FightThisPatent

I just posted up my thoughts on tube sites with some helpful suggestions to deal with them:

http://www.xbiz.com/blogs/blog.php?b=brandon&bid=111353

-----

As a qualifier to my observations about the adult biz, my ?adult cherry? was popped when I started my first adult consulting gig in creating a searchable database and shopping cart system for Lee Noga of zmaster.com back in 1996.

Tube sites have certainly caused great irritation to the Adult Industry, from content producers who are seeing their content being ripped off, to paysite owners who are seeing less signups due to free content, to affiliates who are making less money on joins due to the freeloading.

A common retort to the outcry of tubes sites is to ?adapt or die?. Some have taken that message to heart to create ?legal? tube sites, or what I had thought of a few years ago is a ?fake? tube site. A ?fake tube site? was not user-uploaded, but appeared to be, but was all legal content. The problem with ?legal? or ?fake? tube sites, is that the content is usually limited (ie. 3-5 minutes), with the ?good stuff? cut off as the teaser to join to see the rest.

With the way content producers are doing fire sales and whoring their content, and the ability to produce new "amateur/homemade" content cheaply, it would seem easier for "illegal" tubes, to eventually clean themselves up and buy and produce all of their content, and then upsell their own paysites like an affiliate who is pushing/converting traffic decides to open their own paysites instead of promoting others).

It?s just like in the "good 'ol days" of ripping content from usenet or copying CD's full of images and putting up a paysite, generate high profits since there was no cost for the content, then after some level of success and critical mass, to then produce their own content and/or license the content to become "legit".

So much technology does get its start in adult and the technology gets tested and used in different/creative ways. DRM is a fun punching bag example as it was touted as a way of controlling content, and many, many paysites bought into that idea. When a member cancelled, you disabled their access to the video. If the member joined again, the videos were unlocked. It sounded like a great concept, until members decided they don?t like that control.

Porn review sites started to identify if a site was using DRM. Surfers then avoided those sites. Paysites saw the recoil to DRM and stripped it out. What should have been the answer was not to use DRM to ?control?, but instead, to observe. Each time a DRM video was played, it signals back via silent authorization to play the video. You get the IP, the date/time, and the filename. With this information, you know what content of yours is being played after a member has cancelled. You can then market back to the cancelled member about new content that matches their viewing interest.

Same is true with adapting biz models....start out shady, prove the demand, get legit on the supply = evolution of economics

Illegal tube sites (including youtube) are following the same historical steps.

From my long term perspective, it is ironic that paysites that used to use usenet content inside their members area are now content producers who are crying foul at copyright infringement, but, it just underscores my point about the evolution of a business idea.

Illegal tube sites are gaining the traffic. They are slowly assisting (directly or inadvertently) in the reduction of the legit paysites. Many programs are shutting down or being consolidated.

I see the future where Illegal tube sites will become legal tube sites, where they follow the same business practice of showing full clips and deriving revenue from any potential upsells of products or through paid advertising (ie. Banners).

I don?t like to describe a problem without trying to offer some kind of solution, so here goes:

* You can certainly go through the DMCA process, that will help to some extent, but the business answer is to survive. Companies are doing this already, they are downsizing, they are spending less on crazy expenses, and the business owners are paying attention to the business.

* Controlling expenses is the first step. The second step is pay attention to the current members. Find out what they like, and provide more of it. I have seen so many paysites look at members like they were cattle. They can burn them with the xsells, upsells, sideways sells, etc because ?new blood? will come to them tomorrow. That was the ?golden days of adult? where it was a numbers game and you could be ?creative? with how you ran your business.

* Work more with your affiliates as you both are tied to the same $. Help the bottom 99% of affiliates do more with your program (hint, use t3report.com)

* Take time to understand your enemy. Checkout those d*mn tube sites, but don?t look at it through the eyes of an owner, look at it like a surfer. What kinds of clips or what categories are getting the most views. Surfers are much more savvier now, they have review boards and message boards to learn/share information. There are tube sites that give them content that they want.

