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Porn Maker Sues 7,000+ For Copyright Infringement
This summer, we discussed news that the producers of The Hurt Locker had sued 5,000 people for sharing the movie over BitTorrent. Reader suraj.sun writes with word that a porn company is now following suit, filing a complaint targeting 7,098 people for illegally sharing one of their films. Quoting:
"Axel Braun Productions filed the complaint Friday in US District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, alleging that the defendants illegally shared the adult film Batman XXX: A Porn Parody. The film was written and directed by Axel Braun and distributed by Vivid Entertainment, one of the country's best known porn studios. ... '**** 'em all,' Braun told Xbiz. 'People don't realize that when you pirate a movie it hurts all of the people who work very hard to get it produced — from the cast to the production assistants to the makeup artists. So we are going after every one of them who pirates our content.'"
Is DC Comics getting royalties from this film?
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I'm going to have to disagree with you. The old media want you to believe that the only way they can make money is by selling you their product, but frankly the world has changed and that distribution method is not only outdated but obsolete due to technologies like BitTorrent. In a nutshell, there is very little benefit in trying to sell an infinitely copyable item to people who can make their own copies.
Clearly people want the product. What they don't want is to have to pay for it. Surely an imaginative company like Vivid could find a way to distribute their product in this new paradigm.
The interesting thing about this flick is that it actually has a history -- weak as it may be, I've seen worse in regular movies. The DVD even includes a 30 minutes long non-porn version of the movie in which all the porn scenes have been cut off.
This non-porn version is probably just a reordering of the DVD chapters by excluding the porn chapters, but nonetheless it's pretty interesting, it really captures the spirits of the original series.
There is a plot. Almost always a mindlessly superficial plot which people ignore and wish wasn't getting in the way, but is included to get around the Miller test, but it is a plot.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Can we say that not every download is a loss of sale, but some losses of sale can be attributed to downloading?
With porn, it is almost entirely a 'black and white' situation -- far more so than even mainstream media, where a huge portion would be, at best, lost rentals. If an average person decides to not download a specific porn title, would they proceed to: a) walk to their local porn shop and purchase that movie, or b) download a different pornographic movie/image (such as a non-studio 'production')? I'd almost be willing to stake my life on 'b' being true the vast majority of the time.
Speaking of corporate insanity, remember that the corporate version of 'lost sales' isn't 'sales are down from last year', but 'sales aren't up by as much as we wanted'. The wonderfully unsustainable capitalist dream of increasing profits (sales) by, say, 10% the first year, and 20% (on top of last year's 10%) the following year.
> If they were suing for the actual damage done, maybe tripled, I'd be much more sympathetic. But it's clear from their "f' 'em all" quote that they're going for blood. F' 'em right back.
Well, sueing is an expensive business, for everyone.
Perhaps it might be better if it was prosecuted more along the lines of receiving a parking ticket, or a speeding fine? Easier all round, and no insane fines which seem to me, and to you, insanely out of proportion to the actions taken and the damage one might consider to have been done.
Now technically as the movie can not demonstrate the ability to "promote the useful arts and sciences" under law it is not entitled to copyright protection. So for those who can stand the embarrassment of public admitting sharing that film, there is always a US constitutional challenge, bonus if you win you will strip the movie of it's copyright protection and challenge the whole MPA*/RIA* industry. What makes it interesting is that it will all be from a definitively conservative basis, it would be interesting to watch Republicans publicly attempt to defend copyright protections for pornography.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
When do we get to the part where Axel Braun gets sued for using the trademarked name Batman for a porn movie?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
The reason porn cannot be sold to minors is that it is considered worthless and thus not protected by the first amendment. Saying that it does have merit would mean it would need first amendment protections as well and the government would no longer be allowed to prevent stores from selling porn to minors.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I am a porn star. Well, rather, I was an extra in a porn movie. I was the slightly tubby Asian dude sitting in a club with a naked chick dancing in front of me. No pay for the part, but I did get to see some naked chick dancing in front of me. Oh yeah, then she ...umm... fornicated with some redneck looking dude. Then another. Then another. Why was I there? I was a computer consultant at the time. My job was to setup a video server so that the naked chick could be broadcast all over the world. The owner of the company said, "Hey, want to be in a movie?" My first thought was that I'd get to, you know, bang some hot chick. Of course not. I was credited as Wang Dong, which was all I could think of at the time.
