The Pornographers vs. The Pirates

conq writes "BusinessWeek has a piece on how pornography is again leading the way and showing Holywood how to fight back against piracy. From the article: 'Some producers of porn are starting to share revenues from online movies with the distributors of their DVDs, who might otherwise feel endangered by digital distribution online. Bolder yet, one large studio is allowing fans who buy movies online to burn them from their computers onto DVDs, with some protections included, of course.'"

Comments

So this is how it turns out

[Svippy]

And you thought it was just pirates vs. ninjas?

Now there is a porn video I'd watch...

[demongeek]

The Pornographers versus The Pirates!

Pirate: Arr! Bend over me matey while I prepare the long guns to pilage that booty!
Porn Star: Oh! Don't pilage MY booty, at least not until my sorority girlfriends come over to help me repel borders! Oh!

It isn't needed.

[Lave]

I doubt there is anything with a higher pirated/legit ratio than porn.

I know no-one who has bought porn - but everyone has watched it.

Why hasn't porn gone bust like the movie and music industries say will happen to them?

If a legitimate market can keep porn afloat an inherently embarrassing purchase - then everything else doesn't need to worry

Re:It isn't needed.

[LoonyMike]

SPAM also has a low clicks/emails rate (I think), but the few clicks are enough to make it profitable.
Low-budget porn movies might also need a relatively small number of sales to make money, even if they are massively pirated.

Re:It isn't needed.

[Jakob777]

I happen to run "Adult Book Stores" (porn shacks) and I have seen only a increase in sales due to the Internet, they bait them with a 10 second clip maybe the get a membership to the site then they are in my store buying up all of that actress that makes there mind go wild and POW I have cash in hand. The same works for the most part with me and my friends, we get the cams of new movies or the new album, and we are out buying it or sitting in a cola covered seat with that crying baby to go see the real thing.

I think this will make all the profit margins for the adult industry go up, and the RIAA should look into not being such raging pricks but nice calm porn CEO's :)

Re:It isn't needed.

[Eivind]

You mean you know noone who will admit to having bougth porn.... Not the same thing.

Besides, porn movies are embarassingly low-budget. What counts as a "high budget" porn-movie doesn't even show up on the radar for budgeting normal movies. And some of the low-budget porn-movies have budgets down in the 4-digits range.

You don't need to sell an awful lot to make a profit if your total budget is less than a years salary.

Re:It isn't needed.

[oliverthered]

I'll quite happly wath the low budget films from the 70s so why are modern movie budgets so high? Maybe the movie industry should sort out their cost problems first if the're having problems making a profit.

Re:It isn't needed.

[rtechie]

The main difference I see is that porn is an addictive substance. Don't you remember the playground pushers motto, "The first one is always free"?

You have a pretty strange definition of "addictive". I'd call it "flamebait".

Most consumers of porn are feshitists of some kind. They enjoy seeing activity "x" over seeing position "y", etc. This selectivity leads to the consumer model of porn. Cater to the individual tastes. Then, if you make it they will come. Sometimes on your face.

A fetishist can't achieve orgasm without their particular fetish, a porn fetishist could ONLY climax when watching porn. What you're referring to is called "asthetics". Different people have different tastes in food, clothing, entertainment, and yes, in sex. Since "pornography", despite all the bullshit out there, is simply visual depictions of sexual activity, it shouldn't be suprising that it reflects a broad range of sexual interests. If you do a little research you'll find this has been the case since the beginning. The oldest artistic/religious artifacts discovered, over 100,000 years old, are sexual in nature.

If you hate sex so much go join a monastary, start prostrating yourself, and leave the rest of us alone.

Protections?

[shellbeach]

with some protections included, of course

Well, it's good to see the pr0n industry finally taking safe sex seriously ...

Coz They Cant Lobby

[ikejam]

I think it has more to do with the fact that since no politican can afford to be seen lobbied by a porn cartel, they have to come up with fairer solutions...

The REAL scary truth for hollywood...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is that porn movies are better acted, the dialog is more natural and they feature less contrived and often more thought provoking plots than most over-hyped 'blockbusters'. That and more titty ;-)

Re:The REAL scary truth for hollywood...

[Opportunist]

NOW I know why porn is so frowned upon by politicians and bible fanatics alike.

It's thought provoking. Yeah, that's it!

Link to article

[Anonymous Coward]

Submitter forgot to include link to article http://www.digg.com/movies/The_Pornographers_vs._T he_Pirates

Will they really tell you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think your father will openly tell you that just last week he purchased a subscription to this fantastic bondage porno site? Do you think your boss will tell you that ten minutes ago, between meetings with clients, he spent $19.95 for the "Girls Gone Crazy: Kansas City!" and "Eugenia's Booby Paradise" video combo he saw advertised on TV last night? Do you think that the Republican senator who just rallied against sexuality in video games, and who also just bought some photos of girls fellating horses, will let you know? Probably not.

Then again, you likely don't understand the true size of the market. Even if they have a 99% piracy rate, that 1% of sales is so much that they're all very well off.