* Look at the category that matches your content, see what kind of content in your niche are people watching. Use this info as a like a survey, to understand what you should be producing.

* Label your site with ASACP?s RTA label (http://www.rtalabel.org) (of which I was part of the team to create the label) to prepare for the future defense that you did something to allow adults and children to not visit your site.

Give conservatives the time to catch up to tube sites to cry foul about how any adult or child can easily see porn. Wait for the DOJ to realize that legal adult video and internet companies are not the problem, it?s the illegal tube sites.

?Patience comes to those who wait?.

Tread water by focusing on the biz and making the right choices to last the next 2-3 years. There is still money to be made in paysites. Niched content is certainly doing well. Creating a great experience for the member that offers more perks and more value then what a tube site can offer goes a long way.

Companies who are producing their own content (which is so easy these days with the whole ?reality? and ?amateur? content) can use their models on the site to provide for some interaction with the members.

Solo girl sites do well because they provide a lot of interaction with their members.

Evolve the business model to give more value, understand what your members want, control expenses, and lastly, love what you do. If it?s just a job to make money, you?ll lose the spark and creative edge to evolve the business model.

Fight the tubal ligation!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

munki

Great read... thanks for sharing.

__________________

dyna mo

lee noga, lolololololololol

seeandsee

tubes are evil!

__________________
BUY MY SIG - 50$/Year

Contact here

Sarah_Jayne

In some ways I think of tubes now being where TGPS were when they were getting big. Most were flirting with legality back then too and if they were going to stay they had to tighten up. All the while people complaining they were giving away too much for free.

In the new world:

blogs = free sites
tubes = tgps

FightThisPatent

a blast from the past

Lee is doing well retired from the biz.. living the life of a fisherwoman

I was shocked when I got a FB request from her since she had disconnected from the online world.


Fight the memory lane!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

TheStout

Well written

spazlabz

Great article. I found some useful information in it. Thanks for taking the time to write and post it


spaz

FightThisPatent

exactly. what is old is new


Fight the recycling!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

baddog

I would probably have 7 additional kids if it wasn't for tubal ligations.

baddog

Sexsitesurfer

great post!

__________________
Paul
DDF Productions
Marketing manager
Skype: Marketing.DDF
ICQ: 316302313
Cell: +36 30 732 6076
[email protected]

FightThisPatent

my article was inspired after reading xxxjay's 7+ page thread about his love for tubes:
http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=917174


repost of one of my comments:

good summary of DMCA from a website owners point of view for complying with DMCA, but you can also view it through the eyes of a content producer looking to enforce DMCA:

http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=74294 [view]

this was an interesting point of the article:

---

10. Do Not Receive A Financial Benefit Directly Attributable To Infringing Activity Within The Company's Control

If an online service provider has the right and ability to control infringing activity, it is eligible for the safe harbor if it does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to such infringing activity. The "direct financial benefit" issue is complex and necessarily dependent on applicable facts and circumstances. Although this issue still remains to be clarified by the courts, Viacom has made arguments regarding direct financial benefit in its lawsuit against YouTube. To the extent that the Viacom v. YouTube case results in a decision, this issue would be one of the more interesting DMCA legal questions the case addresses.

--

whether a legit community site that allows user uploads or an illegal tube site, both generate revenue from the advertisement around the content.

some illegal tube sites offer a "premium" version that gives access to longer videos, better quality, etc.. this would certainly violate DMCA safe harbour provisions for a paid-membership model using stolen content (oh the irony of paysites who used usenet content inside members areas and now crying foul about DMCA)

---

takedowns have to occur in a "reasonable period of time"... 24-72 hours.

content producers could coordinate their DMCA notices to do a "DMCA bombing" at the same time.

you would have to have a shared IP attorney ready to then file a lawsuit if the DMCA process wasn't followed. Having a large amount of complaints that were disproportionate to the "legal" content on a tube site, could show that the site owners do know about infringing material.


