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Dealing With Copyright Online: Porn v. Music
zzled writes "The New York Times (registration required, etc.) has an article on the porn industry's take on filesharing / copyright infringement. 'Many companies that distribute X-rated material say they do not worry too much about consumers sharing among themselves; they often unleash their lawyers only when someone is trying to profit by copying their goods and trying to sell them.' ... The article isn't particularly brilliant or insightful, but was an interesting read, especially with the explicit comparison to the approach taken by the music and movie industries."
What most people seem unwilling to recognize is that there's a lot more factors to consider.
without piracy:
- Normal customer base (x)
Most people think:
with piracy:
- Paying customers (x')
- Pirates (y)
The equation created is x' = x-y meaning piracy has cost you y sales. It's just not that simple. It's more like this:
with piracy:
- Paying customers (x')
Pirates:
- Those who would have payed if no crack was avaliable - (a)
- Those who won't pay, but heard of it through piracy - (b)
- "Try before you buy" who then buy - (c)
- "Try before you buy" who decide it's not worth it - (d)
- collectors who pirate, but don't use - (e)
- New people refered/introduced to by pirates other than (a) - (y)
- Those who won't/can't buy your program, but donate in other ways - (z)
I'm not saying anything about anyone's morals, right or wrong, simply how their actions affect the developer.
The equation now looks like this: x' = x - a + c + y + z*(whatever ratio you consider these donations to be worth)
Note that b, d and e won't pay no matter what, and so are simply free advertising, and not a lost sale.
So the only thing those people could cost you is an injury to your pride. Not such a bad thing in my books, perhaps even a good thing. Pride can be quite a detriment.
Also note, every group except x and d can bring more members to every group.
The question is: Is a > c+y?
(Ignoring z, since in most cases it can only be 0: How do you "donate" back to MS? Note this isn't a piracy problem, but rather companies refusing to accept the reality of the world: that these people exist.)
In my experience, b, c and y are huge factors, while a is very minor, especially in the "shareware" arena where freeware competition is often abundant.
Sharing porn? Just as long as the pages don't stick together.....
[ ]
I present to you, exhibit "XXX", a copy of Pocerhontis.
Sounds like the porn industry is aware of their most successful marketing tool (Yeah, I said "tool"). I would not be suprised if Larry Flint is a major telecom stock holder. Few things drive the demand for bandwidth like a 30 nothing with an erection.
Content companies, whatever kind they are, have to give away some of their content for free in order to be able to profit on their premium content.
Consumers are not going to turn over money for content when they can't look inside the box to see what they're getting. If a content pusher doesn't have some free samples floating somewhere, there's no way they're going to be able to convince consumers that they've got the goods inside their sealed box. There has to be a free preview of some kind.
You're never going to buy a CD from an artist you've never heard sing, therefore some form of advanced sampling has to exist. I guess the porn industry realizes that the same rules apply to them, and since they don't quite yet have the ability to broadcast on the radio, they're letting filesharing do the job for them.
I suppose you could argue that porn is a vice and that if they get a little for free then they'll get hooked and soon start paying for it.
Though they seem to be giving it away - tons of web sites bill free porn for me, I just need to give them my credit card number to verify my age....yeah...
Lots of porn is homegrown, as in, made by people with a video camera and a rental bus(Bangbus). When this spreads around, it's like increasing the group's ego and contributes to making more episodes.
-Just my 2 cents.
says it tracks down people who violate its copyright and, as an alternative to a lawsuit, offers amnesty if the infringer becomes a subscriber.
These guys are smart, aren't they?
Free XBox, PS2
The Pornography Industry vs. Digital Pirates By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: February 8, 2004
HOUSANDS of Web sites are putting Playboy magazine's pictures on the Internet - free. And Randy Nicolau, the president of Playboy.com, is loving it. "It's direct marketing at its finest," he said.
Let the music industry sue those who share files, and let Hollywood push for tough laws and regulations to curb movie copying. Playboy, like many companies that provide access to virtual flesh and naughtiness, is turning online freeloaders into subscribers by giving away pictures to other sites that, in turn, drive visitors right back to Playboy.com.
When Mr. Nicolau is asked whether he thinks that the entertainment industry is making a mistake by taking a different approach, he replies: "I haven't spent much time thinking about it. It's like asking Henry Ford, 'What were the buggy-whip guys doing wrong?' ''
The copyright rumble is playing out a little differently in the red-light districts of cyberspace. That neighborhood is increasingly difficult to confine, what with a fetishwear-clad Janet Jackson flashing a Super Bowl audience of millions, and Paris Hilton making her own version of a "Girls Gone Wild" video. Professional peddlers say they are hard pressed to compete.
Still, the business of being bad is very good, especially for the biggest players. Though the industry has felt a financial squeeze during the economic slowdown, it nonetheless has sales of as much as $2 billion each year, said Tom Hymes, the editor of AVNOnline, a business magazine for the industry.
And the pornography industry, which has always been among the first to exploit new technologies, including the VCR, the World Wide Web and online payment systems, is finding novel ways to deal with the threat of online piracy as well. The mainstream entertainment industry, some experts say, would do well to pay attention.
Music executives say their campaign of lawsuits has been successful. They say they have spread the word that downloading free music infringes on copyrights and that there could be consequences for large-scale file sharers.
But the pornography industry has been dealing with Internet copyright issues since the 1980's. By comparison, the movie and music businesses are relative newcomers. Mr. Hymes said companies in his industry had come to realize that suing consumers and promoting "draconian laws" were not the answer. "No law written can stem the tide," he said. And so, he said, companies are seeking ways to live with the technologies that threaten them and are trying to turn them to their advantage.
That is not to say that the companies have not been harmed by free copying and distribution of copyrighted material online. Mr. Hymes's magazine warned recently that such companies were "losing incalculable amounts of cash" to peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Kazaa, LimeWire, Grokster and Bit Torrent.
"As the networks continue to grow and even more sophisticated programs are created, the P2P networks might prove a bigger threat to the revenue stream of the porn world than all the censorious right-wingers in the country put together," the article stated.
