This is funny site. i wonder how it happens that this site is still alive.
All this idea of selling copyrighted material "for few cents" is really funny. it is like selling stolen cars for 50 buck each.
I have question to owner of this site - do you buy illegal dvd's? do you buy pirated music online? do you drive stolen car which you bought for 50 dollars? if not - why do you sell images which are not your property?
Do you like posters? Are they worth anything for you? Do you respect the designers of these posters?
Maybe you think that poster designers are millionaires who can do their design job for fun not for living?
I personally know few designers who work very and do their perfect job. They do this for living. Then they get money from the the sales of their work, but then your site is elling their images (who allowed you to sell their work?) and some other thieves are doing illegal reprints for sale on ebay or on moviegods.com (should be called movethievescom)

What would you tell to designers who are doing their living form their work and they are robbed trough your site?
I can forward your answer to few designers which I know personally - their posters are on this site..
You can also of course remove this post, but it will be one very easy answer to all my questions.
KaeM

in fact I think at the start of this website the owner, jayef, didn't think about the selling part, it was just a website with a database to download movie posters, but badly some of the most seller on the internet like moviegoods or moviepostershop start to download posters here and print them and sell them without any licence, the funny thing is that I found some of the custom posters I've done on their website, they said to me that they have the authorisation to print them, but curiously, I just uploaded them on this website, so they usually download posters here and sell them after on their website and on ebay.

this website was great to get a huge database to know every posters who were done for each movies, but now it's more than a huge business for selling reprint movie posters website...that's too bad


I just add a quote from the purpuse wrote on the site

"The main purpose of the MoviePosterDB.com website is to provide a database with movie posters that is as complete as possible. All movie posters are free to download as a 300 pixels wide jpeg file.
The principle of the website is that a user uploads a poster, and then can download one other poster. Therefore, MoviePosterDB.com is NOT a commercial site."

I am sure that owner of this site will be REALLY surprised when he sees some day
moviethieves.com telling in a court that they got permission for printing their posters from movieposterdb.com And then the court (and copyright owners) will ask for big money here.
moviegoods is buying their material here and they for sure will rent good
lawyers to proof that they have permissions purchased here.
that would be BAD day for movieposterdb.com

You should have read the about and the FAQ. We state that WE think it is illegal to print these images, let alone that we'd ever gave explicit permission to anyone for printing them.

Furthermore, I'm currently working on an improved version of the website, which will give more attention to the designers (to 'give them respect', as you said it).

And how much money do you think we make with this? There's also a server which we have to pay, you know.

Also I've once sent an email to Fox Searchlight asking if they were okay with a MoviePictureDB.com. The response I got was very vague, they seemed totally uninterested.

Anyway, what is your advice? Should we set up some hell of an administrative system to pay designers a few penny's every month?

> You should have read the about and the FAQ. We state that WE think it is illegal to print these images, let alone that we'd ever gave explicit permission to anyone for printing them.

Yes, I have read the FAQ and the about sections. It is ok, but is just formal
writing.
How many users would you have on this site of these were ONLY users who just
want digital collection of images and not printed copies?


> Furthermore, I'm currently working on an improved version of the website, which will give more attention to the designers (to 'give them respect', as you said it).

the best way to more attention to designers would be to ask them (most of the
designers of newer posters can be contacted by email) if it is ok to sell their
work in high resolution that allows reproductions. If they say - yes, there is
absolutely no any reason not to do this.

> And how much money do you think we make with this? There's also a server which we have to pay, you know.

If you are selling something that is not your property, the price is absolutely
not important. Ironically if you would make the price of high resolution images
at $20 each you would help more yourself and designers and copyright owners.
Why? - simple if someone has an option of buying stolen item for twenty buck or
legit item for 25 bucks the choice in most cases would be to go the legit way.
but of the choice is to pay 5 cents or 25 dollars, most people choose 5 cents
versions explaining it for their own use that it is nothing bad, it can be easy
forgotten...

> Also I've once sent an email to Fox Searchlight asking if they were okay with a MoviePictureDB.com. The response I got was very vague, they seemed totally uninterested.

Employees in large companies have their specific functions and it is really
difficult to find someone who is responsible for specific thing. Try the same
with any smaller company - you can easy contact people who paid money from
their pocket to get the artwork done and printed.

At the moment you have 8 posters on your site which I published. I own the
copyrights for them. I paid for designers, for printing and distribution. For
luck they are here in low resolution. It costs me $2000 to produce each of
these posters so if I see them reprinted and sold on ebay makes me crazy.

Have you ever done something that was stolen and commercially distributed
online? - that's nice experience.


> Anyway, what is your advice? Should we set up some hell of an administrative system to pay designers a few penny's every month?

There is no way to do this. It is easier to ask designers if they allow for
selling high-res files of their work.

I am also sending you list of posters to be removed from the site immediately.

Why can't you moaning copyright-holders be constructive and post a list of contacts of owners who offer their posters for digital reproduction?

I'd be happy to pay to license high quality material; if the fee were commercially viable.

I would be interested in licensing 1000s of classic movie posters for making into high resolution prints.

