IMDB's (and NetFlix's) source of film trailers drying up? (1 Viewer)

[David Lambert]

I'm not certain if this is the right section for this post; mods feel free to move this if another section is more appropriate.
Video Store Magazine posted this article about how a judge has ruled that Video Pipeline (supplier of film trailers to the IMDB/Amazon, NetFlix, Yahoo! Shopping, and others) is likely to NOT prevail at trial. This is in regard to a lawsuit brought by Buena Vista (Disney) against Video Pipeline supplying these trailers to their customers.
For full details, read the article which I have linked to. Here are the basics (I snipped a lot, so if you want to read the whole thing, then go straight to the article and skip the quotes below):

A New Jersey judge has dealt a severe blow to preview supplier Video Pipeline in its copyright dispute with Buena Vista Home Entertainment, finding that neither the First Sale doctrine nor the fair use defense protects Video Pipeline's homegrown trailers.
Judge Jerome B. Simandle's order barring Video Pipeline from using its trailers for 62 test titles on its Web site found, among other things, that Video Pipeline's trailers in some cases substantially distorted either the technical quality of or the studio's marketing message about the titles, potentially harming the films' video profits.
"It is likely that the previews Video Pipeline provides for its retailer customers may harm the market for the copyrighted motion picture, either due to the quality of the previews or because if its flawed representations," Simandle wrote.
The decision is critical because Simandle's legal burden was to predict which side is likely to prevail at trial.
Video Pipeline has agreements with 25 etailers including Netflix.com Amazon.com/IMDb, and Yahoo! Shopping that pay "per megabyte actually downloaded to consumers," according to court papers.
As a result, the judge ruled, Video Pipeline is profiting from the trailers themselves, not from using them to market other products, thus is does not share the protections
"Congress intended for copyright infringement to occur when images of a copy of copyrighted work are displayed to members of the public located other than where the copy is located," he wrote.
Simandle gave Video Pipeline 10 days to banish the trailers from its Web site; stop circulating them or using the Buena Vista, Miramax, Walt Disney and Touchstone names in connection with them; and told Video Pipeline not to make any more.

 

[LukeB]

Ah, so that's why today, the first time I decide to actually go check out the trailers they have at IMDb, I get "Preview Temporarily Unavailable".
What luck! :frowning:

 

[Dwayne]

That really blows.

Maybe the studios could provide the trailers to IMDB if they feel that they are being mis-represented.

Of course, this could have nothing to do with being mis-represented and more with Di$ney not getting paid.

 

[Nick Graham]

Honestly, a lot of those trailers are/were in pretty bad shape in terms of quality and bandwidth, bit it was still a nice feature. Also, how ironic is it that it is Buena Vista suing them, considering it looks like even on more popular catalog titles (i.e. Dick Tracy) the trailer will not be included on the DVD release.