Hundreds of filmmakers report that their independent films have been deleted by Amazon Prime Video Direct, and with no defined explanation nor warning. What is the reason for that?
Call for action against Amazon
Today I stumbled upon a special post created by an ARRI Alexa and Amira User Group. The post was a call for action to sign a petition against Amazon for their decision to eliminate thousands of indie films: “Prime Video Direct has just arbitrarily purged tons of indie films w/o warning, denying any appeals, & ignoring ALL e-mails. They purged highly rated films & marginalized content creators. To teach Amazon.com that discrimination & censorship is unacceptable, sign this petition. The post is linked to TheNextWeb article that reports that recently conducted a mysterious purge affecting thousands of films and hundreds of filmmakers.”
Prime Video Direct has just arbitrarily purged tons of indie films w/o warning, denying any appeals, & ignoring ALL e-mails
Mass of indie films was deleted by Prime Video Direct service
It appears that Amazon has decided, out of the blue, to delete tons of indie films, without any warning to creators. Filmmakers who worked very hard and poured their hearts and souls into their labor of love passion projects, discovered surprisingly that their masterpiece has gone from the service.
Filmmaker Henrique Couto told TNW (TheNextWeb): “Last night many of my films, including two that had just passed a review by them were taken down, but this time they were taken down with no option to attempt to republish or appeal. I was also never informed about them being taken down, Prime Video Direct never informs you when your films are down, they are just down until you notice it.”
Amazon’s foggy response
Henrique has contacted Amazon Video Direct for an explanation and got this answer:” We are always listening to customer feedback and iterating on their behalf. During a quality assurance review, we found that your titles contain content that does not meet our customer content quality expectations. This means a regular multi-factor review of the content we make available as Included with Prime and this may mean the removal of content which does not meet that bar from time to time. As a result, all offers for your titles that have been removed will not be made available as “Included with Prime” or to Buy/Rent on Amazon. Thanks for using Prime Video Direct.”
Last night many of my films, including two that had just passed a review by them were taken down, but this time they were taken down with no option to attempt to republish or appeal
Filmmaker Henrique Couto
Elimination of approved content
From Amazon’s answer, we can assume that the service is purging its pool of films. But why? The excuse quoted above is absurd since Henrique’s films were filtered and underwent a lengthy cross-examination process before they have been approved by Amazon. Furthermore, let’s suppose that after reexamination Amazon decides to remove the film. In that case, why haven’t they notified the creators?
During a quality assurance review, we found that your titles contain content that does not meet our customer content quality expectations
Amazon Prime Video Direct
Why is Amazon breaking its oath?
Amazon contributes and encourages independent cinema, contrary to Hulu and Netflix, as quoted on Amazon Video Direct website: ”Helping studios, distributors, and independent filmmakers reach audiences worldwide.” so why is Amazon breaking its oath? There is no straight answer for that nor formal and authentic response from Amazon.
Petition against Prime Video Direct
The independent filmmaking community has created a petition to “Stop the Death March Of Independent Film brought on by Amazon.com! “. The petition was created two weeks ago and now it needs your help, so get in and sign.
Services like Amazon Video Direct are crucial to the filmmaking community since it allows us the appropriate stage to show our works, gather an audience and make some income so we can continue to do what we love the most – to make films to our audience.
Press here to sign the petition.
What do you think the reason for Amazon’s purge? Enlighten us!
It’s not the quality of the films,,some low budget films show more quality than their Hollywood counter parts…Amazon has no server space,,they have a badly designed algorithm cant handle the amount of movies,,no rotation on the front etc. ,,also they purposely used the film makers product to show how big their data base is,,,it’s only for data make up,,,,it’s data analytic. Very unethical decision!
Thanks for the info. I didn’t know that. It sounds strange how a server company has issues regarding server space..
that was the best I could come up within my own reasoning,,probably incorrect,,,,,,anyways,,,that is pretty funny that there is no explanation by Amazon whatsoever ,,,maybe the reason is unprintable?!,,
Someone at amazon stole the films and sold it to third party film distributors like https://moviebemka.com/. Amazon smartly did prevent lawsuits by this action. Guarding was their responsibility.
Someone at amazon stole the films and sold it to third party film distributors like https://moviebemka.com/.
Amazon smartly did prevent lawsuits by deleting those films. Guarding was their responsibility.
I had three films on there. The two that were removed were horror movies that SEEMED to feature women in a comprising role (but in fact they were the power players). The one that remained was a comedy.