Amazon Sticks It To The Indies. AGAIN.

Actual Footage of An Amazon Rep Replying To Filmmaker Concerns

So today Amazon sent out yet ANOTHER email to the filmmakers they're now going to fuck even more. Apparently, making over TEN BILLION in profits in 2018 while simultaneously paying ZERO in taxes is not enough to make Jeff Bezos happy.

The new payout is now going into a sliding scale based on a metric THAT WE CANNOT SEE.

To boil it down, you still start at the pauper's base rate of $.06 per hour viewed. That would net you on average about $.09 for every time your movie is viewed. (assuming an average running time of 90 minutes)

Imagine if Red Box charged a dime for every rental. Sound fair?

BUT, under the new metric(called the Customer Engagement Rating), you will be either penalized or rewarded for such vague and nebulous things such as:

• Unique Customers:   Current and new Prime members who view your title. 
• Streamed Hours:   The time each customer spends engaging with your content. 
• Title Popularity:   Notable talent, relevant genres, an IMDb presence and rating, and box office performance. 
• Title Caliber:   Compelling and high-quality poster art, accurate and representative copy and metadata, localized subtitles and key art. For more information, review the publishing steps for standalone and episodic titles, art requirements, and caption (timed text) information.

Oh, don't worry, Amazon's gonna let you know what your CER is, but I assure you that they're not going to back it up with any kind of facts or figures, or details about why your title's CER is going to be low. (and I assure you, it's going to be low)

And if your title is low? You will lose up to $.02 per hour viewed. In essence, you're now going to be earning $.04 per hour.

You thought we were getting bent over before...well Amazon was like, "Hold My Beer".

Amazon also notes at the bottom of all their new bullshit:
Note: The above list is provided as general guidance and could change over time, as our policies and program may change over time. Prime Video Direct reserves the right to make judgments and implementation of the practices above doesn't guarantee engagement.

So yeah, if you don't like, too bad.

Also of note, and buried in the new details--they won't be putting up any estimated stats for any movies during the month you're looking at it. So no more real-time stats. You'll get to see what your movie did last month. Good luck reacting in real time to anything, if you're stupid enough to continue to go on with this charade.

It all starts April 1st. I'll be pulling all my movies from free streaming on the last day of March. Enough is enough. I already canceled my Amazon Prime, though that's more because of their price hike plus the commercials I was being forced to watch during some of the videos on their service.

So it appears we're all back at square one on the distribution crap fest. No bright lights. Distributor are still paying nearly nothing for advances, and the back-end will never appear.

I dunno, man. I wish I didn't feel like Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain. I'm like, "I can't quit you" to filmmaking, while filmmaking spits into its hand and gets ready to bend me over again.