Maybe. But many companies that distribute X-rated material say they do not worry too much about consumers sharing among themselves; they often unleash their lawyers only when someone is trying to profit by copying their goods and trying to sell them.
When people in the industry talk of copyright, there is none of the grand speechifying about revering artists and rewarding creativity, and the near-tearful paeans to the yeoman key grips and stunt men, as is favored by movie and record executives. Instead, there is just this: We spent a lot of money to get this stuff out to the market. Somebody else is making money off of it. We want the money.
"We haven't gone after Joe Citizen who's sharing something he printed off something from the Hustler Web site with another guy," said Paul Cambria, a lawyer wh
I would have to agree that some were filthy, just think about dudes doing the do, and leaving a booth here for a second...
Anyway as for the sharing, I look at the RIAA in political terms, they're the Neocons pushing for war via WMD intelligence... Shoddy intelligence, whereas on the porn industry side, they wouldn't mind being that they make tons of money, and perhaps they see that people do buy their movies after a sampling via P2P.
American Airlines flight 11 converation while hijacked
MoFscker
Music labels should learn from the porn industry and start spamming everyone's e-mail inboxes with free music.
I can listen to a song more than once.
Of course, what really matters is whether they want piracy at all. They can ignore the potential earnings from piracy if they want. Hell, they could stop selling the product altogether, and still legitimately go after copyright infringers.
But besides, your formula is far too complex and with too many variables that are impossible to even guess. It's a safe bet that there are some people out there who illegally download files to save money, and who would buy the product if they couldn't download it for free. It's not necessarily a safe bet that, by allowing piracy, you'll end up with more overall sales.
...not on rock and roll. The Net was built on porn. If it weren't for the porn industry the net would still back in early 90s. Think about it: Porn was the original ecommerce app. So many major internet developments have been in someway infuenced by the porn industry that everyone else making a buck on the net should pay royalties. The recording industry should pay attention.
Avaoid stupid registration go to Google then click the link under "If the URL is valid, try visiting that web page by clicking on the following link:"
I think the real lesson that the MPAA and RIAA should take from the Porn Industry is to replicate their highly marketable content...
;)
Oh, yeah. Too late.
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
I really think the music companies deserve what they get eventhough right now they are complaining about a loss of 5% when unemployment is at an all time high. I think in the future when more and more bad music comes out and good music is less frequent and MTV decides that Reality TV killed the video star that they will start giving away free music everywhere (note: already started to happen, putting mini-cds on Pepsi lids at fast food joints). I may be overly uptopian but am I the only one who thinks that music shouldnt be an industry? I swear it was a fine art. I also believe in the future when Porn gets less taboo (in america where showing a breast on TV will get you killed, meanwhile the only thing you cant say on the BBC is the CU word)and is more freely accepted they will have to give away less free porn. Music Industry here is a message for you, how about letting us choose between more than the same 10 songs you play on all your radio stations 24/7 it might suprises you but we like variety. The Porn Industry have known this for year, one just has to look at all the different websites out there from Big Booty MaMas to Lactating Grannies.
Trix are for kids!
I don't think that music/movies vs. porn can be compared... porn has a slightly (or not-so-slightly to some) addictive quality to it that music and Hollywood type movies just don't have. The porn industry benefits by wider distribution because exposing people to more porn only increases their appetite. Why do you think the usenet is flooded with free porn? It's not coming from Joe "Porn Wants to be Free" Smith, it's from the industry.
Why can't the movie and music industries act as ethically as the porno industry!?!
I stole this Sig
Since its okay to pirate if you never intended to pay in the first place, I've decided to change to that group. That way I'm not really ripping them off.
What's their take on sharing of porno music? :-)
I would expect that the porn industry would have a much more difficult time if they did want to take the same stance as the music business. Can you imagine US politicians standing up and proudly supporting them in the same way as they do for the music distributors?
When you operate at the fringes of your country's moral and legal tolerance, surely the last thing you want to do is attract attention or get involved in legal battles? Of course many will argue (correctly IMNSHO) that the music distribution also pushes the boundaries of morality and legality, but the key difference is that their core business is not directly about sex. Janet Jackson gave us a clear demonstration last week of just how hung up a good proportion of the USA is. In many other nations, this incident would have barely raised any eyebrows, but in the US it's apparently world war three.
Like it or not, the RIAA's campaigning has won over much public support or acceptance - for every slashdotter who sees them as a menace, there's probably a large number of other people who see them as perfectly reasonable. But pornographers wouldn't get that kind of response and they know it. They're more likely to get themselves shut down than anything else if they raise a stink. As much as I'd like to think their attitude is because the porn business is more enlightened, I think their real motive is more likely just self-protection.
Au contraire, mon frere.
Adult entertainment is a well established film genre. Why isn't it an honest job? You wake up, drive to work, clock in, bust your hump (or hump your bust) all day, then go home, and cash your cheques.
True, there is a seedier side to some of the fly by night operations, but that's also true of import electronics, major label clothing, accounting and the stock market, as we've seen in the last few years.
Corrupting minds? Nobody is forcing anybody to watch porn. Actually, it's almost always segregated into its own section / room in a store to keep people from having to peruse it unwillingly. You have to willingly pay for it on TV.
Take your religious fundamentalist dogma elsewhere.
As for the illegality of piracy, go talk to the vice-president about halliburton. He wouldn't be doing all that if it were illegal, right?
so any exposure (pun not intended) is good for them. Plus you can't exactly advertise on prime time tv (superbowl not withstanding). There's a lot less competition in music ( between record labels that is, not artists), and they have plenty of avenues for advertisement. Obviously the RIAA isn't going to be interested in using unauthorised downloads as an advertisment medium.
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"corruption of minds" market,
Corruption of minds? You obviously haven't seen some of the porn I've seen. More like comedy, with the wooden acting and unbelievable plots.
If it's not an "honest job or enterprise", how does it make money? Obviously, there's a demand, and they fill it..... (ba-dum-dum!)
