A collection of news and information pertaining to silent era films. Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Silent Era’s Decision to Remove Amazon Links
from the Website

As the Editor and Publisher of the Silent Era website, I have to come to a decision that may well come back to bite me, well . . . “where the sun don’t shine.” A decision that could lead to the demise of the website. I have decided that we will no longer provide direct links from Silent Era to products offered by Amazon.com.

Since the inception of the Silent Era website we have provided these links as a service to our readers to provide quick and easy access to silent films on home video and to books published on silent era topics sold at some of the lowest discount prices available. There was also the added benefit that Silent Era used to be paid seven percent of the net retail price for our digital referrals. This monthly referral fee income went to pay for the costs of website hosting, website authoring software, Internet access services, computer hardware, tax payments on website income, even the purchase of items for review evaluations when we did not receive review copies and screeners. Often Amazon referral fees covered these costs completely and left a few dollars in the black to purchase an espresso or two.

Over the past 25 years, we have seen these fees dwindle — due in some part to the general public’s move away from the purchase of home video products, due in some part (we think) to animosity toward Amazon itself — but chiefly due to Amazon’s whittling away at referral fee percentages down to less than three percent. Over time, the clear message was work less on your website content and more on directing customers to Amazon to purchase more products across multiple retail sections of their website. We took a quiet, unannounced stand, even then, to reject this economic pressure to work harder for the benefit of Amazon and less for personal compensation. That is why you do not see ads on our website for shoes, kitchen mixers, toy dolls, tools, beauty products, and the like.

In those early days we thought it was OK to be an “Amazon Associate,” that we were providing a service to our readers. Now this multinational corporation casts us as “Amazon Influencers.” (“Influencers” is a term we absolutely abhor.) A moment of contemplation reveals what they think of us and what they think of you. That we are here to cajole you into buying more, more, more.

As is quite common and has been observed numerous times, a gigantic corporation will put profits over people. Amazon is certainly no different. We have seen it in Amazon’s labor relations with warehouse workers and delivery drivers. We have seen it in Amazon’s labor relations with employees of their Whole Foods subsidiary. And for years — our being located in Seattle just minutes from their corporate headquarters — we have heard stories from insiders of Amazon’s unconscionable demands on their technology employees and support personnel. Crush powerless workers to increase those quarterly profits.

It is true that we have for several years been one itsy bitsy, teeny tiny contributor to Amazon’s financial success through our product referrals. However, in part due to the current political and economic environment in America, we can no longer turn a blind eye to the reality of what multimillionaires and multibillionaires want and what think they are entitled to.

We used to think it was cool that some Seattle entrepreneur built up a successful business from humble beginnings in their garage. Now, we think that millions and billions of dollars of personal assets makes people unavoidably insane — that their priorities become dangerously unbalanced. Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s senior executives appear to be no exception.

This is why we cannot in good conscience continue to contribute to corporate insanity, even in the tiniest (and ultimately in our undeniably insignificant) way.

Instead, any product links we will provide as a service to our readers will lead directly (when possible) to the independent publishers and retailers of silent film related products such as Kino Lorber, The Criterion Collection, Flicker Alley, Milestone Films, Undercrank Productions, VCI Entertainment, Grapevine Video, The Serial Squadron, and the like in America, and to Eureka Entertainment, Edition Filmmuseum, British Film Institute, Lobster Films, and the like in Europe. If they do not sell directly to consumers, we will try to provide a link to an independent distributor/retailer. If you choose to purchase silent cinema products, we encourage you to do so and do so through a retailer of your choice. That being said, we encourage you to spend a few extra dollars to purchase from these independent publishers directly (look at us being influencers), for it is through the dedicated efforts of and the financial risks taken by these people that our beloved silent cinema stays alive and even thrives. We have observed over the past fifty years the amount of information regarding silent cinema and public access to silent films rise exponentially. It wasn’t so long ago that books on silent cinema amounted to a few dozen tired titles on library shelves or to that rare title buried in discount bins. It wasn’t so long ago that home video editions of silent films were smeary video transfers from crappy 16mm and 8mm reduction prints copied onto VHS videotapes. Now, due to the loving efforts of a number of dedicated individuals, we are enjoying something of a resurgence — a renaissance — of silent cinema.

In the very near future, any ‘ads’ or links you see on the Silent Era website will exclusively support the ongoing efforts of these people and not the corporate abuse of working class people or contribute to billionaire greed. It will take a long time, even with the automated website software that we use, to remove all vestiges of Amazon’s presence from more than 25,000 pages.

This decision means that there will be no more Amazon income for us, meagre though it has been recently. In some months, the referral payments we receive don’t even cover the website’s monthly expenses and any shortfalls are covered from a limited personal income. No matter. Silent Era has always been a compulsive labor of love not of profit. And, please, do not see this as a bid for your Patreon patronage. It is not. Admittedly, our Patreon implementation has been woefully inadequate over recent years — a shortcoming we hope to rectify this year. To those persons who have pledged their support through the portal in the past, I thank you immensely. I hope to meet each one of you via web chat sometime soon to thank you.

The Silent Era website will continue forward and continue to grow for as long as I can manage. I even hope that it can continue on after my passing, if only to be an alternative to IMDb — yet another Amazon subsidiary.

— Carl Bennett, Editor and Publisher