0xdb Frequently Asked Questions
1. General (Name, Concept, Purpose)
Q 1.1: What is the 0xdb?
A 1.1: A movie database built on top of file-sharing networks. You may want to read the short summary on our About page.
Q 1.2: What does 0xdb stand for?
A 1.2: There are different theories about this. Some people have remarked that 0xdb is the hexadecimal notation of the decimal number 219, and that 219 is the area code of a region in Indiana, which originally had the area code 317, and was subsequently further divided and assigned the additional area codes 260 and 574. The sum of these four area codes is 1370, which can be read as Leto, the name of the mother of Apollo and Artemis.
Q 1.3: How do you pronounce 0xdb?
A 1.3: Oh-ex-dee-bee. Zero-ex-dee-bee is fine too, but less commonly used.
Q 1.4: Why is the 0xdb limited to movies, and doesn't include books or music?
A 1.4: Even though the general concept of the 0xdb could be extended to other media, and even though we have in fact written quite a lot of code which does exactly that, we thought that movies would provide the most interesting, and in many ways most challenging, example. (In fact, the 0xdb also indexes television series. As a registered user, you will find an option in your settings to include them in your search results.)
Q 1.5: What other purposes could the 0xdb have?
A 1.5: Quite obviously, the 0xdb could also be used as a front end for a torrent tracker, a cinema or television website, an online or offline video store, a private or institutional film archive, or any other digital collection of moving images. In case you are maintaining such a collection, and think that it could make use of some of our technology, please get in contact with us.
Q 1.6: What is the context of the 0xdb?
A 1.6: The 0xdb is being developed and maintained as part of a project named The Oil of the 21st Century, which aims at a both practical and theoretical deconstruction of current concepts of Intellectual Property. To learn more about it, just subscribe to the announcement list there. If you happen to be in Berlin, you can also access the 0xdb locally, and have a chat with us.
2. Input (Metadata, Stills, Scenes)
Q 2.1: Where do you get the metadata?
A 2.1: There are many great online databases, like Wikipedia, the All Media Guide or the IMDb, that make this data available. We automatically retrieve information from various of these sources, and then try to combine and present it in a useful way.
Q 2.2: Where do you get the movie posters?
A 2.2: Again, there are countless online resources. None of them is perfect, so we automatically search quite a few. Whenever we can't find a poster at all, we generate one ourselves. These generated posters look a bit like DVD covers. Here is an example.
Q 2.3: Where do you get the movie stills and scenes?
A 2.3: Millions of people world-wide are sharing movies, mostly via the BitTorrent protocol. The 0xdb monitors these networks, just like many third parties, including the movie industry, do, even though for slightly different purposes. By analyzing peer-to-peer traffic, the 0xdb can not only make out what specific movie a particular data packet belongs to, but actually sample images and sounds, which can later be re-encoded as movie clips.
Q 2.4: Why are the stills and scenes so small?
A 2.4: To save disk space, bandwidth, and, most importantly, our asses. The 0xdb is intended to be a fully legitimate, and fully legal, type of service, and while we are convinced that it is our right to provide quotes from movies, we do not claim the right to make available the original source material.
Q 2.5: How do you select the movies?
A 2.5: The 0xdb indexes only a few percent of the movies that are being shared via file-sharing networks. We do not select any of them, but we automatically filter out movies, or entire protocols, networks or trackers, that we consider less interesting. There are no explicit criteria for this, but in general, the 0xdb is not so much about current mainstream cinema.
Q 2.6: Can I download movies from the 0xdb?
A 2.6: No. The 0xdb collects data about movies, but it does not store them in their entirety. Quite obviously, since all movies in the 0xdb have, at a certain point, been available on file-sharing networks, it is very likely that one can download them somewhere (The Pirate Bay may be a good starting point). Still, the 0xdb is not in the business of file-sharing, but in the business of demonstrating how file-sharing can be used in rather new, unique and interesting ways.
3. Output (Subtitles, Timelines, Maps)
Q 3.1: How does the full text search work?
A 3.1: In many cases, people don't just share movies, but also subtitle files. Since these files contain the full dialogue along with the corresponding time codes, it is quite simple to make a movie searchable, and then to map the textual results of such a search to the corresponding images. (In some cases, of course, the subtitles may be incorrect, and in many more cases they are entirely missing, and even though we are trying to improve this, there will always be errors.)
Q 3.2: Can I also search for visual elements that appear in a movie?
A 3.2: No. Computer programs are still not very good at determining the actual content of images. Currently, the most promising approach would be to have large numbers of people annotate movie stills, but since we're not expecting millions of users, and, even if, wouldn't expect them to work on this for free, we haven't thought too much about it.
Q 3.3: How do the timelines work?
A 3.3: Once we have retrieved a sufficient amount of data for a movie, we internally render it frame by frame, much like a film roll. This rendering is then resized so that one second of film corresponds to one pixel on the screen, and cut into lines that each represent ten minutes of film. (On the timeline, you can use either the mouse or the cursor keys to navigate between scenes. To see all available scenes, simply search for "*".)
Q 3.4: Can I use similar timelines in my own projects?
A 3.4: You can. At least we do not regard the idea as our Intellectual Property, and we haven't patented it, so that if it wasn't patented before, it won't be patented in the future. On the other hand, the patent system may be so broken that these speculations are not worth a lot. Anyway, the algorithm is fairly obvious, so our recommendation would be to just copy, and hopefully improve, the idea.
Q 3.5: How do the maps work?