If copyright holders took their thumb out of their a** and become a bit more pro-active in offering their content for sale in a digital format, you'd probably be surprised at the level of commercial uptake of such offers.

kaem wrote:
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> Furthermore, I'm currently working on an improved version of the website, which will give more attention to the designers (to 'give them respect', as you said it).

the best way to more attention to designers would be to ask them (most of the designers of newer posters can be contacted by email) if it is ok to sell their work in high resolution that allows reproductions. If they say - yes, there is absolutely no any reason not to do this.
-----------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------

You confuse designers and copyright owners. Most of designs are not the property of their designer, so even if he wants the posters to be shown here, if the copyright owner (usually distribution company) don't want them to be shown here, we have to delete them. And I tell you this because it happens and it's the truth, most designers have no word on this because sadly they don't own copyrights.

It's like movies made of comics by Alan Moore, he has not the full property of the copyrights, and has no enough to refuse his work to be sold or remade, so even he hates movies made of his work, he has no nothing to say about it (only refuse intelectual property, but nothing economically).

kaem wrote:
-----------------------------------------------------------
> And how much money do you think we make with this? There's also a server which we have to pay, you know.

If you are selling something that is not your property, the price is absolutely not important. Ironically if you would make the price of high resolution images at $20 each you would help more yourself and designers and copyright owners.
Why? - simple if someone has an option of buying stolen[they are not stolen, they are digital copies] item for twenty buck or legit item for 25 bucks the choice in most cases would be to go the legit way.
but of the choice is to pay 5 cents or 25 dollars, most people choose 5 cents versions explaining it for their own use that it is nothing bad, it can be easy forgotten...
-----------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------

Most of the posters cannot be found for buying them in a legal way, no for 5 cents, no for 100$. Ironically, the usual way for buy them is not legal at all, as original posters are promotional material and they can't be sold (and when they are sold, the only one that earns something is the one at the theatre that sells them and has no copyright for selling them, and maybe not even own the specific print he sells).

kaem wrote:
-----------------------------------------------------------
At the moment you have 8 posters on your site which I published. I own the copyrights for them. I paid for designers, for printing and distribution. For luck they are here in low resolution. It costs me $2000 to produce each of these posters so if I see them reprinted and sold on ebay makes me crazy.
-----------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------

a) As you say, you own the copyright, not the designer that has already earn the money for his work, so why would we ask to designer, the one that makes the work, if he has no copyright for them?

b) Where could be those bought legally?

Sorry to just jump in here, but I just found this site and within 5 minutes I went from incredibly excited about finding a database with pretty much every movie poster I was looking for, to disgusted that someone is trying to profit from it. What this site is doing is no different than selling pirated DVD's or CD's...you are profiting off of someone else's work with no right to do so. Even if you were only selling them for a few cents apiece, they are not yours to sell. The fact that they are digital copies means absolutely nothing, nor does their availability if you wanted to buy them legally. I would like to buy the Mona Lisa legally, but since it isn't available to me that doesn't mean that I am allowed to buy an unauthorized copy of it. If you can't figure out how to pay the server costs on your own without charging people for other people's work, that is YOUR problem, no one else's.

There's no profit, there are costs of server. And you don't have to pay, you can be part of the page and upload posters. It's like Walden II, you do things and earn credits you can use in getting something other one upload. If you can't or don't want to help us that way, you can help with the server costs, what we want is to have the biggest movie poster database.

"I would like to buy the Mona Lisa legally, but since it isn't available to me that doesn't mean that I am allowed to buy an unauthorized copy of it."

Just wanted you to know that the fact is that you can. In fact, there are no authorized copies and everyone can makes profit selling Mona Lisa material. So, if it's the dream of your live having a copy, you are free to do it

What you can't do is selling a copy saying it's original.

I just had to post a reply to this.

I am actually due to start a Advertising & Design degree on 21st September, so this is very interesting.

I own and run two movie poster websites.

Those who are complaining about the guys who run this site - give them a break!

I mean, it costs a lot of money to set up a website, maintain it, and actually run it!

THIS SITE IS A BRILLIANT IDEA!

One of my poster sites is a reference only website - that means I do not sell from it, however, once I get it completed I will be asking for donations because IT COSTS A LOT OF MONEY TO RUN THE SITE AND TO ADVERTISE IT!!!!!

That guy who complained about the images - Kaem - Come on! You're complaining to the Heavens about the designers work being used when you didn't even design the damn things!

What you should really be doing - if you are so bothered - is asking yourself HOW any website can get a very good digital image of a particular poster you have the copyright to? If you didn't release it, then someone else YOU TRUSTED did.

However - if the image has been taken by another party (someone took a photo of the poster) I am sorry to say, you have no right to that image! That's life! Live with it! Shit happens! So just SMILE and thank God you're 'work' is being coveted the world over!

Adz931

complainers ... get a life!

I think this site is an invaluable data base for movie posters and showcase one of the benefits of the internet in its ability to create a historical archive that is easily accessible. Think of all the hard work of artists and designers that would be lost and never appreciated if sites like these didn't exist. I am quite happy to pay such a small price for this access and I am happy as a designer of posters that are on this site for them to be accessed this way. Who cares if I go to my grave a few dollars short, at least my posters will be still around.

rgrantshowtime ... thanks for the good words. thats exactly the way a designer should look at it. i design myself, don't really see any reason why to miss out on free promotion! jay