Fight the YMCA!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

camchoice

Great read...

I think tube sites are just the next evolution, some allready mentioned that they are the tgp site follow up and I agree.

We own many legal tube sites ourselfs and for us they are very usefull for the network, not for the tube site itself or the sales from it. Tube sites have a very low bounce rate, therefor search engines love them and they get a good page rank in no time. We send traffic to the affiliates as a thank you for the content supplied, not so much for the money made from it.

Illigal sites will face penalties in the near future, and become a legal content site. Untill then there is not much you can do, besides spending money on lawyers to shut them down.

Just my 5 cents

__________________
Free Porn Webcams

Quentin

One of the great ironies about this 'tube' business: if you are running what many people call a "legit" or "legal" tube (i.e. one where you upload only licensed content, and don't permit user uploads) then your legal liability is actually greater (on its face, at least) than someone running a tube that does allow user uploads, because you don't enjoy the same protections under the 'safe harbor' clauses in DMCA and CDA.

In other words, by making an effort to be more responsible about copyright and intellectual property, you wind up with greater liability regarding 2257, obscenity and (ironically enough) even copyright itself, because you cannot claim that you don't control the content of the site.

Nice, huh?

- Q.

__________________
Q. Boyer

l0lf4c3

nice to see at least a few of them understand whats going on

camchoice

I never thought about it like that, you have a point. But who is going to sue you for sending customers to your sites ?

__________________
Free Porn Webcams

Quentin

True enough -- so long as you mind your p's and q's with the paperwork/IDs and varieties of content, a 'legit tube' is at no greater risk than any other site that displays content subject to 2257 and obscenity statutes. (Those are criminal liability territory, of course, so lawsuits aren't the issue so much as potential criminal charges.). No question that licensing all the content you post on such sites would drastically reduce the chances of running into trouble with respect to copyright, too.

To clarify: I'm not suggesting that a legit tube (or 'fake' tube, to look at it from another perspective) is necessarily more likely to find itself in trouble than one that allows user uploads, but there's no question that exercising more editorial control changes the game with respect to the safe harbor clauses that user-generated content sites rely on for legal cover.

__________________
Q. Boyer

jay23

Very good post Brandon. I have been in the VOD / DRM market for all most 9 years now so I feel the pain and challenges first hand.

On the issue of DRM

DRM was never smooth and transparent to the user, Microsoft screwed it up big time on that front. To make it worse their are so many easy to use technology to brake the DRM its became a moot point to use it. I mean we were punishing the good guys (the customers who were paying us making them hard to play the vide). For me DRM is dead at this point, we don't sell it any more and stopped working on it all most 2 years ago.

Now lets talk about Tube sites.

Illegal tube sites will grow and grow primarily because of the following reasons

1. The DMCA laws that are in the books right now makes running a tube site with stolen content perfectly fine and legal.

2. Internet bandwidth is the largest cost for these tube sites but these prices are dropping every day as technology allows you to push more and more over fiber (there are trials going on right now that is 100G over wave while right now the most common is 10G over a wave), so what happens when we you can push 10 times more then right now for all most the same cost....more high quality movies.

3. We don't have a single organization like MPAA to fight. I thought FSC was suppose to do that but nothing has happened in that front.

4. As long as their are other adult sites willing to buy the tube traffic, Tubes will be in biz. You don't see Sony buying ad space on a Torrent site.

5. Thanks to all the shady billing practices users hate us.

So the question is how can pay sites / VOD sites compete with Tubes.

The short term advantage pay sites have is that they can deliver better quality (i am talking about encoding quality) videos such as HD since Tube sites cant deliver high quality videos with out losing money on bandwidth....of course this is going to change when the bandwidth prices drops even more. If your video quality is same as the quality on a tube site ....their is no reason to pay for it.