Karnal
I don't read the Times you insensitive clod!
Honestly, are we going to be dogged with these stupid registration news sites until The Rapture?
What about Porn Music?
My favorite from Pornosonic is the "Special Delivery".
I have over 11 GB of pr0n on my hd right now, I never paid a cent for any of it.
I have over 4 GB of music on my HD righ now, I bought most of the CDs that it came from.
IMO it's also far more likely for people to buy music than pr0n. Someone could be in the mall and happen to see an old CD from an artist that they like and pick it up.
Nobody is going to see ideepthroat.com's greatest hits on the rack at Best Buy and impulse buy a copy.
Besides, the pr0n industry has already mastered online content distribution. The music industry has a LOOOOOOONG way to go.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Porn was over 1/3rd of all traffic on the net, last time I checked. The amount of money they generate because they have embraced openness has made even Microsoft envious.
A typical $10k porn movie can generate tens of millions in sale. Just need to slip some clips into a common p2p network with some taglines, and people go out to buy the whole thing. A friend of mine runs several porn sites, makes a comfortable living off of them, providing original content. (5-figure takehome salary, not too shabby) He points out how the movies he has clips of invariably end up his top sellers. And those clips are traded freely on P2P networks. He releases a new clip, putting it on KaZaa himself, sales for it boom in less than 14 days.
The net is a wonderful technology, if you let it be.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
OK, not all of them are criminals, but enough might be that they wouldn't want the legal scrutiny that comes with filing a lawsuit.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The Drake Equation of FileSharing.
For those of you who aren't already in the know The Drake Equation defines the possibility of Extraterrestrial Intelligence in terms of a whole bunch of probabilities.
And just like the above equation, nobody has nailed down exactly what those probabilities are.
Still, it has officially turned it into something you can calculate, and scientists the world over like to talk of The Drake Equation.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
If 12-years are doing it, they will hassle you.
If >= College-Aged students are doing it, they won't do nothing.
Based on the long and glorious tradition of warez and trading everything under the sun all through the history of computers, and this new data viz. Napster and Kazaa v. RIAA, this theory fits the data.
So the solution is to trade files but find ways to prevent young kids from doing it. And don't profit from it (the cops always bust the dealers).
I can listen to a song more than once.
Who the fuck listens to pr0n?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Anyone ever notice how P2P porn is allways in massively inflated mpg format instead of a more efficient divx?
Just like how the cell phone companies practically give away phones in order to make money off the cell phone plans/services, the porn industry doesn't worry about ppl sharing p0rn....since for the most part they probably make more money on p0rn "goods"...including condoms. unfortunately, the music biz has no real products (hence they are in trouble with the crappy stuff they have).
Actually, no. I suck Bawls.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
It's not so much the sharing of material that the companies I do work for care about, but the leaking of passwords onto online sites.
When a site gets released onto a list, and several hundred people end up downloading 100meg+ movies, that's essentially a slashdot effect for you. Before I ended up implementing a protection system for one company, they spent upwards of $3k/month in bandwidth overages. This was just for one day of password leaking.
Sometimes sharing porn is good press. That's why all of SW's images are watermarked, as well as all their videos. That's partly how the word is spread. Of course, making the news on roughly 10 different shows and being contravercial doesn't hurt either :)
I know of some companies that deliberately leak passwords out onto lists for short periods of time just to drive people to the site. That works quite well. Too bad the music industry couldn't learn from something like that.
But then, the problem with the music industry is that people only want to pirate well known artists. With porn, sex is sex. No matter whose ass is involved, as long as it's a fine one, people will watch.
And people will pay. Simple as that.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Doesn't look that way to me... rather it looks like music is becoming porn. Apart from the obvious recent incident with Janet Jackson, we get the ever so slutty Christina Aguilera, and the increasingly less innocent Britney Spears. Perhaps the singers are just trying to get a foot in both markets ;-)
No one forces people do take drugs but they still do lots of damage to society.
> Making pornography isn't like it's an honest job or enterprise.
Oh yeah? Let's see YOU fill the role of "fluffer" on set for awhile.
Love,
Darl
Maybe I just have a skewed experience here, but I recall that while many porn sites are indeed AOK with people sharing their content, some are particularly aggressive with regard to its protection and--failing that--prosecution of violators. In particular, I seem to remember at least a few cases in which Titan Media and other producers of gay pornography went after websites that posted pictures and other exerpts from their exclusive content.
Parts of the porn industry take "piracy" just as seriously as the RIAA and MPAA; a lack of publicizing of the lawsuits, etc. that have resulting might be more of an issue with the underground nature of the subject.
Come on man, this is AMERICA, remember the first amendment? People have rights in our country. Also, you seem to take the law too literally. Remember, life is never as simple as it appears on paper. Go out and see some things, it will open your mind.
You have a problem.
but no mistake, porn sites put some resources into clamping down on those who hack into premium content. These guys aren't stupid. Also, given the investment-to-profit ratio in that biz, I wonder if it isn't a bit of found-money syndrome. It just happens, as a fringe benefit, that squeezing every last penny out of your customers is also good for business.
...I'd be hocking my uid on ebay, not complaining about being modded up.
People damage society, not drugs.
Does a 15-year-old get ostracized by their peers if they don't view the same porn as their buddies?
Music has a powerful network effect, a fashion effect. With porn, you get what you want (if you want any). With music, it's important to listen to what your social class listens to, or you aren't cool.
In that sense I think that popular music has a much more powerful hook than porn, because popular music hooks into the near-universal desire to be accepted by one's peer group.
As far as movie addiction goes, I don't see people camping for two weeks at the porn shop for the next blockbuster to come out, the way they do for Star Wars.
Raving slashdot p2p trolls aside, we all know that pirating is not acceptable.
