Hollywood has launched the next salvo in its ongoing battle to ruin the internet. The RIAA and the MPAA have already done their best to strip everything cool off your computer, now it’s the Writer’s Guild of America’s turn. Their strategy? Banning facts.
The Wrap says the Guild is, in effect, trying to blackmail IMDB into removing the ages of actors who want to pretend they’re ten years younger than they are. You’re not fooling anyone Meg Ryan.
Other guilds, like the Screen Actors Guild, have also reached out to IMDB in an effort to convince them to remove birthdates from the pages of actors who don’t want them listed. But the Writer’s Guild has a wedge they can use to force IMDB into erasing the truth. They have a contract with the movie database to provide credits information. The veiled implication in The Wrap’s article is that they might stop providing them if IMDB doesn’t do what they want.
The argument here is that IMDB is hurting the job opportunities of below-the-line workers or people who aren’t huge movie stars like Angelina Jolie, and need to lie on their resume in order to get work. It’s kind of hard to take the moral high ground though, when your position is based on making it easier for people to lie. If you need to lie about your age to get work, maybe it’s time to consider a new career.
Stick to your guns IMDB.
