Subject: The Films Done Gone: Eldred's potential affect on 1927-1946 Cinem a
Date: Wednesday, December 4, 2002 1:11 AM
From: Jason Schultz <snip>
To: [snip]

Leave it to the Internet Movie Database.

Turns out that IMDB now offers a subscription membership (a bargain @
$12.95/month, I think) that gives you acccess to their database in
more depth.  In particular, you can do advances search by (among other
criteria) Date of Release and Availability on VHS, DVD, Pay-Per-View,
and Now Playing.

I ran the numbers for 1927-1946.  (see below for the search terms and
result numbers; Note: I searched in the categories of Movies, Short,
Video, TV Movie, TV Series, and Video Game -- not that there would be
many video games or TV before 1947 :).

According to IMDB:

* 36,386 titles were released from 1927-1946.  (This is pretty close
to the 37,144 number we got from the Copyright Office).

Of those:

* only 2,480 are available on VHS;
* only 871 are available on DVD;
* only 114 are available on Pay-Per-View; and
* only 13 are available in theaters.

I have not checked the lists for overlap, but I would assume that the
VHS list includes the others.

If that assumption is correct, then only 2,480 out of 36,386 titles
from 1927-1946 are available, or 6.8%.  93.2% are commercially
dormant.

If we assume each list contains unique films, then only 3,478 titles
from 1927-1946 are available, or 9.6%.  90.4% are commercially
dormant.

p.s. While IMDB does not guarantee that it has 100% accurate
information, most people acknowledge that it has the most complete
publicly available database of movies on the Internet.  At a minimum,
it gives us a starting point to challenge the AOL-TW premise and force
them come up with better numbers.


> Search: "Earliest release between January 1927 and December 1946 and
On VHS and Display Release Year, US Box Office, Biggest Weekend,
Budget sorted by Release Year"  <edit?query_id=35090> Edit query
<edit?query_id=35090> 	
> 
> Found 2480 matching titles:	
> 
> 
> Search: "Earliest release between January 1927 and December 1946 and
On DVD and Display Release Year, US Box Office, Biggest Weekend,
Budget sorted by Release Year"  <edit?query_id=35090> Edit query
<edit?query_id=35090> 	
> 
> Found 871 matching titles:	
> 
> 
> 	
> Search: "Earliest release between January 1927 and December 1946 and
On TV and Display Release Year, US Box Office, Biggest Weekend, Budget
sorted by Release Year"  <edit?query_id=35090> Edit query
<edit?query_id=35090> 	
> 
> Found 114 matching titles:	
> 
> Search: "Earliest release between January 1927 and December 1946 and
Now Playing and Display Release Year, US Box Office, Biggest Weekend,
Budget sorted by Release Year"  <edit?query_id=35090> Edit query
<edit?query_id=35090> 	
> 
> Found 13 matching titles:	
> 
> Search: "Earliest release between January 1927 and December 1946 and
Display Release Year, US Box Office, Biggest Weekend, Budget sorted by
Release Year"  <edit?query_id=35087> << OLE Object: Picture (Metafile)
>> Edit query <edit?query_id=35087> 	
> 
> Found 36386 matching titles:	
> 
>