I have a question about what qualifies as a "distributor" for DVD Profiler purposes.

The following is the first line of the Media Companies section of the Rules:

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The company(ies) responsible for the publishing (creating, assembling and ordering of the DVD/HD/BD content) and/or physical distribution of the media.

I recently ordered a DVD from Amazon.com that's part of the Twentieth Century Fox Cimema Archives collection which is a series of Manufactured-on-Demand (MOD) DVDs.  Printed directly above the UPC code are the words "Manufactured by Amazon.com kydc, Lexington, KY" ("kydc" apparently stands for Kentucky Distrubution Center).

In the case of DVDs such as this, is Amazon.com the distributor that DVD Profiler is interested in tracking?  With the words "physical distribution of the media" in the Rule I don't see how it could not be.  The problem with this is that each retailer may possibly manufacture their own discs, and that would lead to multiple distributors depending on where the DVD was purchased.

Any thoughts?

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Quoting Lewis_Prothero:

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For me manufacturer wouldn't mean the same as "physical distribution".

OK.  So what does "physical distribution of the media" mean exactly?  I concur that we don't want UPS or the local retailer listed, but in the case of MOD discs the nominal distributor doesn't distribute anything physical to the customer

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Quoting TheMadMartian:

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That being said, the questions you have t answer are...

Did Amazon publish (create, assemble and order the DVD/HD/BD content?
Did Amazon physically distribute the media?

If the answer to either of those question is yes, then they are the MC.

As an aside, if you had ordered this directly from Twentieth Century Fox, and they were the ones who burned the discs, would there even be a question?

I don't believe you can order these titles directly from Fox.  I've gone to their site (www.foxconnect.com) and can't find any of the Cinema Archives titles in their search engine.  Below is a snippet from their original press release from June 2012:

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Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment today debuted Fox Cinema Archives, a new manufacture-on-demand (MOD) series for film aficionados and collectors that goes deep into the studio’s vault to bring some of its most classic films featuring some of the biggest stars of the twentieth century to DVD for the first time.  Starting today movie lovers can purchase a wide variety of films from the Fox Cinema Archives series at major top-tier retailers with more titles to become available in the coming months.

I've only purchased one of these titles myself, but the rear cover indicates that the disc was manufactured by Amazon, and of course it was shipped by Amazon.  All indications are that the publisher of the content was TCFHE.

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Quoting Lewis_Prothero:

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The way I understood the Martians point he just wanted to make clear that in his opinion Amazon is the (a) MC in this case. Meaning that IF the item would have been ordered directly from TCF-HE (under otherwise identical conditions) there wouldn't even be a question if they should be entered as MC.

Correct.  The way I see it, and I may well be wrong, is that Amazon is the publisher under license from TCFHE.

Quoting Lewis_Prothero:

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they are not even allowed to decide how many units they produce "in advance" and therefore don't meet the minimum requirements for "Responsibility".

So then you're saying Amazon is merely an agent for distribution and not responsible for distribution?

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Quoting Srehtims:

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Question are these DVDs, "Manufactured by Amazon.com kydc, Lexington, KY" ("kydc" apparently stands for Kentucky Distrubution Center) made available for other retailers like DeepDiscioiunt, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, etc?

I've only purchased one disc from one source, so I'm unsure what is on the packaging from other retailers.

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