Not true. Believe it or not, some of us have real, moral contentions with the notion of "intellectual property." Some of us actually believe that while you can claim credit for creating art, you cannot morally exert control over what happens to that art after it is offered to the public. Some of us see a distinction between unallowed taking (theft) and unallowed distribution. Some of us actually believe that market value ought to be determined by real scarcity, not statute. Believe it or not, there's a deep schism of philosophy that goes far beyond the presumption that "p2p trolls" as you call us are simply children who want something for nothing.
It's more that we want nothing for nothing.
> Making pornography isn't like it's an honest job or enterprise.
> They are already into the "corruption of minds" market
It's a hell of a lot more honest an indsutry than many in America.
And really now, I think sex is a classic red herring of "corruption". When the majority of Americans were running around convinced that Iraq/Saddam were involved in 9/11. Last week Georgia tries to remove the word "evolution" from their science curriculum. Meanwhile our fellow citizens see an exposed tit on network TV and go freakin' nuts.
Sex is demonized, violence and ignorance are glorified. Our Puritan heritage at its finest.
People in the porn industry are used to getting screwed by anyone and everyone so don't mind that know it's happening via file sharing. RIAA on the other hand is used to screwing everyone and anyone and doesn't like it when it happens to them.
Plain, simple, understandable, and honest. What else do we need.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
People are going to collect and share their porn that is life. Bringing constant new stuff out keeps sales high. It just isn't worth anyone's time to go after users and anyway sharing stuff is free advertisement. The whole industry is geared around free samples. I know this because I run a completely free directory. You get enough surfer's interest and some will pay for full access.
x /
It is easy to prevent hotlinking of images using htaccess. Also htaccess can be used to prevent site ripping.
To prevent password sharing and brut force password hacking of paysites Strongbox is used. http://webmastersguide.com/?htaccess-cgi/strongbo
sex for code
> "Making pornography isn't like it's an honest job or enterprise."
No, you're quite right, they should quit, join the military and kill people instead.
Need Mercedes parts ?
is your porn
Turn up the heat, for f$ck's sake! If you've actually got a GF or SO hanging around, you may have noticed that her lips are turning blue, and she's more likely to be piling on the sweaters or clutching a blanket than prancing around in fantasy lingerie at this chilly time of year. Women get cold! Although there are no doubt individual variations, we generally get colder than you do. (At the risk of being onsidered an insensitive clod, I have no idea how this works for gay couples.)You may be saving a few pennies on the kilowatt-bill, but please, all the roses, chocolates and Valentine's Day teddies and lingerie in the world won't make up for the goosebumps and numb toes she's experiencing if you keep the thermostat too low. So throw another log on the fire, turn up the heat or (mirabile dictu) ask her if she's comfortable. What do you care? You may be sweating like a (ahem) basket, but if this advice works, you'll be nekkid pretty soon anyway, and then you'll be thanking me.
In most of the world, there is no such thing as a doggy bag. -- Prof. Kelly Brownell
The porn industy has significant experience dealing with stiff competition, and is in a better position when it comes to taking it in the ass, unlike the music moguls, who think only the customer deserves to get fucked.
Porn is always good...... the same can't be said about music
but where to get torrents????
that shit's bad for your heart. good drink though
YOU SUCK BALLS!
"Why isn't it an honest job?"
Porno acting is as dishonest a job as being a pro-wrestler.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I was busted a few months ago for downloading porn. The scary thing was I had only downloaded a few megabytes worth over the course of a few hours! My cable modem was shut off and I was sent a registered letter. I was able to settle out of court for $75. How embarrassing! Getting busted by the porn industry was the last thing on my mind! So, just to let you know, some porn companies are getting serious about copyright infringement.
The good thing however is I ordered a premium cable package where they uncapped my modem. When the cable company reactivated my account, my cable modem was still uncapped but I am paying for the basic cable price! That $75 will have paid itself off in 2 months!
You may believe that sex is an immoral act. You may believe that showing people having appropriate mutualy satisfying sex is worse than showing a people bashing each others heads in, but that would be what you believe. Other people may believe it also, but that is not relevent either.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Ok, a few quick questions-- What's the average budget of making an 'adult' movie? What's the average salary of a pornstar? How much are these movies/VCDs/DVDs sold for? Less than your average record deal, less than your average pop idol and less than your average CD. I haven't done any hard research or dug that deep (ahem), but I'm guessing that even the super star of porn makes dirt compared to your average syndicated recording artist.
All in all, it's really simple-- The recording industry has a larger power base and more money t protect than triple-AAA porn company. of course, the same can't be said about Playboy or Penthouse, which will rabidly go after infringers. It's not surprising that the companies behaviors reflects the size of their empires...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Isn't that a bit of a narrow niche?
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
The music in porn? What if you file share that!?
Wah guitar at it's baunt chicka baunt bauw finest!
IIRC they actually released a compilation CD of tracks from "famous" 70's/80's porn... the ron jeremy shuffle if you will.
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I can't resist feeding an ignorant troll
Who in hell made you God and gave you the right to decide what constitutes an honest job or enterprise? Where does this "corruption of minds" crap come from? Don't you think that perhaps it was humankind tht invented it? I'm sure you'd be the first to go along with prohibition too?
As for "double standards" what do you say about a music industry association that says downloading is illegal when it clearly isn't?
Come to Canada, where the CRIA (the RIAA equivalent) has the gall to suggest downloading is illegal. The CRIA perpetuates a myth that downloading music is illegal - its not!
Section 80 of the Copyright Act specifically gives Canadians the right to download and copy music. Even the Copyright Board of Canada stated that downloading is legal
I have little to add to your excellent post, except another fun category that serves to confuse the matter.
When it comes to buying games, I belong to both the buyer and the pirate group. I'll buy the game, discover that anti-piracy measures in it serve to inhibit gameplay, and have to go searching for a no-CD crack. Most recent example: KOTOR. I bought the game, I have the nice spiral-bound manual, etc. However, frequently while the game was loading, it would "fail" the original CD check. Sometimes it took upwards of five minutes just to start. Finally got frustrated, found a crack (took a few seconds), patched, and stored the CD elsewhere.
