specify that no data-scraping is allowed, and that's what this website did to get their archive.
I do appreciate you bringing it up, because it's an important point, and I went and clarified it in my article. So, thanks again!
I agree 100% with you. And the UI is easy to change.
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