Their upcoming movie, The Tunnel, which is set for a release later this year, was badly in need of an Internet Movie Database listing. Unfortunately IMDb didn’t want to play ball.

From a standing start in June this year, Enzo and Julian had submitted their upcoming horror movie to IMDB on a number of occasions, five to be exact, but to no avail. Despite having backing from Zapruder’s Other Films which already have IMDb listings, the Amazon-owned company continually denied The Tunnel a listing.

Earlier, Enzo told TorrentFreak that he suspected that it’s the movie’s BitTorrent-only distribution model which caused this negative reaction from IMDb.

So, in a last-ditch attempt to bring the movie listings site onside, the makers of The Tunnel penned an open letter to IMDb last week. That seems to have had the desired effect.

“We won!” shouted an excited Enzo to TorrentFreak in an email a few minutes ago.

Indeed, as can be seen from the official listing, The Tunnel now has pride of place on IMDb.

“I would say it’s a small victory for the project, and a bigger win for people power, which is what this project has been about from the start,” Enzo told us. “If the support the project is receiving continues, hopefully it can set a successful precedent.”

No reason has yet been given for the sudden turnaround, but those behind the movie are grateful nonetheless.

“It may seem like a small thing to IMDb, but it is an indispensable tool for us to be able to market our project effectively and help ensure it’s success,” wrote Julian and Enzo in a thank you message to IMDb.

“It’s also reassuring to see that after 20 years of operation, that you are still able to listen to your user base. We’re sure that the online clamour made by our fans and supporters has not been lost on you.”

The Tunnel will be released on BitTorrent late 2010.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In order to drum up publicity for the forthcoming release, creators Julian Harvey and Enzo Tedeschi (who together form Australia-based Distracted Media) have been trying to get their movie listed on the Internet Movie Database. It has proven to be an impossible task.

Last week Enzo contacted TorrentFreak and explained the process he had been going through with IMDb for some time now and his frustrations at getting absolutely nowhere with the Amazon-owned site. Despite being submitted five times, in various correspondence with IMDb the site continually denied The Tunnel a listing.

In June, IMDb told the team that if a movie is not set up with a production company with a history of theatrically released movies, getting it listed at the early stages of development would not be possible. However, The Tunnel has backing from Zapruder’s Other Films which already have IMDb listings.

Undeterred by this setback, the creators decided to have another attempt at a listing once filming proper was underway, but all that resulted in was a further rejection in August.

Thanks for your new title addition to IMDb. Our title managers have recently examined the information which you supplied and it appears this title will not qualify for inclusion until it is in an advanced stage of production or completed, sorry.

The rejections continued, even though the team providing several trade magazine listings, news articles and other supporting material to show the film is legitimate. Then in September, and despite the Australian Director’s Guild recognising the movie’s online marketing campaign with an ADG Award nomination, IMDb rejected The Tunnel again saying that they can find no evidence to suggest the movie exists.

Enzo told TorrentFreak that he believes that it’s the movie’s distribution model which has caused this reaction from IMDb. The third rejection letter from IMDb says:

Hello. Please provide distribution info or evidence it will be released in 2010. Thank you.

“Seeing as we announced our distribution plan via torrents, a method that is completely within our control, we can’t see what ‘distribution info’ we could provide,” Enzo told us.

“There is no official deal in place to make that happen, as it isn’t controlled by a ‘distributor’ as such. The only conclusion we can reach is that in the absence of a ‘proper’ distributor, they won’t list us.”

Enzo believes that either IMDb are being difficult due to the chosen distribution path for The Tunnel, or their review process need to be looked at. Several other movies are listed on the database which don’t meet the site’s criteria (he believes The Tunnel does).

“The number of times we have been rejected is absurd, given that we address all major criteria for listing. I’ve helped out on student films over the years that have gone nowhere and have had an easier time getting listed,” he notes.

Of course, IMDb is owned by Amazon, so some might put two and two together and say that a BitTorrent distribution model might not be helpful to their business. Interestingly, it seems that the BitTorrent-based movie Pioneer One is also lacking an IMDb listing.

That said, with an open letter to IMDb now published by The Tunnel team, maybe they can bridge their differences and come to an amicable solution.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

What’s most interesting about the site is that its users can also browse torrents based on an actor or director, a feature that other torrent sites lack. With just a single click users can list all the films where Patrick Swayze made an appearance, or all the films directed by Quentin Tarantino.

“The actors and directors can be added by the users when they upload a torrent file,” Files24 founder Oleg told TorrentFreak. “Also if we recognize the movie, we automatically check and fill in any missing data,” he added.

Although the site also lists music and games, thus far these advanced searches only work for movies. TV-shows are oddly enough listed in the movies section but Oleg told TorrentFreak that a TV and software section will be added in the near future.

The navigational structure and design of the site is not the only thing that’s unique to Files24 though. According to one of the site’s founders, Files24 also has a dedicated tracker that is optimized to facilitate the highest download speeds.

“We track which country users come from and the tracker then gives priority to peers from their own country. As a result users can download at much higher speeds,” Files24′s Oleg told TorrentFreak.

One of the downsides of the site is that users are only permitted to upload torrents with a Files24 tracker, so this may severely limit the number of torrents that will be added to the site. On the other hand this is also one of the upsides, since this will stop a great deal of spam and fake files from being uploaded.

Files24 went live yesterday and currently lists some 40,000 torrents. It is clear that the site is still work in progress but the new features the site has to offer will be welcomed by many BitTorrent users. Of course they will also be frowned upon by Hollywood. Nothing new there.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Wilkinson was pleasantly surprised by all the attention. He explained in his email to RLSlog that the people who illegally downloaded his film actually helped to promote it.

He writes: “Our independent movie had next to no advertising budget and very little going for it until somebody ripped one of the DVD screeners and put the movie online for all to download. Most of the feedback from everyone who has downloaded “The Man From Earth” has been overwhelmingly positive. People like our movie and are talking about it, all thanks to piracy on the net!”

To illustrate this, on IMDB the film received close to 700 votes with an average rating of 8.2 which makes it one of the most popular movies of the last 2 weeks.

Wilkinson continues to praise the pirates and adds: “What you guys have done here is nothing short of amazing. In the future, I will not complain about file sharing. YOU HAVE HELPED PUT THIS LITTLE MOVIE ON THE MAP!!!! When I make my next picture, I just may upload the movie on the net myself!”

This example once again illustrates what a powerful promotion tool filesharing networks are, especially for independent productions with a small budget.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

TorrentFreak had a chance to talk to Ben, the owner of FlixFlux to ask him about his motivation to keep adding such features to his site, he said:

“Basically the whole reason I put FlixFlux together was to make it easy to find decent films to download. It’s not always easy to work out what a film is going to be like just from the plot summary and list of genres. With a trailer though you get a good idea of what a film’s going to be like. So I guess the reason I added them was to make it easier to find decent films to download”

Adding trailers to the site and listing the charts on the frontpage will almost certainly grab the attention of the MPAA. We asked Ben whether he thinks this will make him an easy target for the MPAA.

“It’s up to the users if they want to download the torrents or not, and that may or may not be illegal where they are. What the site provides is a list of box office hits, details about them and a list of available torrents. None of the movies are hosted by me, nor any of the torrents. So hopefully I’ll be safe from the MPAA.”

Easy target or not, FlixFlux will keep indexing the latest movie torrents and introduce more features to the site. “I want to make it even easier to find movies in the future”, Ben says “Instead of just listing the new releases it’d be nice to be able to say “show me a good horror from the last couple of months” or “list any comedy from the last couple of weeks.”

We’ll keep an eye on it.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.