Build a strong following. Pay sites are alleyways concerned on getting a new user , never on keeping the existing users happy. the sites that has long retention does a good job of keeping the customer happy and brings this community feeling. Users want to keep supporting the site because they know that their money is funding the development of new content.

Those are the ideas top of my head....feel free to add more

Jay
objectcube.com

gideongallery

an upsell of licienced content from a page with "stolen" content is not direct attributed to the infringing activity.

viacom is making arguements to that effect but the courts have not ruled in such a favor.
likewise the otherside of the arguement, that uploading a small clip from a tv show (ie quest crews "orquestra" performance) should count as commentary (this is my favorite quest crew routine) in a video as a medium world would protect them completely without any Safe harbor provision requirements.

DMCA bombing like any Denial of service attack increase time demands, and therefore can justifiable increase "reasonable period of time". If they get bad enough, host can ask clarifying questions since they must only respond to valid take down request. Spelling out fair use ruling and demanding "confirmation" that they content producer explictly "accepts" the monetary damages for a false take down notice would be a counter solution to such an attack.

__________________

“When crimes occur through the mail, you don’t shut the post office down,” Steve Wozniak

gideongallery

how about any content producer which licienced the content to you and then interprets the contract to justify different actions then you do.

ask ama about that.
he is one such content producer.

__________________

“When crimes occur through the mail, you don’t shut the post office down,” Steve Wozniak

StaceyJo

Good read.

__________________

FightThisPatent

exactly. even bill gates conceded that DRM war had been lost to the easy workarounds of the technology. i remember the video clip where Bill said that a DRM protected music file can be burned to CD, then sampled back to MP3, bypassing DRM for music.

For video, screen scraping, but M$ solution was to make Vista such that software couldn't hook into the video card's video stream, etc.

double zactly.. this is where you take a page from solo girl sites (like ellinude.com or NaughtyAllie.com) where they provide interaction and good "customer service" that keeps members rebilling. Sure, someone can rip their videos and post up on a tube/torrent site, but once they do that, the content is stale, its missing additional interaction whether it be live cam sessions, personalized messages, etc.

as more and more sites create their own content, they can get their models on the hook to add additional value/content to the website that tube sites can't take.

cam sites and dating sites seem to be doing well in the face of tubes. I have seen cam sessions that get ripped and posted, so to some degree cam sites feel part of the problem, but the video file cannot replace the human interaction, so the cam biz still has its market.

Fight the customer is not always right, but he knows what he wants!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

FightThisPatent

just to clarify, i by no means suggested "fake" DMCA takedown notices.

That they are to be legit and properly documented, but filed at the same time.

While the "defense" on the tube site in court might be that they got overwhelmed with requests, the real argument is to prove that if such a large amount of requests were proven needing to be taken down, then how can the site believe with blinders on that all of the "user uploaded content" was legal.

Alot of DMCA safe harbour is the putting on of blinders. That only when someone tells you something is wrong, that you turn your head and then your eyes are focused on the problem.. but under DMCA, the safe harbour clause is lost if you are knowingly aware that infringing material is present and is expected to be there for the business to be successful.


Fight the carpet bombing!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

FightThisPatent

If you are following the point of my article, then one conclusion could be drawn:

start coming up with some more shady sh*t to scam/scheme surfers of their money now, because in a few years it will be more legit

LOL

- dialers became alternative billing
- spyware became adware
- xsells became memberships that you might also like


fight the doing of the wrong thing!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

FightThisPatent

chilling insight Q.


so imagine the situation you are in court on obscenity....

prosecutor: so you knowingly put up jizz content that kids can see without having to join a site?

defendant: but we had 2257 documentation


Fight the sand in the ears!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

xxxjay

That is a hell of post.

__________________
http://donttellmehowtoruinmylife.com/ - http://www.jmdigitalmarketing.com/my...s-and-reviews/ - http://www.wouldyouhitit.org - http://shinyobjectreviews.com/

FightThisPatent

inspired by you

Fight the source!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

FightThisPatent

TMI


Fight the LOL!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

gideongallery

but the reason for the safe harbor provision was to protect fair use of the copyrighted material.

