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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."
Do we get a bad car analogy down the line?
Clearly he didn't want to finish...
The fact is that the real downfall of the porn industry isn't illegal file sharers, it's the fact that there appear to be a growing number of amateur exhibitionists willing to do filthy things to each other for discount prices, or in some cases for free. Mom and pop (and various other combinations) porn films are kicking the crap out of "mainstream" porn, because the Internet, that great leveler, has given this new wave of pornographers a cheap and universal distribution mechanism.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Seems somewhat biased the riaa and other lawyer heavy companies can send out millions of lawsuits but when it comes to the porn companies it's different. What does that do for all the other mass lawsuits that have been or will be sent to other downloaders ?
Yes, but this case is about porn, and therefore more newsworthy.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
I think the differences between the two industries are too great. One is a disgusting, sleazy and exploitive, and the other sells images of people having sex.
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.
Judging by the success of niche markets like BBWs and amateurs, I'd say that you're only half right. Yes, lots of people, maybe even the majority, like the sort of Barbie-and-Ken porn, but there seems to be a rather substantial fraction of the porn-viewing population that likes less-idealized body types having sexual relations on-camera.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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?"
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Artisis are making the same as they always have.
The actual numbers disagree.
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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.
What the hell does that mean? The words are english, but...
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Lets attack the root of the problem:
So if you make a little software program and it takes you 30 hours at, say, $60/hour...charge $1800 for it. That way, when someone "steals" it, you can sue that single person and get your money back.
If an electrician spends 30 hours wiring a building at, say, $60/hour... he charges $1800 and then goes home. He doesn't get another nickle every time someone flicks a switch. What makes your 30 hours of work worth a potentially infinite amount of money, while his caps out at $1800?
Where the electrician differs from someone writing the program is that he's got a contract in place for $1800 bucks. He doesn't have to wire the building, and then hope someone shows up to pay him something.
But perhaps the software developer can learn from the electrician... raise the 1800$ first from future users (whether you find 1000 of them to pay $1.80... or 100 of them who want it badly enough to pay $18, then write and release the software, and then it doesn't matter how many copies get made.
And then offer to support the software, or build additional features for $. And live off that.
The point is that in a world where anyone and everyone can make copies for free, you can't have a business model where you charge for copies. Its not going to work. Your role in the new economy is producing the original... you have to figure out how to get paid enough for doing that to motivate you to do it.
Umm according to your link, the artists are actually making MORE now:
The decline in Recorded Revenue (To artists) from 2004-2008 is 152,500-111,750=40,750 thousand pound decrease.
The increase in Live Revenue (To artists) from 2004-2008 is 650,880-382,320= 268,560 thousand pounds.
This yields a net increase of 227,810,000 pounds to artist revenue from 2004 to 2008.
Yea Labels are making less money (still as much as the artists though), but fuck them, the internet has turned them into a vestigial leech. In a world where "David After Dentist" can land millions of hits for free, a talented individual can/should stand alone.
And that's EXACTLY his point
Wedding photographers already went through this. They used to charge a nominal amount or nothing for shooting the wedding, but would charge you big bucks to order prints of the photos. Naturally, when scanners and photo printers became cheap, people would just scan the prints they had already bought (or sometimes even scan the ordering contact sheets), and print out their own copies.
Today, wedding photographers charge big bucks to shoot your wedding. But the prints are usually free or at-cost. Some of them will even give you the raw files (digital "negatives") of the shoot so you can process the photos on your own in the future if you wish.
When reality meets an outdated business model, there's a lot of inertia on the side of reality.