Internet Adult Film Database

The Internet Adult Film Database (IAFD) is an online database of information pertaining to the American adult industry, covering actors, actresses, directors and movies. It is similar to the Internet Movie Database, in that it is open to the public and is searchable. Films produced by non-American porn industry are found on the database if a U.S. release is available and the film concerned is presented as bearing the information about the U.S. release, not the original one.

History

The predecessor to IAFD was an email- and FTP-accessible database of adult film actresses called Abserver that had been created by Dan Abend in 1993. [cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sex.movies/browse_thread/thread/402500e1bdbdfcb0/e56cd9e55b541fa4?lnk=st&q=&rnum=3&hl=en#e56cd9e55b541fa4|title=Adult Film Database|accessdate=2007-03-08]

IAFD itself was started by Peter Van Aarle, who had collected data on adult movies since 1981, when he began keeping notes on index cards on adult movies he had seen or were reviewed in Adam Film World. cite web | title = remembering peter van aarle | url = http://www.iafd.com/peter.asp | publisher = IAFD | accessdate = 2008-01-05] In 1993, he began contributing to the Usenet newsgroup alt.sex.movies, where he met Dan Abend. The two exchanged databases and began work on a WWW-based database. [cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sex.movies/browse_thread/thread/2c63330a687991ef/59d1107dcbd9ffae?lnk=st&q=&rnum=14&hl=en|title=ASM File Server|accessdate=2007-03-08]

Van Aarle later collaborated on this Web database with Ron Wilhelm who went by the pseudonym of "Heretic". [cite web | title = 25.2 Heretic's Adult Movie Database | url = http://stason.org/TULARC/sex-relationships/sex-movies/25-2-Heretic-s-Adult-Movie-Database.html | accessdate = 2008-01-05] The first version of the IAFD was brought on-line in 1995 by the programming efforts of Heretic who used the project as a training ground for SGML programming which he was learning in college. After Heretic left the Internet to join the military, the site eventually fell victim to link rot.

In the fall of 1998, Van Aarle was at a trade show with Jeff Vanzetti who asked if Van Arle would be interested in resurrecting the IAFD -- this time under its own domain. Vanzetti was looking for a project on which to teach himself on-line database programming using SQL Server, and this seemed like a natural fit, since they were both co-moderators of the newsgroup rec.arts.movies.erotica (RAME), and members of the newsgroup would often lament about the passing of the original Internet Adult Film Database.

The beginning of 1999 brought the first baby steps of the IAFD. Initially search boxes only searched females and data was restricted to movies released post-1989.

Van Aarle said on this:

"In those early days of the IAFD I had made one stipulation: I did not want the movie info on movies before 1989 to be available. The idea behind this was basically that if I would ever decide I wanted to do something commercially with my database it would be a good idea to keep the most valuable parts of it off limits. The data on older titles was clearly the most difficult to compile (and very few people I ever talked to had much info on the older stuff, with a few notable exceptions like Jim Holiday), and therefore the more valuable part of the data. The cut-off date of 1989 was a compromise to include at least the titles of Buttman, who was one of the most popular directors of the time."

Van Aarle died on September 18th 2005 at the age of 42 from a heart attack. [cite web | title = Van Aarle 'Irreplaceable' | url = http://www.avn.com/index.cfm?objectID=EDA2F209-1372-4B41-C4C02241F55C6D7D | publisher = Adult Video News | date = 2005-09-22 | accessdate = 2008-01-03]

Current

On March 1, 2007, the IAFD rolled out information on over 18,000 gay titles and some 39,000 gay performers. [cite web|url=http://xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=19923|title=Internet Adult Film Database Adds Gay| publisher = XBiz | date = 2007-03-05| accessdate=2007-04-25] Like the IMDB, forms are used for submitting data corrections, though the IAFD's form is considerably simpler than the IMDB's. However, neither IMDB or IAFD corrections are immediate; thus both correction services are fairly equal. According to the site, it contains entries on over 83,051 titles and 79,777 persons (both actors and directors). IAFD is a former sponsor of the podcast Infected by Martin Sargent.

On October 1, 2007 an article about the "Internet Adult Film Database" appeared in the online equivalent of Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. [cite web|url=http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/informatica/ult124u332813.shtml|title=Brazilian Online Newspaper Article|accessdate=2007-10-01]

References

See also

* Adult Film Database
* Adult Web Movie Database

External links

* [http://www.iafd.com/ IAFD]
* [http://www.iafd.com/peter.asp "Remembering Peter Van Aarle"] , "IAFD.com", September 21, 2005.