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Adult Entertainment Antes Up In DRM War
At the recent adult entertainment awards, host Greg Fitzsimmons highlighted the deep relationship between the internet and pornography stating "'The Internet was completely funded by porn,' he said [...] And if it wasn't for the Internet, he added, 'you guys would be completely out of business.' The audience, packed with porn actors and adult entertainment moguls like Jenna Jameson and Larry Flynt, roared with laughter." Now it appears that the adult entertainment industry has chosen to ante up in the DRM battle as well. Some companies have chosen to take sides, like Digital Playground who will be supporting Sony's Blu-Ray. Others, like Vivid Entertainment, seem to think that the answer is diversity and will be supporting both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.
There is porn on the internet? :-O
Once a friend of mine commented that VHS was superior in quality to Betamax but that the only reason VHS won was because Sony refused to license porn on their format. Whether this is true or not is probably debatable. But now we see the industry vying for licenses to the porn industry for their new formats. Why? Perhaps Sony learned their lesson with Betamax ...
Ironically, I'm going to wager that Spongebob and Pikachu have more clout than Jenna Jameson and Larry Flynt in the format war. Because every child needs a babysitter and that babysitter always comes in the newest format.
My work here is dung.
This theory -- that porn was the "true" #1 force behind the VCR and the Internet -- has been repeated so many times that it's taken almost as a truism. But how true is it really? My personal experience suggests that people purchased Internet access for information and communication purposes, and that for the most part it was sites like Amazon that brought us e-commerce. Does anybody know of any research or science that backs up or refutes this claim?
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
And if it wasn't for the Internet, he added, 'you guys would be completely out of business.'
Somewhat true, but the porn industry has been VERY resourceful and has been able to use technology to their advantage for years. They were the first to really push deeply(bad pun intended) the DVD market.
I watched Orgasmo like, five times! I know what DVDA is... but what is DRM? --shudders--
7h3$3 4r3n'7 7h3 Ðr01Ð$ ¥0 4r3 £00|{1n9 f0r. M0v3 4£0n9. --OB1
I would think that on a whole, the pornography industry would see The Internet as a love/hate relationship. Granted, it allows production and sales to a degree that wasn't fathomable for porn before, however, the mass filesharing means that one well off user can make off with tons of files from the site and host it else where. I mean, I guess it's good to know know that the love that the Internet has for porn is mutual, but wow, that's an awfully warm reception.
The only interactive, multiple-point-of-view DVD's I've seen were all pron. Almost like those sucky adult games the japanese make.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
does that mean porn is also the cause of all spyware and viruses on the net? Because I've heard most spyware and viruses come from "low reputation websites".
Just wondering.
Back in the early 80's there was very little access to pornography, particularly film.
Nowadays the situation is must less restricted and anyone with an internet connection can watch the filth of their choice with little difficulty and with no need of a media player. The internet distribution system is also a lot harder to censor.
One of the interesting things about the Blu-Ray announcement was that a key driver for the porn company was that PlayStation 3's will have drives built in. Is this an oblique way for calling PS3 players wankers?
I heard somewhere that there are three things that have a lot of popularity online.
1.) Porn
2.) UFOs
3.) Fantasy Football (more popular than porn during football season)
I think that he's very right to say that the internet is the only reason these people are in business. There are so many disgusting pieces of smut to feast your eyes on that it's actually amazing that we all get anything done online. It once was that you would go online and stumble on a couple porno sites. Now it has moved in every direction. There is 3D porn software, there are websites where you can watch girls in Austria get naked, there are websites where you can watch someone's grandmother get it from all sides. I personally don't like any of this stuff but it is truly what keeps the internet going. If it weren't for all these websites, successful or not, there would be a couple million unregistered domains and who knows how many horny men.
My point is that it's a good point that he makes.
I personally have seen internet porn and I have many friends who watch internet porn, however I don't know that many people who buy the DVD / Mags / VHS tapes. I would be interested to see the quality of a Blue-Ray / HD-DVD porn because I would imagine it would be amazing. So in my opinion moving to a high-def format would up physical sales but perhaps stunt online sales (due to long downloads)
What do you think?
Firefox 2.0 - Spell Rightly.
Others, like Vivid Entertainment, seem to think that the answer is diversity and will be supporting both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.
It figures that when given the choice, the Porn Industry would opt for a threesome.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The web is a newcomer. The internet existed long before that. Usenet, email, gopher, ftp were the applications people were using and yes, distribution of porn was *very* popular.
Deleted
I mean, come on:
"Yeah, the music rocked, but the grunts and moans weren't all they could have been."
-or-
"The plot was amazing! I never knew what was going to happen next!"
Here's why...
B====D~ ~ ~ O-:
I don't think anyone has broken Microsoft's WMV DRM.
You know, the one that requires you to connect to some server and get a license.
Anyways, I don't think 30GB dvd rips are exactly going to 'take off' on P2P networks. Even the DVD-R trading scene isn't that big.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
This article appeared to be more along the lines of "Adult Entertainment Antes Up In the HD DVD Format War" than "Adult Entertainment Antes Up In DRM War".
I didn't even see "DRM" or "copy protection/prevention" in the entire article.
Was there another article to this that I missed?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
The Internet was completely funded by porn," he said from the stage of the 23rd annual AVN Awards show. And if it wasn't for the Internet, he added, "you guys would be completely out of business."
I think you have it the wrong way round, porn was completely funded by the Internet and if it wasn't for the Internet's distribution system you guys wouldn't have a medium to generate that $2.5 billion revenue, you'd still be relegated to the back rooms of selected video stores selling tapes and DVDs.