You know that you have a failure when your copy-protection fails to stop pirates, and inhibits the paying customer. Just in case anyone thought that the **IA was the only group of people who needed a reality check.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
The two examples I always pull out are the Grateful Dead and x-rated material. Both had 100% "piracy rates" and both made a lot of money. By the logic of the MPAA and RIAA, both should have been decimated. But that was not the case.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Eliminate or reduce the copyright incentive for material that the government is trying to discourage. Of course, there are lots of first amendment issues in how such a policy could legally implemented in the US, but I expect criteria used for defining "pornography" would probably be found constitutional (although I'm not a lawyer).
The result would probably not be a decrease in availability of pornography, but a great reduction in the money available to "vicitimize" people by encouring them to make new porn or whatever other new content the government wants to discourage.
For "smaller government" people like me, I'd be happy just because I think any reduction in copyright restrictions is progress.
if they can get under age people to get porn over the internet. When they're of age they'll be more likely to purchase porn. Just a thought.
See Sig! See Sig Zig! Zig Sig Zig!!!!!
My partner is involved in still and streaming porn production, and according to him porn producers generally want the widest distribution of their content as possible. The deal with porn is that many of the images and videos produced are watermarked with the site name or other source identifier. Since people who consume porn have an effectively infinite appetite, they will continue looking for new porn after consuming their previous download. Whether the content was obtained legally or illegally, it probably has a watermark. If they liked the content, they are more likely, though not guaranteed, to look for additional content with the same source. For those who keep up to date with the latest porn, this will drive customers to their sites. The reason this works for online porn is that they have a well-established web presence and content which is easy to obtain relatively inexpensively. With the sheer volume of newsgroups and other media distributing legal and illegal copies of their content, they have a free and massive marketing apparatus. And again, given the near infinite appetite of the consumer base, even if a large percentage of their content is eventually pirated, there is always more being produced and consumers hungry for the newest stuff they haven't seen.
"Porno acting is as dishonest a job as being a pro-wrestler."
...And how are either different from any other acting? By definition, an actor is pretending to be something they aren't, and getting paid for it. I'd say pornography has a greater degree of improvisation than most other acting forms, and the only difference between pro-wrestling and ballet is the fans; 'dishonest' doesn't really apply. Is an actor who smokes for a part, yet is against smoking (there are a lot of people in that category) any better or worse ethically? I don't watch pro wrestling or pornography myself , but I don't think they're 'dishonest'. They are morally questionable, but still legitimate.
G
I think I can offer a better one, one that whle you can know the variables for certian, you can make educated guesses at.
l = p * c * x
Where l is the amount you lost to piracy, p is the amount you make per copy sold (not the retail price), c is the number of copies pirated and x is the percentage of people that would have actually purchased your product had it been impossible to copy.
No unlike the Drake equation, we can get information that will allow us to make good guesses at the second two factors. It would require some research, probably in the form of anonymous survyes but you could get an estimate of how many copies of something were made and how many of those people would have spent the money for it.
Even if both terms were +-10%, it would still be useful and, I believe, clearly show how overblown the numbers claimed by the music industry are.
Not going after people who don't break the law isn't a question of ethics, it's a question of business.
Ethics would be a concern if they were considering going after people who didn't do anything.
Porno companies think they can make more money by letting some stuff slide. Maybe they're right. Maybe Hollywood could too. But that isn't a question of ethics.
I just got done setting up some torrent downloads from Empornium, and I surf over to /. to find this article...
Jesus, did porn kill your dog or something man?
Thank you deadsaijinx for making me feel better on this Saturday night. I thought I was lame....
Oh my God, I can't believe I read that as "Goat Porn"
The best liar gets an Oscar.
its on the tip of my tongue... that word for when someone is tricked into believing in something and paying money to see it, but its all a setup. Like P.T.Barnum or 'Ripleys believe it or not'.
:-/
The acts performed in a lot of porno are not necessarily acts which it is a great pleasure to perform.
They are not intended to feel good for the participants (who get paid to do it); they are intended to make money. Sex is essentially a tactile thing, not primarily visual.
To make money it has to look good. We don't have 'feelies' yet.
The sort of sex act that feels good may well not look good on camera. Duh.
What happens if its presented in such a way that a *LOT* of people wind up thinking that this is what sex really is?
Unwittingly, they join the Voluntary Human Extinction Project since these 'sex acts' are almost always non-reproductive; semen is usually deposited on some external surface. Think of it as a 'Catholic' guide to birth control.
Pro-wrestling is similar. Except with less bodily fluids. How many pro wrestling fans draw on what they see in 'the ring' as a benchmark for their internal model of physics? Their estimate of what happens to a person when a chair is broken across their back, for example? Maybe people arn't that dumb.
However, in both cases, I think theres an underlying dishonesty.
I could have got human stupidity all wrong, of course.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
This has got to be one of the worst stories ever accepted. You deny things 10X more interesting than this & then accept a relating story 6 months later talking about how techs could have voiced their opinion before the end result.
The Porn Industry Association of America. They can even do ads like the MPAA did:
"When you pirate porn, your not just hurting the Jenna Jamesons, you hurting the fluffers, the camermen, the spooge moppers......"
a major ISP in the area hosts tens of thousands of porn sites, they push so much bandwidth that every user on Kazaa would have had to download at least a few seconds of a video to even compare - and all filesharing does is to increase popularity. To a certain extent, filesharing/newsgroups tends to satisfy the casual observer who would have only paid for a cheap demo anyway, but hooks in quite a few who like what they see.
I get tired of shitty half assed copies of music and select screener/movies I download - and actually BUY THE STUFF I LIKE. Fuck anyone that tries to mess with my choice - take a clue from the porn industry - generate a little INTEREST with GOOD CONTENT not DISinterest from lawsuits and antagonistic behaviour.
Porn makes money. Bandwidth costs money - the porn industry saves by relaxing their damn lawyer some of the time. Take a hint, RIAA (or I'm going to charge you for advertising your music next time I turn up my radio, or reccomend a song to someone).
