That did work. It must have remembered the last time I entered a crew member and was only giving me the art department.

As far as I can see music videos are allowed. I certainly have met no resistance at IMDb. In fact, I received two messages from them encouraging me to do so. They are just short films that premiered on TV.

I don't know what you mean by verification, but I'm only importing ones that I have successfully submitted to IMDb. So they do have an IMDb ID.

We have to wait to hear what Travis says, but to my understanding music videos are not allowed.

We have still hundreds of them in the database!

We have still hundreds of them in the database!

Really? When were they added?

(Edit: I found a few old ones when searching for some popular artists, but not hundreds.)

(Edit 2: Stil, we need to know how to handle them. If we are to allow them, setting them as Videos - like IMDb - is the way to go for sure.)

Okay sorry I see now you mean the clips and yes we should know how to handle this

No worries. It's worth noting that collections of music videos should always be changed from movie to video. For example, I just changed this entry.

Hey guys,

When we say "music videos" we're talking about things like concerts that have been released to DVD/Blu-Ray right? Assuming that's the case, I don't see any reason to not let them stay. Just be sure to mark them as a "video".

No, in this case we are talking about the shorter ones, the ones we used to watch on MTV. One example here: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/338288

I still don't understand why these aren't just treated like any other short film. They just happened to have premiered on TV.

Isn't the mark of video reserved for when someone wants to put in the DVD collections of Stan Brakhage films? But we don't mark the films themselves as video.

The question for me is if every video clip you can find on youtube has to be here in the database?

I am only talking about music videos right now. Let others have that debate.

Hi ShootThePicture,

Yes it's only what you're interested in but the next person will have these very same arguments for YouTube or Vimeo videos. This is why we have to decide if it's content we're ok with or not. Otherwise it's just exception after exception and our rules become impossible to enforce.

There's an important caveat here though, if we decide to let them stay they will need to be marked as "videos" that I can guarantee, and since you mentioned Letterboxd above, it's important to note that they do not import videos. They made that decision a few months back, so even if they stay they won't be on Letterboxd without some kind of intervention on their end.

I'm leaning towards saying they're ok as videos, a lot of big directors got their start in this area and it could be cool to see it all together so unless there's a really good reason not to, I'm gonna say they're fine.

And that's an argument we'll have then. I'm not asking for an exception. Arguing that AVGN is a TV show is asking for an exception to be made since it's not on TV. Films have been made that premiere on TV or even other mediums other than in a movie theater. This is simply a recognition of something that shouldn't have been confusing in the first place. Besides, this is the second mention of YouTube. These videos were being made about 25 years prior to YouTube even existing so it isn't really that relevant.

Can you define what video even means for me. Cause I can't see why a short film with music should be marked as such simply because people decided to call them music videos.

It's important that we have this discussion because Letterboxd doesn't admit things marked as video. As they shouldn't, because I see the mark video and think DVD collections of films, short or otherwise. These are the films themselves.

I'll give three simple reasons as to why I think the Video designation is a must (if we allow them at all). Some of the arguments have been mentioned before.

1. Tradition. The music video has been around for quite a long time yet it's still considered a similar but very separate art form. When Gondry and others broke into the movie business they evolved from music video directors to movie directors. When was the last time you watched a music video at a film festival?

2. IMDb treats them as videos, why change that here?

3. If we give music videos the same status as movies, others will want us to allow commercials and YouTube clips.

(EDIT: I also know that Letterboxd prefer for us to keep it strict. They don't want music videos added.)

1. It's a tradition to do a lot of things that either don't make sense or are downright wrong. IMDb didn't let music videos in, but they do now. They didn't let women play sports in places like high school till Title IX. Tradition alone is not a valid reason. As for this idea that directors evolve from making short films into features. Many directors have made shorts and features throughout their careers. As for the specific case of music videos: Brain De Palma and William Friedkin both made music videos after being established. Friedkin shot 3 of them in the 1980s. Spike Jonze has continued to do both music videos while making feature films. David Fincher too. And Michel Gondry still makes them.

As for film festivals. I don't attend them because I have no interest and I'm disabled, but here are few that turned up just by doing a Google search for "music video film festival": http://www.lamvf.com/ http://www.radarmusicvideos.com/blog/article/222-the-18-best-music-video-festivals-in-the-world#.VUv0-61VhBc http://greatlakesfilmfest.com/ http://www.sacfilm.com/about/

They may have a special name, but they're still films. Musicals have been very mainstream since at least 1927. The differences between a musical and a music video are minimal. The first two High School Musicals are basically two long music videos.

1. I plan to take it up with IMDb about them labeling them as videos. Just because they are an authority, doesn't mean they're right. They've starting allowing music videos and they label online shows like AVGN as TV Shows too. Also, TMDb doesn't follow IMDb anyways. There are numerous differences. The one I immediately noticed when I started using it back in 2011 is that you can only mark films as originating from currently existing countries. The other is that it seems to me that they wanted more flexibility and speed in the database to make sure it reflects what people who are using it are using it for. Something IMDb doesn't do by forcing all data to go through an editorial process. TMDb essentially follows the Wikipedia model.

2. Doing something that doesn't make sense in the present in hopes that you avoid a debate later is no reason to continue doing the thing that doesn't make sense.

Now, as for one of your customers having a problem with it, that's different. I will happily go and talk with Letterboxd about this. Financial reasons are perfectly understandable.