I must admit, I find it interesting how 'mainstream' identities love casting references to pornography as if it will get them brownie points on their target demographic.
.xxx [forcing adult onto one controlled platform]
'Porn does this..' - 'Porn did that'.
If it's loved so much (and it is), why is the industry constantly under attack?
Read: Obscenity laws [FBI raids on STORY sites]
Read: 2257 laws [Forcing primary content producers to release the ID, names and addresses of models]
Read:
etc etc etc.
Once the "officially DRM'd" industry realises that they can't lock people (or profit) into their content managment schemes - then they will come out saying we need to protect kids from pron, and we need to outlaw any porn that isn't digitaly signed "for, OH MY GOD, the sake of the children!". Hollywood, and big media, will then surely jump on the bandwagon, and it won't be long before they try to outlaw any content that is't DRM controlled.
This is not VHS vs BETA all over again, and porn is not the deciding factor.
1. The Key Difference between Blu-Ray/HDVD & VHS/Beta: Home Video Exists.
2. Porn is not the deciding factor, because content exists. In the Home Video industry infancy, none did - except for porn.
3. Blue-Ray will probably win due to computing convergence. (assuming relatively equal prices on a recording capacity basis)
When the Home Video Player war came out, there was no home video standard - and no home video content. Pornography drove the industry because there was no existing content, and people would (will) pay for porn videos. Since the movie industry was reluctant to make any move - the only content was porn. Perhaps VHS won because it was cheaper (lower cost for content providers), or becuase Sony really refused to license Betamax to Porn. In any case, at that time Porn was the content provider for the early home video industry. (Side note, I remember seeing Record size Video Disks of non-porn-Movies before ever seeing tapes. (I also remember that piracy was going to distroy the motion picutre industry.)
Today, the home video industry is a large (booming) industry. Tapes have been supplanted by Digital Disks for content providers, and for recording. I suspect that the key difference in who wins the Blue-Ray/DVD battle is going to be price. People were willing to pay $$$$ for video decks when none existed, but are unlikely to pay $$$$ for video that is only of improved quality. (See the takeup rates for HDTV)
The short version is that whomever can reach critical mass production & lower costs first wins. The key difference may be storage capacity for computers. Why, you ask, will computers be a key factor for a Home Video technology? Because the replacement of Computer Backup Tape drives may provide enough of a market to gain true Mass Production capacity first.
One of the claims why Sony lost the Beta/VHS battle was that it took two tapes for many movies. That is, it cost 2x to produce a Beta Tape set relative to a VHS set. This is not going to be a problem, as both camps are stating that they will have the capacity to put movies in HD with extras on their disks. Since Sony, et. al., are claiming that they will have much higher capacity for Blu-Ray, they will probably be used for computer backups in business systems. (You know, the Autoloaders that currently cost $15,000 & $100/tape) This will help Sony get the cost down faster. In the end, price matters & we are only talking about imporoved video. No one really cares if Sponge-Bob is in High Defination or not anyhow.
'The Internet was completely funded by porn,'
Perhaps, but IIRC all the Macrovision "picture enhancers" were sold so people could copy rented porn tapes.
Maybe in this case porn using the newest digital protections will cause a thriving black market for the newest cracks.
...who thinks it's ironic that we'll see Blue Movies on a medium dubbed Blu-Ray?
Tim
Right, it's in both the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD format specs. But I still don't see where the porn industry anted up in the DRM war any more than they did when they moved from VHS to DVD. Many porn DVDs come out that aren't region encoded (in fact, hardly any are), and a majority of them (*ahem* *hmmmm*) aren't even CSS encrypted. You can copy them right to the hard disk and to another DVD (*sirens*). There's nothing in this article that says porn producers are looking for any kind of DRM - it's just there no matter what they choo-(*door breaking down*)
OMFG ITS THE FEDZ@!#!##!$!!!!
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Today it is a huge industry that is not as taboo as it once was. Its power and influence has given it the nickname "America's other Hollywood." A few years ago Frontline covered the industry in an episode entitled American Porn which you can watch online.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
So where does the DRM come into it? Whichever format they choose most porn studios are going to throw the switches to reach as large an audience as possible.
for a second there i thought these were some drm schemes i hadn't heard of.. only to search and find out these were gay porn publishers, doh! hope work didn't see that!
http://www.awwsheezy.com
The US Government did and then the telcos. Funding does not equal what it is used for.
The internet is an enabler for porn's continued funding.
It's a big cock ejaculating into someone's mouth.
God forbid I get modded Informative for this.
Think of the benefits that HD porn will offer:
"Wow, I never knew Jenna Jameson has all those in-grown hairs from shaving her coochie!"
"Dang, that dude has a dingleberry hanging!"
"Did you see that! What a scar under her armpit from the implant surgery!"
And so forth and so on.
I think HD will make porn look worse, not better...low-def analog tv has a way of hiding the wrinkles, so to speak.
What's really interesting, however is that porno DVDs will have DRM embedded. Currently, they are not encoded, and how many DVD burners has that sold? More than a few, I think.
If this DRM is like a lot of the other stuff I've seen it will phone home to check if you're allowed to watch the film. I for one don't particularly want my porn phoning home to tell someone you're about to watch Lesbo Rim Jobs From Mars. Isn't there some invasion of privacy law that can be thrown at this?
I think that on the contrary, it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is no need for DRM for the content industry to flourish. Porn has got to be the most ripped content there is. And yet, it is raking in profits that make every other industry green with envy. So when traditional media companies say that they need DRM because of the Internet... I say shove it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Maybe Al Gore invented the internet to supply Bill Clinton with porn...hmmm
It all makes sense now!