Without such a clause, a take down notice would be a censorship tool.

If you were to "fight" like this the counter arguement is to hide directly behind the fair use.

Youtube is doing this now, one of their arguements is a fair use one, namely arguing to extend the definition of established fair uses like commentary (look at my favorite routine of quest crew) parody (downfall parodies), sampling (dancing baby lets go crazy).

add things like timeshifting, formating shifting and access shifting.

if you buried a host with DMCA take down notices, then rather then let you prove their business was infringing in nature they would simple have "weed thru" the fake by pointing out fair use court cases (like the timeshifting in a cloud ruling) and demand explict acceptance of the replacement cost (providing X^2 backup points where x was the number of content liciencee in the swarm) if they failed to prove in court that timeshifting in a cloud did not apply.

Any that failed to comply with the request could be ignored because acceptance of such liablity is a condition of a valid DMCA take down request.

Fighting is not the answer.

This is VCR type situation, one where you have to create a monetization policy that exploits the opp instead of trying to stop it.

__________________

“When crimes occur through the mail, you don’t shut the post office down,” Steve Wozniak

Vjo

Well written and great points.

Note: Why am I out here with my dribble when guys who can write like this are in the wings.

Oh yeah. Sig.

Juicy D. Links

Please Correct me if I am wrong but isn't that an INACCURATE ANALOGY? Most tubes aren't like tgps cuz they don't trade traffic. The traffic stays with them. If they try to do that, the users go to TUBE SITES that DONT Swap traffic

Just my Please corrrect me if I am wrong

FightThisPatent

yes, tube sites aren't sending surfers away from the site, like a TGP/MGP site would, so yes you are correct.

i think we would all agree that a tube site is the evolution from tgp to mgp to tube.

"what's old is new" is referring how underlying technology and ideas can be re-purposed, cleaned up, and made "new". one could make the claim that a site like GUBA (in its day) or usenet readers (ie news rover) were the parents of tube sites....


fight the Evilolution!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

FightThisPatent

whoaaaa.... "posting" copyrighted porn material to a tube site has never been claimed to be time shifting.. its out right copyright infringement.

you are referring to mainstream stuff like tv shows, etc... we are talking about porn.




this is what the P2P and MP3 "sharing" folks were crying about in trying to justify their ability to take advantage of digital distribution.

if a content owner doesn't want to have his creations digitally monetized, that's his right. An external website can't levy their "fair use" or "internet domain" philosophy to justify the theft.


I'm not sure if you are trying to justify tube sites existance and biz models, or you are off on a tangential topic.


Fight the wuh!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

FightThisPatent

who took juicy and what did you do with him?

i know scott's a bright guy, but this post is out of character.

case in point: http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=920292
thread title by "Juicy" I can FUCK Megan Fox but....

that's classic Juicy.


Fight the body snatchers!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

Juicy D. Links

They're all written by meeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Why do guys have this assumption that Amazing Physical Beauty and Brains don't mix. You all bow down to my adonis-like mannlineess yet don't think I can rock the traffics from the interwebs?

Anyway, here's a lil something something to make you feel better




Back to the topic at hand... TGP/MGP was a natural evolution of CJ but They didnt turn to tubes.. TGP/CJ focuses on PIMPING surfers for traffic. Trading them like you would trade George Michael pictures Tubes are stand alone content heavy sites

and surfers are getting smarter and smarter that's why the big ones who give a lot away are the top dogs

Maybe TGP is the end of the line for that traffic pimping model

Now, its all about the content. It's actually a big challenge and opportunity

tony286

A few thoughts,first a very interesting read some good points. Some I disagree with if the Christians put tubes in their gun sights. They wont separate us from them. Why would they when our industry advertises all over tubes. I dont see a motive for tubes to go legal, they are warmly embrace by our industry getting those big fat prepaid ad deals why change and content costs them nothing?