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" -- George Orwell
Having sex for purposes other than reproduction has nothing to do with the VHEMT. Your claiming it does is simply evidence of your complete ignorance of what it is. The VHEMT is about making a choice not to reproduce during your lifetime. Having sex for fun or profit doesn't "make you a member". Additionally, there is nothing Catholic about having sex for fun or profit. Sex for any purpose other than reproduction is expressly prohibited by Christianity.
Just because people draw incorrect conclusions based on your actions doesn't make you dishonest - it just makes them gullible (or simply misled). Have you ever seen a movie? Chances are, it's all fake. Hollywood and reality don't often agree - romance, fights, etc. just don't work the same way. According to your statements, every actor is dishonest.
G
If the music industry has its way, with the help of the porn industry, we will soon find that royalty-police will go after those who moans and shouts during orgasms.
Moans like "deeper!" "harder!" "aaaaahhhh!" "Ooooooooh!" and even those slurpy sounds will soon be copyrighted nobody have the right to maon anymore unless you pay RIAA in advance !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
evidently, slashdot moderators have lots of experience jacking off.
Microsoft has an operating system??? Shit...maybe I better crawl out of my linux hole! :S
I'm not entirely sure I want to know the answer and it's almost positive I'm not going to like it.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
A friend of mine and her husband were/are in porn. She got models and did photography, he did website stuff.
They lived quiet lives in the suburbs, worked hard (actually, if you ask me, very hard for the money they were making) and felt they were doing honest work.
There was actually an interesting sterility to it all...there was nothing dirty about what they were doing, it was their livelyhoods. If anything, she in particular, thought of it as an artform (and there definitely is a large market for much more sophisticated artistic porn.)
I understand why you say what you say...and a lot of people also dont think of it as an honest enterprise, and I entirely understand that. But, the people in the industry do, and that's what I'm disagreeing with in your post.
It just goes to show. When you put porn and music together, bow chicka-bow-bow...
or has anyone else considered the fact that, now that pretty much all porn has been digital for the past (10?) years, there will eventually be a point at which every conceivable act will have been performed a near infinite number of times, and archived? Assuming that at least a significant fraction of the of all porn "performances" are archived, won't we eventually reach a point where there's just really no need for new porn (aside from maybe celebs). Since few really know, or care, about the details of porn, why shouldn't future generations be content to watch porn from decades earlier? While there may be some more specific content that ages, I think that naked bodies will (hopefully) still look the same for years to come. Anyway, my 0.02
Tierce
Who sponsors your feelings?
"Having sex for purposes other than reproduction has nothing to do with the VHEMT" I didn't exactly say it did.
I merely suggest that the cause of 'voluntary human extinction' is inadvertantly advanced by people choosing non-reproductive as opposed to reproductive sex (because that is what they are being conditioned to in their exposure to porno).
'The VHEMT is about making a choice not to reproduce during your lifetime. Having sex for fun or profit doesn't "make you a member".' Sorry, I don't intend that meaning, my apologies for misleading you.
I should point out that non-reproductive sex isn't necessarily unpleasent, however having to have a woman perform fellatio on you and then having to wank off such that you ejaculate onto her at just the right moment for the director would not, I feel, count as actual sex.
"there is nothing Catholic about having sex for fun or profit." I was referring to coitus interruptus, which is featured in most porno.
"Sex for any purpose other than reproduction is expressly prohibited by Christianity" That would be coitus, as in 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman.'
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I want to wake up in the morning to find my mailbox up to 25 gigs with trailers for new Hollywood movies!
Why is this offtopic, but the parent is insightful? Seems to be they're both about the same thing and both offtopic.
Fifteen years ago there were three major producers of Porn and very few distribution companies and they made all the money. Then came video, the 'net, open distribution, and now there are hundreds of Porn companies, most of which make decent money, but no single company makes more than 15% of the whole market. The big three are still rich, but nowhere near as rich or dominant. And there is better porn (also worse porn, sicker porn, more boring porn, every kind of porn).
This is exactly what will/should happen with music. Just imagine: hundreds of different record companies, all with more or less equal access to the market. You'd have lots of new music--some great, some lousy, some that only you and a hundred others would love. And as much as I love Springsteen, it would be fine with me if he only made $5 million a year and several thousand other bands each made $100,000 a year.
The problem for the big five record companies (soon to be only three, through mergers) is that they're on such a scale that they simply wouldn't work on a smaller scale. The big 3 porn cos were small enough and nimble enough to adjust down. The big five are terrified. I spoke with a high-ranking executive at one of the big 5 and he said it's about 50/50 they'll be in business in five years. He said he's kind of looking forward to early retirement. But who cares? Get rid of them. In ten years or fifty, there will still be money to be made in music and there will be companies making it. It would be great if there are many small companies instead of a handful of big ones.
on hardcore porn!" [/rocks out]
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
milfhunter is another fake "real" site. or at least i recognise some of the women from porn flicks elsewhere.
...has figured things out. Trading images that contain their copyright has been allowed by a lot of sites as they consider it free advertising and they know it works.
So the RIAA should recognize that most people don't have the time/patience to download 10 or more songs for an album, but hearing one or two might make them go out and by it.
Just my 2 cents from a pr0n freak. LOL.
--- There is a man in a smiling bag.
Finish your reason, it's something I'm interested in!
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
I think there are other relevant factors:
* Prescedent. This is a biggie, or has at least been cited as a big worry by the industry. What happens if people get *comfortable* pirating media over P2P? It's a social move that would be very, very difficult to reverse (view cigarettes -- extremely difficult to excise from society after having been introduced).
