IMDB: No in 1.5.

Ok, after investigation, I can say that, short of a miracle, this sentence will never end, and, also, we aren't going to get IMDB in 1.5.

Why not? Well, turns out:

[http://imdb.com/help/licensing/contact]
We offer licensing packages that start at US$10,000 per year.

Ouch! Ok, but maybe that's worth it, but...

[http://imdb.com/Licensing/FAQ.html]
Q: How will the data be transferred?
A:While we are flexible, we supply the majority of our partners with XML data files, retrievable at an ftp site.

Ok, we have to set up our OWN web site to dole out the content to our users. Maybe I can do that, although that would be hard to do in the next month before 1.5. But what's this?

Q: Do you license the entire IMDb?
A: We will not license the entire database, though hundreds of thousands of titles is over-kill for most uses.

Uh, yah. If I'm spending $10,000 a year, I'm thinking I'd like for my users to be able to get data on ALL their movies. I'm not even sure how they divide up the data.

So, we're going to start negotiations with them, but I am NOT promising anything.

We're going to investigate Library of Congress, but I think Amazon has already sucked a bunch of data from them (or used the same source they do), so I'm not sure it'll make things richer. (The books I tested had the EXACT same description text on LoC and Amazon; although, now that I think about it, I think it was provided by the publisher.)