Stop using and recommending pirate sources for screencaps.

If some volunteers are using and recommending pirate sources (such as unauthorized uploads of TV episodes) to obtain credit screencaps, I hereby challenge them to stop, and I challenge IMDb to issue an edict against this practice. If it is even legal (is it?) to post such screencaps on this public board, shouldn't such evidence be collected only from authorized sources, never from pirated uploads?

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ljdoncel

Champion

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1.1K Messages

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51.5K Points

8 years ago

(assuming you're including me among those "some volunteers"...)

Wow, now I see you had opened a new thread without even waiting for an answer/explanation to the question/mild accusation you made to me in the other thread.

You use to declare about yourself that "you're notoriously lazy, not a real data-entry volunteer". Well, then you probably don't know how it feels to spend 8 or 10 consecutive hours auditing the credits of one single title, researching each unknown name trying to link it to the proper roman numeral among several homographs, sometimes to only feed less than 50 new lines to the database. And all that for free (I'm not in the business, so having a Pro subscription for being a top contributor doesn't matter to me), just for the pleasure of improving a global cultural resource (a database about movies; the promotional or marketing sides of the site don't matter to me neither). What I mean is that I'm used to put a lot of effort when I contribute and, though the revenue is usually very small, I always think that the work is worthwhile...

But not today... Now I feel that the 2 hours or so that I've spent to sort Ms. Manera's problem are wasted time. 2 long hours just for a credit deletion and a credit addition (nothing new, sometimes that's the profit... and I understand that non-contributors don't understand it and may think that we're idiots) but the initial feeling of satisfaction due to the fact of having helped someone and having improved the database has turned into a bitter and disgusting sensation when someone is falsely accusing me of "recommending pirate sources" without giving me the opportunity to defend myself... I can live with the "much commitment-few gains" perception, but this does not compensate...

Muerto

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nobody_7029854

756 Messages

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29.6K Points

Any assumption that I targeted one volunteer personally is mistaken. If I'm not wrong in my assumption, over the years numerous contributors might have sometimes made use of e.g. YouTube (etc.) to source credits, and in some cases I think it's possible that some of those source videos might have been unauthorized uploads.

Is there any "better" way to obtain credit screencaps freely on an ongoing basis, without burdening volunteers with potentially cumbersome rental purchases and subscriptions to services that can provide the source material legally? Are unauthorized sources sometimes seemingly the only immediate practical way to quickly grab a needed screencap for free when we need it?

BTW, there is another parenthetical concern here. It is increasingly well-known that some pirated videos or unauthorized uploads might sometimes be altered or distorted or cropped etc. (Some pirates may use distortions or cropping in an effort to circumvent the Content ID system on YouTube, or for other reasons.) I think in some cases such alterations can possibly impact the display of credits; in fact I can give you one such example from my own experience.

Example: I once mistakenly visited a YT channel that pretended to be an official network source but turned out to be a pirate's channel. Having been fooled, at first I did not even realize that I was viewing a pirated pilot episode. I soon realized that the pirate had slightly cropped the video at the bottom, just exactly enough to completely remove the opening credits that were displayed there.

Such an example demonstrates that pirated videos cannot be trusted to be free of alterations that in some cases can potentially compromise the credits. But official and authorized sources generally can be trusted to be complete and correct.

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8 years ago

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mangoclowns

7 Messages

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140 Points

But not today... Now I feel that the 2 hours or so that I've spent to sort Ms. Manera's problem are wasted time.

Never wasted mate... keep up the good work you are appreciated.

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8 years ago

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nobody_7029854

Stop using and recommending pirate sources for screencaps.

ljdoncel

nobody_7029854

mangoclowns

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