Mansef is being taken to court; both by the US Federal government on illegal banking/money laundering charges (as it was reported), and by Pink Visual and their parent company (Ventura) over copyright violations.
Soon after both lawsuits were filed (months ago), Mansef was sold to Virage Media / Manwin (who we still have very little info about).
So far as I know, both lawsuits are still moving forward.
Meanwhile the frontman for Manwin, Nathan / Fabian Thylmann, has been less than forthcoming about answering questions regarding the company which has taken over Mansef's assets.
See this thread for the questions the self-proclaimed Managing Partner of Manwin has cowardly ducked from for days now:
http://www.gfy.com/17348326-post421.html
To continue with answering your questions, several significant adult industry copyright cases have in fact successfully been waged and won, or settled out of court, to the benefit of the suing company (the plaintiff).
If you were a content producer, then you would understand what some of the "bitching" is about, since it shouldn't be too hard to understand that if you spend significant money to create content, you wish to profit from the content you created, and decide whom else may or may not financially benefit from it as well. At it's essence, that afterall is what copyrights are all about.
Stealing is a violation of the law and wrong, and hiding behind loopholes in the law, is both morally and ethically, equally wrong. Unfortunately, some people in this industry are severely lacking in morals and ethics, or are willing to get in bed with what I can only regard as thieves, in a feeble attempt to protect their stake in the biz, not fully realizing that once they have exposed their vulnerability and weakness to the predators, it will only be a matter of time until they are devoured by the same predators whom they have supplicated themselves/their companies before.
It is undeniable that the DVD market is reeling, and pretty much on its knees, from their content being ripped off (or them selling off old catalogs in a desperate attempt to remain in business), and with internet pirates ripping and offering tons of their content (much of which was originally shot exclusively for DVD) for free on tube sites who are subsidizing their bandwidth and profiting using stolen/unauthorized content (like the bandits they are), by making money from companies advertising other non-video products (pills, dating services, cam shows, toys, etc), or upselling memberships to even more/better content (much of which is also alleged by some to be stolen).
In doing so, they have massively drained the traffic (the life-blood) from the traditional internet-based affiliate programs and paysites.
On top of all this, shamefully, many of the largest producer/content reseller companies are being co-opted, or are offering up snippets of their content, in what almost appears to be a quasi protection racket (extortion), to ensure that the bulk of their content is not wholesale stolen and uploaded, in exchange for relatively meager profits or link-backs posted alongside several upsells and traffic leaks which they gain no benefit from whatsoever, which likely yields very little to them for their cooperation/participation, compared to what they might otherwise make if they would band together to fight content piracy, and create a better, more equitable, infrastructure for the industry as a whole.
Don't get me started about the producers such as Brazzers and Mofos (aka Mansef) that are/were behind many of the worst offending tube sites themselves, despite their lies and deception about not being involved.
And still some would defend these people?!?
I blame fear, greed, and short sightedness, for much of the problem.
Many can attest, that even though I am a small independent producer, I have been on the front lines of the anti-piracy effort from the beginning. I do not wish to bow down to the people whom have been instrumental in destroying much of the industry as most of us know it.
I will continue to fight what I believe to be the good fight, and stand up for my beliefs. I am fortunate that I have mainstream business interests which are independent from my adult businesses (I actually operate several web sites, not one), so I am not dependent upon adult for my livelihood, even though I do fairly well in adult, and have plans to grow my adult businesses as best I can, given the current state of the economy and the industry.
I am also optimistic that the laws will eventually catch up with the technology, and that many of the people/companies behind the recent demise of the adult biz as we know it, will eventually be brought to justice, and be driven out of the business through stricter enforcement, and through the non-cooperation of industry people/companies with better business morals and ethics.
Well, hopefully, I've answered your questions theking (even though you won't answer even one simple one of mine, which is to name what adult web sites you currently operate/work for?).
Now if only Nathan / Fabian Thylmann would quit being a coward, and come in and answer my straightforward and simple questions honestly (see earlier link in this thread), maybe more people might trust him and his company.
Absent that, I do not think that he or his company are worthy of trust from honest and ethical people or companies in the adult industry.
ADG