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Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 6,697
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Documenting the decline of the porn industry
I thought it would be a good idea to post a thread where documentation of the decline of the industry can be provided.
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LAS VEGAS -- Walking around the Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE) in Las Vegas,
you'd never know the porn industry was at half-mast, sales-wise.
There are floor-to-ceiling billboards of scantily clad sex actresses and HD TV
screens showing every conceivable type of fornication (and a few unconceivable
ones as well). Fans can take pictures with stars like Lisa Ann (the porn
version of Sarah Palin), Julia Ann (no relation) and Alexis Texas (formerly
Alexis Texass). If polite enough, the fanboy or frangirl might even get to
touch a breast.
If the AEE was one's only exposure to the industry, the crowded convention hall
might seem proof that porn is truly recession-proof. But insiders claim the
business has gone limp -- metaphorically speaking -- because more people are
watching porn for free over the Internet instead of purchasing it.
The end result means fewer gigs for hard-working porn performers like Dave
Cummings, a 72-year-old porn actor who has also produced three series: "Dirty
Dave's Sugar Daddy," "Sex Fun" and "Kneepad Nymphos."
"The piracy has killed the industry," Cummings told HuffPost. "I'd say 80
percent of the companies that were around five years ago either don't exist or
are hanging by a thread. The day a new video comes out, within 24 hours,
someone has set up a tripod in front of their TV to copy it and then uploaded
it illegally."
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It's hard to track how much money the porn industry has lost, because it's
nearly impossible to figure how much it typically earns. Theo Sapoutzis, the
CEO and Chairman of Adult Video News (AVN), a trade journal that covers the
porn industry and organizes the AEE, estimates that the pornography business
made $10 billion in 2012, but admits getting exact figures is close to
impossible since many porn companies are privately owned and tend to "inflate"
their figures.
Sapoutzis "guesstimates" the industry made as much as $13 to $15 billion during
its peak in the mid-2000s, before the recession. He accepts Cummings'
suggestion that 80 percent of porn companies are now defunct or struggling, but
Sapoutzis sees that as a sign that the porn business is maturing, not dying.
"There are more performers than ever before, but they're working as cam girls
at home interacting with people, rather than in a studio," he said. "From a
company standpoint, there's bigger competition. It's more difficult to enter."
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_2460799.html
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The Guardian?s Theroux does not offer an estimate as to the size of the porn
industry, but warns, ?some time around 2007, the ?business of X? started going
into a commercial tailspin.? Huffington?s Moye cites estimates from Theo
Sapoutzis, the head of the Adult Video News (AVN), who claims that the porn
business made $10 billion in 2012. Last year, CNBC claimed that porn
businesses, led by Vivid Entertainment, Digital Playground and Manwin, ?generate
roughly $14 billion in revenue per year that in 2012.?
The porn industry is facing a period of significant restructuring. Porn
theatres and XXX shops catering to the ?raincoat crowd? and the risqué have all
but vanished; the DVD, the old cash-cow release platform, is in rapid decline
for both porn and conventional movies. Digital video streaming is the
21st-century medium of porn distribution.
Most commentators identify five factors contributing to the predicament now
facing the commerical porn industry: (i) the widescale pirating of copyrighted
porn and its illegal resale and posting by opportunistic websites; (ii) the
ease of producing do-it-yourself (DIY) amateur porn videos; (iii) the enormous
increase of ?free? porn sites; (iv) the resulting change in business economics;
and (v) the ongoing recession with cuts discretionary spending, especially
among a certain sector of the male audience.
This restructuring has led to the closing of many commerical porn companies and
cuts in jobs and fees to porn workers. Not unlike other once-analog media
industries ? e.g., newpaper, magazine and book publishing ? porn is struggling
to make the transition to digital online publishing.
?The current economic crisis besetting the porn industry began to emerge around
2005,? says Chauntelle Tibbals, a sociologist at the University of Southern
California who has spent over 10 years studying the industry. ?2005 was one of
the last years that things looked good for the industry, at least from the
outside,? she adds.?Things started to visibly change after that.?
She identifies piracy as the key factor fueling the crisis. She points out that
the proliferation of ?free? stolen content cut into cash flow, but the
industry?s inability ? or unwillingness ? to effectively deal with the problem
turned a serious cold into a cancer. Only a handful of companies took early
action. ?Digital Playground is an example of a company less impacted by
piracy,? Tibbals reflects. ?They engaged a variety of strategies early on to
protect their content.?
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http://www.salon.com/2013/05/30/is_s...ustry_partner/
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A sinking ship
For the past few years there have been complaints of a ?perfect storm,? a term
repeatedly used to describe the double whammy that has hit the industry: the
recession and a wave of online piracy.
The economic downturn has caused customers? wallets to clam up, particularly
when it comes to discretionary spending. And let?s face it, there?s little else
more discretionary than porn.
At the same time, a number of porn-flavored YouTube clone sites ? YouPorn and
RedTube, to name a few ? have sprung up to offer aficionados all the copyrighted
adult content they want, for free. Like their mainstream counterparts, porn
producers are also seeing their content swapped freely through file-sharing
programs.
As such, the industry says it is losing millions of dollars and scores of jobs,
not only on the performer side, but also in production and distribution.
Specifics are hard to come by, since most companies are privately owned and
tight-lipped on financials, but one look at the stock prices of the handful of
public firms tells the story. Over the past two years, shares of Barcelona-based
Private Media, Colorado-based New Frontier Media and Germany?s Beate Uhse have
lost more than half their value.
Chicago-based Playboy has seen a recent uptick, but that?s only thanks to
speculation that founder Hugh Hefner was leading a bid to take the company
private ? a trigger he finally pulled this week.
Some insiders think that no new porn will be made because they can't stay in
business. That's next...
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http://www.askmen.com/entertainment/...h-of-porn.html
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