* The elimination of certain forms of marketing-driven sales. One of the largest United States macroeconomic benefits is the world's best marketing system. Yes, engineers like to insult marketers, but when it comes down to it, the fact that we can sell Elvis in Mongolia is why Western-produced products are valued so highly, and why so much wealth has been brought into the United States. In the past, it has been possible to sell relatively poor content very well with effective marketing, because one is able to ensure that people are unfamiliar with the product that they are buying until after they buy it. Furthermore, (for movie companies in particular) controlling the format in which viewers see content for the first time can be very important in shaping impressions and building word-of-mouth. If they see it in a darkened movie theater on a big screen with surround sound, they may weight it more favorably than the things they see on their old Zenith on VHS at home. If someone sees a poor-quality rip of The Matrix and doesn't pick up on all the fine CG detail, they may have a significantly lower opinion of the movie. First impressions translate into word-of-mouth, which translate into sales.
* Control is a big deal. The ability to produce a few higher-priced limited edition releases can be lucrative.
May we never see th
Sex for any purpose other than reproduction is expressly prohibited by Christianity.
Boy, Christian sects have done an awful job of marketing recently if this is the popular view of 'em.
Maybe in some kind of whacked out Puritanical sects where pleasure is seen as a sin, "sex for any purpose other than reproduction" might be unacceptable, but not in mainstream Christianity. Christianity places restrictions on sex, sure. Adultry is a no-no. Homosexuality is a no-no. Sex for enjoyment? No problem. Hell, one of the fundamental ideas behind the Reformation was that sexual needs need to be recognized. Martin Luther felt that trying to force priests to be celibate was stupid and not working -- you had a Pope that picked up prostitutes and gay Italian priests. Humans have human desires, and trying to suppress them is a dead end.
May we never see th
One thing that allows the porn industry to allow its material to be pirated is the much lower salaries it pays its top-rated performers.
i haven't seen a popup in years.... go mozilla ;)
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this 120 chars is too small to contain.
But the more accurate equation is not linear with coefficients equal to 1. Each term does not have the same weight and there is a lot of non-linear feedback. For example, people can change from one type to another. But it does not matter because the average American cannot understand any equations anyway, nor can they imagine a world different from what the mainstream media describes.
Sex for any purpose other than reproduction is expressly prohibited by Christianity.
Nonsense. I'm not aware of any mainstream Christian church that says this. Most of the Christian world agrees that adultery is wrong, homosexuality is wrong, fornication is wrong, but sex is good and right -- even beautiful. My church also teaches that masturbation and viewing of pornography are sinful, but considers sex to be a critically important part of a healthy marriage, even when no procreation is involved.
Even Catholics consider sex between husband and wife to be a good thing, regardless of procreative possibilities, though attempting to avoid pregnancy is discouraged, at least officially. Infertile couples are not prohibited from having intercourse, for example.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Seriously. A whole porn movie is a huge file. But most of the movie porn (as opposed to home-brewed) on p2p are clips from the movies. So if someone downloads a clip of the imaginary "Butt Knockers 2" and likes it, they'll probably go buy a copy rather than download it for 3-4 days, hoping it's not a corrupted or bogus file when the download is finished.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
The Pornography Industry vs. Digital Pirates
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: February 8, 2004
HOUSANDS of Web sites are putting Playboy magazine's pictures on the Internet - free. And Randy Nicolau, the president of Playboy.com, is loving it. "It's direct marketing at its finest," he said.
Let the music industry sue those who share files, and let Hollywood push for tough laws and regulations to curb movie copying. Playboy, like many companies that provide access to virtual flesh and naughtiness, is turning online freeloaders into subscribers by giving away pictures to other sites that, in turn, drive visitors right back to Playboy.com.
[Advertisement]
When Mr. Nicolau is asked whether he thinks that the entertainment industry is making a mistake by taking a different approach, he replies: "I haven't spent much time thinking about it. It's like asking Henry Ford, 'What were the buggy-whip guys doing wrong?' ''
The copyright rumble is playing out a little differently in the red-light districts of cyberspace. That neighborhood is increasingly difficult to confine, what with a fetishwear-clad Janet Jackson flashing a Super Bowl audience of millions, and Paris Hilton making her own version of a "Girls Gone Wild" video. Professional peddlers say they are hard pressed to compete.
Still, the business of being bad is very good, especially for the biggest players. Though the industry has felt a financial squeeze during the economic slowdown, it nonetheless has sales of as much as $2 billion each year, said Tom Hymes, the editor of AVNOnline, a business magazine for the industry.
And the pornography industry, which has always been among the first to exploit new technologies, including the VCR, the World Wide Web and online payment systems, is finding novel ways to deal with the threat of online piracy as well. The mainstream entertainment industry, some experts say, would do well to pay attention.
Music executives say their campaign of lawsuits has been successful. They say they have spread the word that downloading free music infringes on copyrights and that there could be consequences for large-scale file sharers.
But the pornography industry has been dealing with Internet copyright issues since the 1980's. By comparison, the movie and music businesses are relative newcomers. Mr. Hymes said companies in his industry had come to realize that suing consumers and promoting "draconian laws" were not the answer. "No law written can stem the tide," he said. And so, he said, companies are seeking ways to live with the technologies that threaten them and are trying to turn them to their advantage.
That is not to say that the companies have not been harmed by free copying and distribution of copyrighted material online. Mr. Hymes's magazine warned recently that such companies were "losing incalculable amounts of cash" to peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Kazaa, LimeWire, Grokster and Bit Torrent.
"As the networks continue to grow and even more sophisticated programs are created, the P2P networks might prove a bigger threat to the revenue stream of the porn world than all the censorious right-wingers in the country put together," the article stated.
Maybe. But many companies that distribute X-rated material say they do not worry too much about consumers sharing among themselves; they often unleash their lawyers only when someone is trying to profit by copying their goods and trying to sell them.
When people in the industry talk of copyright, there is none of the grand speechifying about revering artists and rewarding creativity, and the near-tearful paeans to the yeoman key grips and stunt men, as is favored by movie and record executives. Instead, there is just this: We spent a lot of money to get this stuff out to the market. Somebody else is making money off of it. We want the money.
