Contribution Guidelines Update: Regional Company Pages

We’d like to announce a clarification to the contribution guidelines for companies and company filmographies. Companies should not have separate IMDb pages for each region they have distribution or sales credits in. If a certain company has distribution or sales credits in more than one region, then those credits should all appear on a single page.

Cases in which there should be more than one separate company pages:

• When two companies are completely different companies and are not affiliated in any way.
• When two companies are affiliated but different companies. For example, Lionsgate [US] (registered as Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.), is an American entertainment company, currently headquartered in Santa Monica, California. There is a different company called Lionsgate UK [GB],(formerly Redbus Film Distribution, and briefly known as Helkon SK between 2001and 2003), which is a British subsidiary of Lionsgate [US].

Cases in which there should be only a single company page:

• When there is more than one page for the same company. This includes when a company has multiple pages that simply represent the fact that the same company once distributed or sold in that region. For example, Lionsgate [US] distributed A Simple Favor (2018) in Ireland, so this credit should be listed on Lionsgate [US] and not a separate page called Lionsgate [IE] (as such we will be moving this credit over in the near future).

As per the pre-existing guideline, company country codes should continue to reflect the company’s headquarters. For example, Lionsgate [US] is currently headquartered in Santa Monica, California, United States. It should (and does) therefore have the country code [US] in its name.

Over the coming months we will be merging these different regional pages into a single page for each company. For example, there are currently 26 different regional pages for Netflix, such as Netflix [US], Netflix [ES], Netflix [JP] etc. We will merge Netflix [ES], Netflix [JP] etc. into the single Netflix [US] page, as that’s where Netflix’s headquarters is.

To stop these regional pages being generated going forward, we have created a new warning in the contribution form: "A company's regional distribution and sales credits should all be added to the same single company page. Please do not create separate company pages for each region a company has distributed or sold in."

We have also updated the following pages in our contribution guides:

• Company Data
• Distributors

Please note that the regional data for distribution and sales credits will continue to be captured in the “region” attribute for each individual credit. Likewise, the regional data for Production credits will continue to be captured in the “country of origin” data for the relevant title. Regional information for these credits will therefore be preserved with this change. For example, A Simple Favor (2018) was distributed by Lionsgate [US] in both the United States and Ireland, so Lionsgate [US] and A Simple Favor (2018) will share two separate company filmography items; one with the attributes “Distributor (2018)(Theatrical) (United States)”, and another with the attributes “Distributor (2018) (Theatrical) (Ireland)”. Therefore we will still capture the fact that Lionsgate distributed the title in both regions.

We are aware that this will present some new challenges in viewing the data, in some scenarios. For example, Title Reference View currently displays the company-level country code next to each company’s credits, as opposed to the region attribute of the credit. This is a known issue that we realize will be compounded by this change and we have a ticket open for it.

We’re also aware that many contributors rely on Company Search Pages. You will no longer be able to use this page to view the distribution or sales credits a company has within only a specified region. If you rely heavily on the regional separation of credits on this page, then please let us know with a reply on this thread.

Please do also let us know with a reply on this thread if you have any other questions or concerns.