Bigger Business

[pianoman113]

Pornography has always been a huge business, and they have always been on the bleeding edge of technology. Look at the internet. Long before their was the World Wide Web there were dial-in BBS's where people could download pornography. When VCRs came out, pornography was almost immediately available on video cassettes.
The pornography business' profit margin is much higher and that allows them much more freedom to innovate in their distribution. That, and they have no doubt that people will continue to consume their product.
I doubt they'll ever eliminate the pirates, but they will lead the way technologically for flexible video distribution.

Re:Bigger Business

[PhiltheeG]

Add to the above the fact that pornographic material is easily reusable and can be repackaged numerous ways at a low cost. Pornography also lends itself very well to the type of on-demand, pick-what-you-want Internet mentality. Theoretically a studio can sign a group of performers to a contract to shoot a set number of scenes, distribute those scenes in DVD format in full-length movies, repackage the scenes later as a "best-of performer" then redistrbute, slice and repackage the individual scenes the redistribute them by genre, etc. etc. It is still all the same stuff, simply packaged differently and offered in a way a consumer would like. Also, think of the possibilities for repackaging "classic" movies and redistributing of billions of hours of material.

World peace

[Roy van Rijn]

The biggest advances in internet technology are made because of porn, file-sharing, P2P, search engines, image formats (more porn per mb), movie encryption etc.

But there is one thing I don't believe, Porn isn't going to stop piracy, it created it! (One of the best things on the web!)
If porn proves to be the key in stopping piracy, then I truly think porn will create world peace...

And... why burn on DVD for personal use...???
Isn't porn something you only watch once, you know the whole story and get bored? Isn't that the whole reason we watch porn, because the same woman every night bores us!?

Re:World peace

[frickendevil]

You cant stop piracy, period. You can however slow it down, and the porn industry has taken the first step towards this. I believe you missed the point that porn dvds are being sold on the web and being delivered via digital means instead of buying a hard copy, this tactic has worked brilliantly with mp3 downloads, as long as they are reasonably priced, people will pay for the convenience. If the movie industry followed suit of the porn industry, they too will be able to "keep on top" of piracy (for lack of a better saying, pun intended)

As for burning it onto a DVD, there are thousands of reasons. Including:
1. Getting tips from a pro - If you watch a world cup soccer match, it doesnt make you a world cup soccer player. But it can give you ideas on how to better yourself, and if you watch it over and over, you understand how it works, then you can just go practice it.

2. Some full length porn features are really long, especially the ones without stories. So it could take you a while to get through it, having convenience on DVD.

3. Save space on your computer.

4. Easier to put a DVD into a dvd player then it is to drag a laptop or a monitor over towards your bed to watch it with your girl/boy/trannyfriend.

5. Label it family photos and the kids will never touch it.

6. Easier to share with friends.

7. A particular porn star might just tickle your fancy, so you watch it for them, instead of the movie itself.

8. Being able to give a physical size to your collection, giving you bragging rights "Mine is bigger then yours!"

9. If your computer breaks down, and you need to take it to a techie, they wont find your stash after you have already burnt and deleted it.

10. Same reason anyone buys any movies on DVD or VHS for that matter, after 5 years you forgotten the nitty gritty parts and you can rewatch and learn.

BTW just because you don't share your porn with a kinky significant other (if you have one that is) doesn't mean other people don't. I would prefer my porn in DVD format.

Re:The real technique they're using...

[jamesh]

Free porn has been available since the invention of alcohol and anyone with enough nerve to nod suggestively at a lady. That is, free-as-in-"give her a"-beer :)

(I've been waiting a long time for the appropriate place to use that line!)

Re:Holywood?

[Opportunist]

Sounds like a Christian porn movie.

I learned my lesson.

[Killshot]

When I first got into the adult industry, I fought really hard to "protect" my copyrights. Any time I found my photos elsewhere on the internet I would have my lawyer send out threatening letters, I would try to sue people. I would get peoples websites shut down.. it cost a lot of time and money and mostly I just pissed people off.

Eventually I figured out that in most cases when people copied my photos and shared them.. it increased revenue because people would come to my site looking for more. I then restricted any lawsuits to people who would charge money to access content they stole from me.

I think the music and movie industry could learn the same lesson.

Re:I learned my lesson.

[TwistedEvo]

Simple question.

How many of you just couldn't resist clicking on the parent's home page?

Re:I learned my lesson.

[cgreuter]

How many of you just couldn't resist clicking on the parent's home page?]

I admit, I took a look.

But only to read the articles.

Re:The naked truth...

[Hillie]

I'm sorry but I have to disagree, whether it be porn or anything else DRM leaves you feeling cheap and used.

Now nevermind the thousands of inuendos and puns that statement may suggest. The fact is that no one wants to pay any amount of money per month on some site that lets you download content, if the content is going to stop working when you quit paying that site money.

Whether that content is porn or music. There are millions of people who would pay a $3.95 trial to buy the ONE song they've been lookin for but unable to find elsewhere or that video they got spammed with that peaked their interest.

With the DRM ripoff schemes of RIAA and some porn sites this is not possible. So let's say you were a member of any music/porn site that used DRM on their files. Restrictive DRM.. you paid a total of maybe $200 to them and you decide you don't want the service anymore, but you do like what you've gotten so far. You quit you're screwed.. so you're telling me I gotta keep paying to keep what I ALREADY PAID FOR?

No thanks. *gives RIAA the finger*