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Tactics in the Porn Industry's Fight Against Piracy

An anonymous reader writes "A C|Net article discusses the technological innovations being used by the porn industry to ensure they stay relevant (like streaming HD-quality feeds and remote interaction), as well as profitable. Live performances and cutting-edge technology combine to ensure a steady stream of revenue in the age of free downloads. 'Now Kink.com is on the cutting edge of the fight against video piracy. While mainstream entertainment outlets like Viacom and NBC complain noisily about YouTube, Kink.com, with neither the resources nor the mainstream appeal of its giant counterparts, is in an even tougher fight: Protecting the content it produces that's continually copied and reposted on the dozens of Web sites that traffic in poached adult material.'"

17 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Re:i want to eat my first pussy by serialdogma · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yes, first ensure your now dead cat is cooked though-out and start with the head.

  2. Summary: they stream live shows by null-und-eins · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unless you are interested in the business story of a porn outlet, there is almost nothing in TFA about copyright. They move to live streams (although at higher resolution than most non-porn streams seem to offer), to make it more difficult and less interesting to copy content. Editors: Why was this omitted from the summary?

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    At the beginning was at.
    1. Re:Summary: they stream live shows by imroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They move to live streams (although at higher resolution than most non-porn streams seem to offer), to make it more difficult and less interesting to copy content.

      Honestly, how would that help? Doesn't anyone know about downscaling? A lot of porn video clips still seem to be 320x240 (or at least less than 640x480) in either MPEG-1 or WMV. So all anyone has to do is capture the stream, downscale it to a more reasonable picture size, re-encode it and sell it on their site. You also don't need the massive amounts of bandwidth or storage that these guys need. Realistically, do you really need HD video to watch a woman getting screwed by three hung guys?

    2. Re:Summary: they stream live shows by Ilgaz · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They move to live streams (although at higher resolution than most non-porn streams seem to offer), to make it more difficult and less interesting to copy content.

      Honestly, how would that help? Doesn't anyone know about downscaling? A lot of porn video clips still seem to be 320x240 (or at least less than 640x480) in either MPEG-1 or WMV. So all anyone has to do is capture the stream, downscale it to a more reasonable picture size, re-encode it and sell it on their site. You also don't need the massive amounts of bandwidth or storage that these guys need. Realistically, do you really need HD video to watch a woman getting screwed by three hung guys?

      Those low res files you talk about are leaked by Porn industry themselves. :) Yes, they are that clever to use a technology (P2P) which was called evil by MPAA to suit their own promotion.

      You would be surprised that porn industry are the first ones to use DVD technology in its full feature set like multiple angles.

      Massive amounts of bandwidth? Once I had a friend working for a huge network vendor. He said their best customers are porn industry and funny that they could be counted as people "running the internet" after all those dotcom crashes.
    3. Re:Summary: they stream live shows by ichigo+2.0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      According to TFA, they stream live shows at 1080i. I'm assuming they'll have some kind of interaction down the road, which would make a capture of the stream have less value. This is what people have been saying music artists should move to, i.e. selling concerts instead of recordings.

  3. it's a euphemism. by User+956 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Live performances and cutting-edge technology combine to ensure a steady stream of revenue

    Oh, so that's what they're calling it these days.

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    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
    1. Re:it's a euphemism. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
      Live performances and cutting-edge technology combine to ensure a steady stream of revenue

      Oh, so that's what they're calling it these days.

      It's called a money shot for a reason!

  4. When you can't do it live use invisible watermarks by MaelstromX · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Kink.com's solution is live shows.


    That's one idea, and a good one. However not all porn can be live, it's simply not feasible for certain types. I would say the best way to prevent piracy and ensure that SOMEBODY finances the production of the stuff would be to slap it with invisible, personally identifying watermarks. If they are spotted on pictures and images found in the wild, so to speak, your subscription is cancelled and you don't get a refund.

    Although that might make people want to give them all away the day before their subscription ends, so that part I'm not sure about yet. :)
  5. Re:Irony by an.echte.trilingue · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I think the point is that they are not doing anything to "fight" piracy and condemn immoral pirates (if you bother to RTFA you will see that kink.com never talks about fighting piracy and they never call it wrong), they are trying to evolve their business model so that it is profitable in the age of modern technology. This is what the rest of the movie/recording industry should be doing as well, but since the "big four" have a voice loud enough to get politicians to change the laws, they are trying to support their obsolete business model through litigation. The adult entertainment industry, which does not have the luxury of such a public voice, is finding ways to innovate.

    So the message is not, "hey you dirty immoral pirates take a lesson from us porn starts", the message is "hey you silly family entertainers, if a bunch of us porn stars can turn a profit with the help of modern technology, why can't you?"

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    weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
  6. Re:Sounds promising... by hotdiggitydawg · · Score: 3, Funny

    The idea of "remote interaction" sounds very promising. :D Telecummuting?
  7. I find it curious... by ralf1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That the last 3 articles I have read on Slashdot about porn industry technology challenges and advances have all referenced kink.com. As many porn sites as there are, this seems like an odd coincidence. Sounds like a subtle advertising campaign to me.

    --
    "Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
  8. Re:Irony by ari+wins · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's not that ironic, the porn industry tends to be a missionary when it comes to new technology. Remember how everyone was saying sony was going to take it doggystyle because there was a blurb about the porn industry shifting to HD-DVD? As of yet, I don't see a dirty sanchez appearing on the Sony name, at least not from that "war".