A 3.5: The 0xdb also retrieves information about filming locations. These are then translated to geographic coordinates and displayed on a world map. Currently, the 0xdb uses Google Maps for this, since their API makes it very simple to render such maps.
Q 3.6: Can you also map the plot of a movie?
A 3.6: Theoretically, yes. In fact, we're working on it.
4. Features (Registrations, Lists)
Q 4.1: Why should I register?
A 4.1: Certain features, most notably lists, and some of the contents of the 0xdb, are only available to registered users.
Q 4.2: Why do I need a registration code?
A 4.2: For various reasons, we don't want our user base to grow too fast. We may open up the registration process, or implement an invite system, in the not-so-distant future. (UPDATE: Registrations are currently open.)
Q 4.3: How do I get a registration code?
A 4.3: There is an "Apply" button. Just tell us who you are, and what you want to use the 0xdb for. Sooner or later, you will receive a registration code. (UPDATE: Registration codes are currently not needed.)
Q 4.4: What is a list?
A 4.4: A list is, quite simply, a list of of movies. You can think of a list as a bookmark folder that contains movies for a given keyword. At the same time, these keywords function exactly like tags: any movie tagged with a keyword will show up in the corresponding list. (Lists can also be used to construct complex queries, like "French documentaries filmed in the 60s in Paris".) Your lists are entirely private: we don't monitor, analyze or aggregate them, and no other user can see them.
Q 4.5: Can I also create lists of individual scenes?
A 4.5: Currently not, but we're working on it. A list of scenes would essentially be a new movie, and this could become quite interesting.
Q 4.6: Can I also add comments or keywords to movies or scenes?
A 4.6: Currently not, but we're working on it. There are many other websites where you can discuss movies, but an annotation system for individual scenes, or an interface for geographical referencing, may be worth a try. (UPDATE: We've done it. Check out Pad.ma.)
5. Technology (BitTorrent, Source Code, Scripting)
Q 5.1: What is BitTorrent?
A 5.1: A file-sharing protocol that is very effective for the distribution of large amounts of data among large numbers of peers. To learn more about it, check out the Wikipedia article, and the many sources referenced there.
Q 5.2: Which browsers does the 0xdb support?
A 5.2: If you are using Mac OS X or Windows, we recommend Safari, but we also support Firefox, which is available for a larger variety of operating systems. (We currently do not support Opera, but it kind of works.) Internet Explorer is broken beyond repair, and even though it may display some parts of the site, we haven't tested it, and we won't make any efforts to improve the results.
Q 5.3: What language is the 0xdb written in?
A 5.3: Mostly in Python (using TurboGears) and JavaScript (using jQuery), with a bit of PHP here and there. (UPDATE: We have written, and switched to, our own user interface framework, named 0xui.)
Q 5.4: Can I get the source code?
A 5.4: Yes. We are going publish it under the GPL. Still, there is some work to do before we can make it fully available (most of it are the obvious security-related issues). If you really, really need to take a look at it before the repository is open, please get in contact with us.
Q 5.5: Can I script the 0xdb?
A 5.5: If you want to write programs that automatically retrieve data from the 0xdb, you are very welcome. Still, if whatever you have in mind has the potential to consume a significant amount of our CPU time or bandwidth, we'd rather ask you to contact us before. It may be much easier for us to simply add a web service that provides the data you're looking for.
Q 5.6: How can I request a feature or report a bug?
A 5.6: For now, just use our contact form.
6. Legal (Copyright, Fair Use)
Q 6.1: Are there any restrictions to how I can use the 0xdb?
A 6.1: Please take a look at our Terms of Service. In short, as long as you are 18 years old, and do not use any of the data or services we provide for commercial purposes, you are free to do whatever you like with it. The reason for the age restriction is that we do not filter out content that some people may consider violent or pornographic, and the idea behind the "non-commercial" clause is that we don't want the work that went into the database, which is not just the work of its developers and maintainers, but also the work of filmmakers, actors, archivists and millions of file-sharers, to be exploited for financial gain.
Q 6.2: Is the 0xdb legal?
A 6.2: Yes. (At least that is our intention, but you can never be certain, of course.) The 0xdb makes fair use of copyrighted material, and even though fair use provisions vary from country to country, quoting from and collecting information about copyrighted works almost universally falls under such provisions.
Q 6.3: What do the warnings about "risk of legal action" mean?
A 6.3: The 0xdb has implemented a Security Advisory System, according to which, for each movie, the risk of legal action against the database is determined. Based on this fully automatized risk assessment, access to information about certain movies may be restricted for certain classes of users. However, the presence of these warnings does neither imply that any of our users will be affected by these risks, nor indicate that we actually expect any lawsuits. It is, above all, a joke.
Q 6.4: Why can't I access certain movies?
A 6.4: As a result of the Security Advisory System described above, and most likely because you are either not registered or not logged in. Still, if you sort your search result by risk, you should find a lot of movies that you are able to access.
Q 6.5: Can a rights holder add or remove a movie?
A 6.5: Yes. The easiest way to add a movie is to share it via BitTorrent, and then send us a link. To request the removal of a movie, please use our contact form. Even though we can't think of any reason to remove entries from the database, we will definitely hear you out.
Q 6.6: What is your general perspective on copyright?
A 6.6: The 0xdb does not violate copyrights. Still, we don't see a future for the current copyright system, which no longer creates incentives for individual authors, but is mostly used to control and censor forms of production and distribution that threaten both the failed business models of the entertainment industries and the monopolistic power of mass media. There are billions of people who will never be rights holders, but who will acquire more and more powerful tools for production and communication. It is their creativity that will make the 21st century a post-copyright century.