Re: IMDB to MARC?

From: Galen Charlton <gmcharlt_at_nyob>
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2011 08:25:09 -0500
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Hi,

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 8:11 PM, Karen Coyle <lists_at_kcoyle.net> wrote:
> I suppose a pre-answer follow-up would be: if it hasn't been done, is anyone
> interested in taking it on?

I'll poke around and see what I can do as a proof of concept with
IMDb's text file dumps [0], but I as an individual can't go beyond
that.  IMDb's web services are available only to subscribers, under
terms of use are pretty strict, both for commercial [1] and
noncommercial entities [2].  They forbid screen-scraping and their
text files are strictly for personal use [3].

I suppose this turns me back around to Karen's original question: has
anybody not only tried converting IMDb data to MARC, but discussed
licensing for libraries?  With the minimum commercial licensing fee
being $15,000, if IMDb's data can be shoe-horned into MARC records
well enough, I suppose there might be a business opportunity for
somebody to enhance and resell such records, although presumably for a
lower price than what providers of fully cataloged records for AV
charge.

[0] http://www.imdb.com/interfaces
[1] http://www.imdb.com/licensing/
[2] http://www.imdb.com/licensing/noncommercial
[3] http://www.imdb.com/help/show_leaf?usedatasoftware

Regards,

Galen
-- 
Galen Charlton
gmcharlt_at_gmail.com
Received on Tue Jan 18 2011 - 08:25:48 EST