Sophie Saint interviewed Steven Hirsch.
Should the industry be working with the tube sites rather than fighting against them?
The industry continues to evolve, and there are two ways you can look at it: You can either complain and whine about why things aren't the way they were two years ago, or you can continue to evolve and produce content that people want to see. Most companies don't make it 30 years ? certainly not in the adult industry. You have to be flexible, and you have to be willing to take chances and not be set in your ways if you want to survive for a long period of time. The tube sites are only the most recent incarnation of what is the big threat to the business. At one point it was piracy, and we saw VHS tapes being pirated and DVDs being pirated. You've got to work through that stuff.
Performers have told me that tube sites have decreased their amount of work.
I think it's interesting because I understand that as a result of the tube sites, there are fewer movies being produced, because if you're going to produce just run-of-the-mill porn that's not really different, there's no real reason for anyone to pay for it because they could get something similar for free. So there are fewer companies producing, and therefore fewer jobs for the performers.
But what I see, talking to some of the performers, is that they really use this as a way to take control of their career. The tube sites may in some ways be bad for the industry, but it's also spawned a whole new market, which is camming. The girls out there who are camming ? and do it right and make it a priority ? are making a bunch of money. Also, what I've found is that a lot of the girls are shooting their own content. They're shooting their own unique content, and they do content trade from other girls. They have their own website, and they make money being entrepreneurs in their own businesses.