    You can't expect the *IAA to do a reverse cowgirl on their stand either, to do so would be to open themselves up to ridicule across the media band, not just in sixty-nine articles on /. It's really too bad, because it seems like their trying to play a rusty trombone, but they're felching it up. The profits they could receive from the menage-a-trois of dvds/online distribution/set-top sales(vod) would provide a real shocker if they could do so in a non-intrusive manner. I'd much rather be dry-humped then have to use the provided glory hole and hope there's not a pitbull on the other side.

    Sure porn piracy runs rampant, has for decades. But, umm, how much do they sell in a year? If you want to try fellatio on my conscious, it's not going to happen. I'll never pay for porn.

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    Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac, you can always take something for it.
  9. Re:Irony by cliffski · · Score: 3, Insightful

    so how does someone writing a book do this then? "live readings" may not exactly be as profitable.
    And how does this apply to people making software, movies or games?

    With all other situations where people break the law, efforts are made to enforce it better. With copyright infringement, the call goes out to "change your broken business model". why?
    All business models will fail if people are allowed to break the law. No shop can employ enough security to prevent everyone shoplifting at once. Show me a business model that is not dependent on the law being adhered to.

    The games industry is adapting to mass piracy by abandoing the open platform that is the PC, in favour of online games and consoles. For the singleplayer RPG or flight sim fan, the way piracy has forced a 're-evaluation of the business model' is just to wipe out the entire industry. Not exactly the optimal solution for consumers.

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    DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
  10. Re:Irony by an.echte.trilingue · · Score: 3, Insightful

    so how does someone writing a book do this then? "live readings" may not exactly be as profitable.
    And how does this apply to people making software, movies or games?
    Books are a false parallel since technology is not threatening their existing business model: print books are still much more popular than e-books an will remain that way for a very long time. I suppose you could argue that people are reading less due to alternative activities (such as TV and the slashdot), but in that case authors are just losing out because nobody wants their product. Besides, the greatest literature or the english language (Shakespeare) was produced at a time when plagiarism was common, accepted practice. Seemed to work well enough to keep him writing for his entire lifetime.

    As for software, most people who write Linux get paid for their efforts. I am sure that whoever owns WoW does not really mind if people pirate their game since most of their revenue is from subscriptions to their servers. For things that people want, ways to get paid for producing them exist without needing to hobble technology.

    I think that people in some facets of the entertainment industry are going to have to accept that nobody is willing to pay them for what they do any more and they need to find a better way of making a living. Movies are probably a good example of an entertainment medium on the way out the door: why pay to go to a Lord of the Rings movie when you can be the Lord of the Rings in an on-line world?

    With all other situations where people break the law, efforts are made to enforce it better. With copyright infringement, the call goes out to "change your broken business model". why? No, that is not true. If it were then alcohol would still be illegal in the US. People break the law to get it changed all the time. It is called civil disobedience. In the US it is the only way to challenge an unjust law in court. The call for the music industry to change their business model is not based on copyright infringement, it is based on the fact that media companies base their business model on content distribution methods that are obsolete. Rather than adapting to the new methods, they are trying to hobble the methods. If we as a society allow this kind of thing to happen, you would have laws protecting steam-engine manufactures from rouge internal combustion engines.

    All business models will fail if people are allowed to break the law. No shop can employ enough security to prevent everyone shoplifting at once. Show me a business model that is not dependent on the law being adhered to.
    mercenaries?

    The games industry is adapting to mass piracy by abandoing the open platform that is the PC, in favour of online games and consoles. For the singleplayer RPG or flight sim fan, the way piracy has forced a 're-evaluation of the business model' is just to wipe out the entire industry. Not exactly the optimal solution for consumers. BS. I can copy a console game easily. The game industry is moving to consoles because with dedicated hardware you can get performance on a $500 console that you need a $3,000 dollar computer to replicate.
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    weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
  11. Re:Irony by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, another reason is that porn is a damn saturated market with low production costs. I think I recall reading that porn DVDs were coming out at such a rate that you could run it 24/7/365 with no reruns and still only build a backlog. Pretty much no matter what your preference is, there are plenty to choose from.

    Compare that to your movie habits, it's pretty few and far between big releases. Also they're not very good substitutes, you're not going to take Star Wars and claim it's exactly like Star Trek and it doesn't matter which one you see, whereas "Blonde teens #13" probably isn't too far from "Young and blonde #11".

    So what's this mostly about? It's about differentiating themselves from their competitors, to give their customers something they're not getting from every porn producer with a video cam. Movies don't have that problem, it's not like there a dozen competing movies of Spiderman. Also, it doesn't lend itself well to being broadcast live and/or interactive. That's why I think the analogy is getting rather thin...

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  12. According to a T.C Boyle short story (long ago) .. by wsanders · · Score: 3, Funny

    The "remote interaction" technology will be used to reach out and grab your testicles until you can produce a valid credit card number.

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    Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
  13. Re:Irony by cliffski · · Score: 3, Interesting

    so all games become online games, all single player games become multiplayer. great.
    kiss goodbye to flight sims
    kiss goodbye to civilisation as a singleplayer game
    kiss goodbye to RPGs.
    cool now I can only ever enjoy video games playing against jackasses online. Somehow, I dont think this is a bright future, and we have the people who pirate games to thank for it. Cheers guys.

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    DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games