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Judge Ends Massive Porn Lawsuit
eldavojohn writes "A recent offensive of porn producers using copyright law against many anonymous P2P users has been terminated by a West Virginian judge. Initially, Ken Ford of Adult Copyright Company planned out nine lawsuits against some 22,000 file sharers, starting with 7,000-person and 9,000-person suits in the first wave. Unimpressed, the judge reduced everything down to one lawsuit against one file sharer, telling the Adult Copyright Company that they are to prosecute each individual separately, as the accused neither participated in the same transaction nor collaborated in these offenses. So, if you're looking to hit 22,000 people with such a lawsuit, the $350 court filing fee will require an investment of $7.7 million ($1.8 million for the individuals listed so far). Ars points out the hilarious fact that 'Ford has sued enough people that lawyers are taking out ads on his company name,' providing an image of an advertisement for such a search. This is separate from a similar showdown in US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois."
Actually, one might argue that there is a real social problem in female body image (and judging from the proliferation of drugs intended to increase penis size, male as well) in western society.
It could further be argued that much of this has to do with both the "soft porn" of the fashion industry, and the exaggerated bodies of "hard core" porn as well.
To have realistic body portrayals - perhaps not the morbidly obese, unless you're someone with a fetish for that, but not "Olive Oyl and Brutus" caricature-bodies either - regain the mainstream spotlight might not be such a bad thing.
It's not a tricky spot at all. For example with music, Artists make more money now than they have in a long while. This is due, partially to piracy, to the downfall of physical CD purchases and the increase in live performances. The point is that the piracy has acted as free advertising for them.
Have some artists not done as well, perhaps due to piracy, most likely. But it's economics. If people like your music, they will pay you money to continue to make it. Whether they are giving you money for live performances, merchandise, or even donations, you'll get money. The people who want to hear more will support you.
If your music is crappy, more people will have heard of you and that means more people will have heard the music and less will buy it.
It's supply and demand. The songs have an infinite supply but merchandise, live performances, and experiences do not. The songs have become the free advertising that lead the consumers to the other things. The situation for movies has become similar.
I don't think it's a tricky spot. Don't think of "Piracy" as one big block, but as two distinct chunks.
On one hand you have your Pirate-Anything-No-Matter-What pirates. If you lowered your prices to a penny per song and included a free gold nugget with each purchase, these pirates would still be uploading and downloading songs from P2P. Don't consider these people your customers or lost sales in any way. If you removed their ability to pirate your works, chances are they wouldn't have pried open their wallets to pay for the merchandise.
The other group, are people who pirate due to price, availability or convenience. For these people, think of piracy as a competing product. If you offer your product for a reasonable price with appropriate availability and convenience to purchase, piracy will drop. If you overcharge, restrict availability or make your customer jump through hurdles before they can buy, then piracy will climb.
If 10,000 people are pirating your works, you shouldn't be asking "How can I best sue them into oblivion", you should be asking "What can I do to win back most of those pirates?"
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