I think the site needs to be redesigned to have its own distinctive look. If this place has its own look and format, then there is no reason for IMDB to ever decide to mess with us. (This forum even its own IMDB Boards section at the bottom) I worry that keeping this IMDB theme, especially with the boards being the EXACT same as IMDB, is just inviting trouble.
How about when the majority of people use the term “Nazis”, they arent referring to actual Nazis. You and I both know it has been reappropiated to mean something else. I dont know why you felt the need to be the PC police.
The trade dress of this site is CLEARLY copied from IMDB.
And, as I have mentioned in the original post, there are forums clearly marked IMDB on this site.
Not a lawyer, but I think the first step is an official Cease and Desist demand. Then, the recipient weighs their options. If need be they just change the look, and there's nothing "actionable".
copyright infringement means exactly that; encroaching on, or otherwise adapting the appearance of an established entity, let alone naming them while doing so.
try and open a burger chain with an upside-down "golden arches" forming a "W" — then see how fast you find yourself in court.
Well i hope they do bring this shithole down, because it doesnt have many good users anyway. 10-40 of the posters here are all worthless trolls with no life. Gosh this place sucks ass. I am going back to IMDb2 where actual discussion is taking place.
learn how to use a semi colon you retard. also the oh so cool ' -- ' and ' — '. All of these wannabe writers who haven't even read a book and follow meaningless fads.
Jim does mention that he was a lawyer for 4 years, in his "Welcome to MovieChat.org" post, before becoming a software engineer so he probably knows the boundaries if there are any.
I understand your concern. I don't know anything copyright laws and was kind of wondering the same thing. When MovieChat becomes more popular - maybe bringing in ad revenue to keep it afloat - will IMDB go after it, claiming "hey, those are OUR posts you are using and profiting from."
Here's what Jim said on the matter in the Welcome Thread:
"2. Are there legal concerns about archiving IMDB's posts?
No. Before I became a software engineer, I was a lawyer for 4 years practicing in the IP and copyright space, and thus I have a deep understanding of the current situation, which is partly why I decided to start this site. Furthermore, I have spoke with several individuals at AMZN/IMDB, all of whom state that the message boards are of absolute minimum value/concern to the company, and it is highly unlikely that the company would pursue any legal action should someone attempt to archive the boards. In fact, IMDB was actually considering creating an API / data extraction tool to allow users to retrieve whatever they wanted before the boards shut down, but they decided it just wasn't enough of a priority for them (it wouldn't bring in any revenue, so why should they do it?). The (much) more likely scenario is that a few individual users may directly request to have their posts removed (much like you can request Google to remove personal information about you from its search results). Such an action would have a very minimal effect on the overall content of our site."
I'm not sure IMDb can say "hey, these are our posts" if they discarded them.
It wold be so double-faced to throw posts in a trash bin, but when someone takes them out of a trash bin and use them, to remember they used to be yours. That would be really low, even for IMDb.
I'm not sure how copyrights work on something like that. I would think the posts belong to whoever wrote them so I wonder if someone didn't want their posts transferred that could be a problem, but I doubt anyone would have too serious of an issue with that.
I also think that the look should be changed a bit. Not too drastically, but just enough to differentiate it from IMDb.
My preference would be to give it a movie-themed makeover (after, that's in keeping with this site's purpose). Look at the movie theater curtains on each side of the page on the forum linked to below:
I'd like something like that here. It's very visually pleasing and evocative. Also, I'd like the main MovieChat logo changed from the yellow rectangle it is now (which is too reminiscent of IMDb) and make it look like a film reel, movie camera, or movie projector.