CarlosTheGaucho

Good read. I'd contribute something but I've already wrote about this too much I guess.

Yeah well the access to the customer preferences is like the only usable point that comes to my mind, otherwise it's just a simple and total waste of productivity and stealing the porn traffic pool from the competition at any price - talk about evolution.

__________________
CTG Media | skype: carlosprague | cb |at| ctgmedia |dot| net | Want to make more with your Dating Traffic? | Read My Educational Series | Read my Adult Biz Chronicles | Did your ad revenue drop by 40 pct. or more last year?

gideongallery

timeshifting is quite simply the watching of content you purchased on day x on day y.
it most certainly apply to porn just as well as it applies to tv shows and mainstream content



that was the exact same arguement that universal made against sony for the VCR.(if a content owner doesn't want to have his creations timeshifted, that's his right.)
fair use trumps the copyright holders exclusive right
it is a not withstanding clause within the act itself.
in fact it is the cost that every copyright holder agrees to get the exclusive rights granted by the act.

so quite clearly content owners don't have a right to prevent fair use distribution of their content. They gave that right up the second they accepted the exclusive rights of the copyright act.

safe harbor is not a mistake
it was a clause put in place specifically to protect fair use

and in the modern day world of tube sites, with parody being extended to just putting new subtitles on an existing movie.



how far do you think we are from arguing

that check out my favorite quest crew routine would meet the conditions to be classified commentary. Especially when people like mr skin is not only doing the same thing with nudity (here is the boobies of star xxxx) and actually CHARGING for access.



when that happens the tube site model will be completely legal, and they can ignore every DMCA takedown notice with no consequence.

__________________

“When crimes occur through the mail, you don’t shut the post office down,” Steve Wozniak

Elli

Great thread, FtP! And thanks for the mention

Treading water seems to be the name of the game right now, not just due to the tubes. Hrm.

__________________
email: [email protected]

gideongallery

if you understood the concept of selling content AS a traffic source you would not be saying that.

Content providers who understand this are going to make a lot more money then they have ever made selling content as content.

__________________

“When crimes occur through the mail, you don’t shut the post office down,” Steve Wozniak

FightThisPatent

Fight the internext bump!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

FightThisPatent

Any insights to share in running ones biz during this downturn?


Fight the post-internext bump!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957

jay23

I thought you guys are the biggest traffic buyers from Tubes ?

jay23

One of the arguments that came out of the Tube panel at the Internext was that the rate of converting a tube customer to paid customer is so low that very soon tube sites will die.

What we are missing is the cost of bandwidth is getting reduced by 50 - 80% a year and at this rate tubes can survive even if their traffic convert 1:50000

tony286

Nothing better than seeing a full rip of your site and those aff banners next to it.

V_RocKs

I fucked your mom...

Sorry to say, but she wasn't all that...

Your sister was kickass though! Let me fuck her anal while she called me daddy.

tony286

How is this industry tries so hard to embrace getting fucked because they may do business with someone or buy a few ads its so sad. This is why the net has taken a industry that was recession proof and ruined it.

tony286

I meant This is how this industry. It was a long day lol

FightThisPatent

now that traffic is abundant and commoditized, content is king.

its the content that the surfers are coming for, and its the content that will convert them into members. its the content that will help retain.

paying attention to what the customer wants is key for getting the "conversion" and the "retention".

up until a few years ago, the focus was all on "conversion" with the tours, etc. now it should be "retention". keeping those members satisfied with the content they want.

this is where i think sites that shoot their own content can retain the models to provide INTERACTIVITY with the members.

tube sites can't steal that. i believe the new paysite is a hybrid of the current paysite offerings (photos and videos) + solo girl interactivity + cams (ie. weekly cam session with a girl inside members area)

nowadays its Content, Content, Content



Fight the C3Report!

__________________

http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! |
http://www.FightThePatent.com | ICQ 52741957