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."

Comments

Porn and the Internet

[downix]

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.

Missing Poll Option

[Liselle]

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.