As for the rest of the talent? The naked chick was drugged out and pretty dried out to look at in real life, but wonder of wonders, on the final video she looks pretty damn young and pretty damn hot. The redneck looking dude was a flaming homo. He could switch from redneck with a southern drawl to flaming homo on a dime. Pretty bizarre. The other dude was just strange.
Pornography and its consumer's behaviors are changing, and traditionalists like Axel Braun and Vivid entertainment are worried. Their style of film is declining. In the 90's it was Porn star actresses and a fairly small pool it was too. There were plots, stories, romance.
Only now in the last 5-10 years have producers realized that the market wants none of this. Guys (as consumers) want a new girl each in each scene and subsequent film. Porn Stars are now only tolerated because they have some special trick.
And its changing still again, where people arent subscribing to the main stream "porn Pros" but to niche amateurs sites and marketers. An example is the "dogging" films (women engaging in sex at car parks etc), which originated in Britain. A guy in Ohio has picked up this phenomonon. His DVD's are selling very well thank you. And the old Skool pornographers don't like it. One bit.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Isn't this the same company that profits by selling celebrity sex tapes whether the celebrity approves of it or not? I feel so sorry for them.
The most profitable film ever, by just about any metric (disc sales, box office, forign or domestic markets), is Avatar. It was released recently, during the time when internet movie piracy may be at it's greatest peak. Further, it's aimed squarely at the optimum pirate demographic: Geeks. It's a sci-fi film with interesting technology and an alien world. If any film could be seriously hurt by piracy, it would be Avatar. Yet it went on to achieve huge financial success.
I imagine the losses due to piracy the porn industry faces pale into insignificence beside the losses due to competition from free online porn. Porn viewing is a very impulsive thing - people who want to see some want to see it *now*, not after a shopping trip which is sure to ruin their mood by the time they arrive. Easiest way to do that? There are lots of free porn sites. Video, images, even erotic fiction and roleplay. Who would want to go out shopping when they are twelve keystrokes away from video porn online?
This is the same Vivid that has had to stop production due to one of their performers being diagnosed with HIV? No wonder he's having a hissy fit and throwing all of his toys out of the pram.
If the porn industry wasn't rogering customers with stupidly expensive website fees, piracy wouldn't be a problem for it.
I've found that when you overlay the MST3K 'shadow' and put it up on a 42" tv at a party it can be horribly amusing for everyone to make up comments about the movie.
Even the girls find it hilarious :p (Feel I have to point this out as I suspect I will be flamed to hell for suggesting this :p)
Actually, she did know what was in the Constitution. "Separation of Church and State" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. It is a phrase coined by Thomas Jefferson. She specifically asked her opponent where that phrase appeared in the Constitution. She then followed up by asking him what five freedoms are in the First Amendment, he was unable to answer her question, but most of the press never bothered to report that.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The funny thing is, you probably think Democrats DO.
If you want REAL change, how about we dump the two corrupt parties that got us into this mess. EVERYONE should vote third party. Don't worry about "throwing your vote away", because the two parties are the same, and things just keep getting worse the longer they stay in power.
Sign me up as another voice that watched it, but would never spend money on it. My DL of it would never translate into a sale.
Not because I don't spend money on porn. More because if I am going to put my cash into a porn film, which I have many times, it has to be more female friendly in the sex scenes. Don't get me wrong, the Batman XXX film is great in all the costuming, and details, they put in to mirror the old series. I was a happy at all details put in.
However, being female, I really try to put my cash towards porn that acknowledges females get off, and are not just props that fake orgasms for the male actors in the film. That means, I would have never paid for this film. The movies that do achieve that get my cash. Even if I don't think they will be watched more than once because I want to support an industry that does things that way.
This means my download would not have been a sale. This also means I would never have paid for it at all, unless I got to see another owners copy for free. It's far easier to assume a porn film will not fit my standards than to put money towards endeavors that don't.
The only part of the 14th amendment that I have seen anyone in the tea party say they want to repeal is the part where any baby born to any person inside the U.S. is a U.S. citizen, the so called "anchor-baby" provision. However, that is not a position of the tea party per se, merely a position of some members of the tea party movement.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison