Amazon Prime Video Removing Titles

Recently Amazon has been removing titles from its platform without a clear explanation of why. All of the titles are independent and vary in quality. Does anyone know what's going on?

Two of the three titles that I produced were removed. One of them had technical issues with the aspect ratios so I wasn't surprised it was deplatformed. The other title which was superior to the title that has survived was technically better and arguably better artistically. None of the titles have any overtly offensive material at least by today's standards. I belong to a Facebook group and I am not the only one that this is happening to.

I want to produce another feature film soon but not knowing why Amazon is cutting titles is making wary of doing so.
 
Amazon is nuking all kinds of indie content, not just movies but books too. They are pushing for people to do the paid advertising of their titles. And Amazon Prime video is too muddled and customers are complaining they can't find the stuff they want

Amazon Studios projects shut down a few months ago too. No more free solicitation of scripts or TV series or features.
 
Amazon is nuking all kinds of indie content, not just movies but books too. They are pushing for people to do the paid advertising of their titles. And Amazon Prime video is too muddled and customers are complaining they can't find the stuff they want.

I haven't heard anyone else assert that Amazon is pushing movie producers to pay for advertising of their titles. I know that you can pay to promote your books on Amazon. Not that you're wrong but I haven't been solicited by Amazon and neither has anyone else to my knowledge.

I've heard a couple of people suggest that someone complained about a title and it was removed. This makes sense if you pay for a title and it turns out to be amateurish junk but not if it is free with the Prime membership. I agree there are too many bad titles on Amazon and it needs to be cleaned up. But they have algorithms that predict what a viewer would want and help them get through the clutter.

I think the best way to clean up Amazon would be some sort of engagement metric. Something like if 95% of the people shut off your video within the first five minutes you get booted off.
 
I had my comedy film removed from Amazon less than a month ago after it was released over 10 years ago. At this point it wasn't earning much and Amazon also slashed royalties by 60%, but the principal of it all is disconcerting. They refused to give me a specific explanation as to why.
We have carefully reviewed all impacted titles and only remove titles based on customer engagement/customer feedback. Prime Video Direct has always had a policy of reviewing content performance and customer engagement and this can be found here: https://videocentral.amazon.com/home/help?topicId=201986500
I asked them 3 times to give me a specific reason why and each time they would only give me the same generic answer.

I suspect it's because somebody flagged it as "sexist", promoting "racial stereotypes", "hate speech", topless nudity, glorifies drug use, has abusing language, promotes "illegal behavior" or because it has topless nudity. I will never know but with their broad spectrum of reasons, it could be any one of these things. Meanwhile there are all kinds of examples of major studio releases that violate any one of these reasons, but their titles remain available. It's a two-tier justice system. A bunch of social justice warrior liberals are running the tech industry including Amazon. Really it's a reaction to Hillary Clinton losing. People at Amazon want to PC scold and censor.
 
I suspect it's because somebody flagged it as "sexist", promoting "racial stereotypes", "hate speech", topless nudity, glorifies drug use, has abusing language, promotes "illegal behavior" or because it has topless nudity. I will never know but with their broad spectrum of reasons, it could be any one of these things. Meanwhile there are all kinds of examples of major studio releases that violate any one of these reasons, but their titles remain available. It's a two-tier justice system. A bunch of social justice warrior liberals are running the tech industry including Amazon. Really it's a reaction to Hillary Clinton losing. People at Amazon want to PC scold and censor.

My film had a Black female lead with a primarily Black, Latino, and Asian cast. The key people behind the production were Latino and Asian. There was no nudity, no sex, and little profanity. The kills were mild, and it was more or less the typical group goes to woods and gets killed off one by one. Nothing politically incorrect. So I don't know if content is what got you booted. Again, some sort of clear explanation from Amazon would be great.
 
some sort of clear explanation from Amazon would be great.
They are refusing to give me an explanation. After 3 requests for an answer they are still stonewalling me. I've asked a forth time. Here's their latest response. They're obviously hiding an over reaction of political correctness...

My name is Alex, customer service supervisor at Prime Video Direct. I'll be more than glad to assist you today.

The Prime Video Direct Digital License Agreement is a legally binding contract. If you have questions regarding the Agreement, we recommend contacting an attorney for legal advice.

The Digital License Agreement can be found at the below link:
https://videodirect.amazon.com/home/agreement

At this time, no further insight can be given regarding the removal of your title.

Thank you for understanding.
 
Are you Blade Jones or Alex Jones? :lol::lol::lol:
The way I got my movie banned you'd think I was Alex Jones!

Here's their "final solution" response...

"My name is Courtney ______ with Prime Video Direct Customer Relations.

I understand that you'd like to know the specific reasons why your title was removed, but we can't divulge this information.

I can say that we choose titles by carefully reviewing them and remove titles based on customer engagement/customer feedback. Prime Video Direct has always had a policy of reviewing content performance and customer engagement and this can be found here: https://videodirect.amazon.com/home/help?topicId=201986500

We encourage you to continue making content that will be engaging for customers available on our site, but we’re unable to predict whether any future title you make available will be removed.

Unfortunately, this decision may not be appealed and we will not be accepting resubmission of the impacted titles. Note that republishing any film that has been removed is prohibited; doing so may result in your account being suspended.

Thank you. "

Translation: Some social justice warrior complained that my movie was racially insensitive or sexist. In response to Trump winning the election, Amazon went ahead and removed it. We live in George Orwelian times.
 
Amazon just removed two of my most viewed films. Yup, the normal vague non-specific answers to my question of why. So I put one of them on filmhub.com and guess what, they've put it onto Amazon Prime US. So, I'll see what happens now. It's becoming increasingly difficult now for Indie film makers who don't make mass-media appeal films to get there stuff out there. If your film has any nudity, sex, very bad language, its like you are the devil. Over political correctness, attempts not to offend even the smallest minority, sites wishing to make most money by showing films with the widest appeal, is actually killing film making as an expressive entertaining art form. Someone should start a streaming site called: banned from Amazon
mol





I had my comedy film removed from Amazon less than a month ago after it was released over 10 years ago. At this point it wasn't earning much and Amazon also slashed royalties by 60%, but the principal of it all is disconcerting. They refused to give me a specific explanation as to why.
We have carefully reviewed all impacted titles and only remove titles based on customer engagement/customer feedback. Prime Video Direct has always had a policy of reviewing content performance and customer engagement and this can be found here: https://videocentral.amazon.com/home/help?topicId=201986500
I asked them 3 times to give me a specific reason why and each time they would only give me the same generic answer.

I suspect it's because somebody flagged it as "sexist", promoting "racial stereotypes", "hate speech", topless nudity, glorifies drug use, has abusing language, promotes "illegal behavior" or because it has topless nudity. I will never know but with their broad spectrum of reasons, it could be any one of these things. Meanwhile there are all kinds of examples of major studio releases that violate any one of these reasons, but their titles remain available. It's a two-tier justice system. A bunch of social justice warrior liberals are running the tech industry including Amazon. Really it's a reaction to Hillary Clinton losing. People at Amazon want to PC scold and censor.
 
Amazon just removed two of my most viewed films. Yup, the normal vague non-specific answers to my question of why. So I put one of them on filmhub.com and guess what, they've put it onto Amazon Prime US.

Have you or can you ask Filmhub what their take is on Amazon situation? I assume at some point they actually talk to a human being who might shed some light on how filmmakers should proceed in their future submissions.
 
I did not tell filmhub Amazon took my film off. i only said it was not live on Amazon. I wanted to see what happens. Amazon may yet ban me. We'll see. I think its high time Indie film makers bandied together and create their own streaming site where subscriptions paid iare shared out according which of our film are watched most, after running costs are deducted of course. Anyone interested ?mol
 
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