"We haven't gone after Joe Citizen who's sharing something he printed off something from the Hustler Web site with another guy," sai
The following might also explain a few of China's decisions and initiatives in recent years:
http://www.cw.com.hk/Features/f20000223001.htm
a comment made by Gates in 1998 and reprinted widely and often in the official media became a lightning rod for criticism of the software giant. Fortune magazine reported that, in a presentation to business students at an American university, Gates said rampant software piracy might turn out to be a positive thing for Microsoft.
"Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software," Gates reportedly said. "Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
A local prime-time news show quoted the statement on several occasions, according to one observer in China.
"A lot of people know this quote," said the Chinese observer, a former journalist who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Gates' comment, which conjures up images of British opium imports in the 19th century -- the prime symbol in the Chinese media of Western exploitation -- helped to create a negative image of Microsoft in some peoples' minds, the former journalist said.
The reason is that there is a market for artisitic porn is that men have to show their porn to their girlfriends eventually. Those girlfriends aren't going to be too happy if the boyfriends have "Toothless Backwoods Anal Sluts 5".
here
Also, many of these rules were only applied to the nobility and other upper/high class people (during the Middle Ages). The church didn't seem to really care if a lowly farmer was banging several women. If a noble was doing that, there could be a problem if he fathered several children. Those children might fight each other for their inheritence and end up causing civil wars and other strife.
Of course, things changed and now these rules are applied to everyone.
What about Goat Moaning? Or is that too obscene for even the RIAA?
Basically reinforncing the fact that they don't care if it gets shared among users (that's free promotion) but if other companies are trying to make money on content that the first company paid to have produced, that's when the lawyers come out to play.
Sounds fair enough to me. It's akin to a new band duplicating a CD of an old band then slapping their name on it and selling it. Even hating the RIAA as much as I do, I see this sort of copyright violation as wrong. (in fact, THAT is exactly why copyright was created)
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
"If a crack was available"... Isn't searching for a crack the whole purpose of pr0n? Unless, of course, you're strictly a tit man... ~m
"Yes, I have a Disaster Recovery Plan. It's called my Resume"
I have never heard of any "illegal music" in the sense you could go to jail just for having a copy of it or listening to it. There IS, however, plenty of "illegal porn." Someone forgot to include in the equation the percentage of people who collect, but would never buy simply because they fear going to jail if caught...
It takes billions of years to evolve a space faring species and only a million years for a space faring race to wholly occupy a galaxy; so odds are that most galaxies will eventually be occupied by one space faring race from one planet within it.
As we occupy our galaxy we will undoubtedly find other planets with intelligent species that don't become space faring for some reason; like all water planet or a smart jelly fish creature in a gravity well like Jupiter. Further we have semi intelligent species other than Man here on Earth (other great apes, parrots, whales).
Why buy animal porn? Its all over Kazaa. Search for "Chessie Moore - Dog Mounts & Cums". Its better than any animal porn I ever bought in NY and its free.
Thank you. It makes so much sense now if you consider that many countries like Saudi Arabia think pr0n is evil and punish people heavily for having it. These people don't watch pr0n and they have four wives with 25 children. Maybe when they watch pr0n, they don't get so bored with one wive and they learn how to ejaculate outside the vagina. :)
Is that a NYT article or some refried rice they took from AP or some other vendor. Adding you own spices does not make it yours. Isn't the NYT challenging-and people still pay for it.
I think that file sharing makes an industry a meritocracy rather than a 'marketingocracy'... which is exactly what the RIAA is afraid of (with hard-to-control consumer diversity a close second).
I'm saving that one for my tombstone!
jswatz (the guy who wrote the story)
"speaking only for myself since 1957"
Lol! I think regardless of parent discussion can agree on that collecting porn truly takes dedication!
Btw. /me has used less than a year to get hold of 6-7 GB of porn, but movies kinda takes more space than pictures, but if your fine with jpg's thats all fine with me :)
And university-class 100mbit lines and internal p2p-networks saves you time. Now you know.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
I started noticing what lables produced my favorite artists/cd's when I bought a Skid Row CD (Atlantic) via BMG music services (Buy 12 CDs for the price of 1!).
In this case, it was BMG who stripped the CD of one of my favorite songs because it was deemed offensive ("Get the FscK Out")
My conclusion: If anything, the lables want to remain as transparent as possible, because so far, the only thing their 'brand' tends to engender is resentment and dis-loyalty.
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
I would think the porn industry could teach the **AA a thing or two about monkeys....
...and traps
...and monkey traps
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
Not really so much that the RIAA are greater slimeballs (though I don't discount the possibility), but just that their marketing dept and perspective are so screwed that they're completely clueless as to the marketing capability of the internet.
If you do a little browsing on Kazaa, you'll find that many of the pr0n films come labelled with a website address or a distributer etc. That's because, inevitably, the pr0n makers know that somebody will probably following that link home like a fish on a line and possibly become a customer.
The RIAA on the other hand, see the fish gobbling up the bugs amongst the reeds at the other side of the pond, and rather than use the bugs or fish in the reeds they decided they would rather
a) Cut down/remove all the reeds (free food) and hope the fish come to them
b) Shoot some of the fish with a gun to scare them away from the reeds, but actually scare most of the fish away altogether.
It appears that pr0n companies just know much better how to market than the RIAA. If music came predominantly in low-quality or teaser clips in kazaa then they'd have a good worm on their hook... instead the worms are in management.
They wouldn't have to camp, at least not around here. The pr0n store seems to be open late, many open 24h.
Somewhat odd when one thinks that you can't buy music or Pirates of the Carribean past 6pm/12am, but you can pick up a pr0n vid anytime you want.
As for the addiction factor, pr0n breeds the desire to buy more pr0n... as it is the variety that seems to matter to many.
So you might not see people camping beside the Adult XXX Video Store, but you will see some people that come in and out on a regular basis renting/buying chains of new/different titles.
Yes, but you might find that many pr0nsters are stuck once hooked. That is, you buy individual music. Most internet pr0n works on subscription, so if you ever were to subscribe to a site you liked, chances are you could go up to a year renewing said subscription. Some of those subscriptions seem quite pricey too, so I'd imagine there's money in keeping somebody on the hook.