The Split in the Adult Industry
 

This has been mentioned on a couple of other threads, but I sort of think it needs it's own thread.

On one side, you have the content producing and distribution side of the business (studios, paysites, production companies, and all the affiliates and sales people who are part of the gravy train of selling porn). Call them "the producers:

On the other side, you have the companies such as AFF, SexSearch, etc (and their supporters such as Drinkinghardest with his P2P spam campaigns). Call them "the Willing"

The issue: The Willing have no problem sourcing their traffic from any source, marginal or not. They have no issue getting traffic from sites that steal content from The Producers, from sites like PirateBay, Fusker-style hot linkers, content redistributors, and so on. They are more than willing to use questionable sources (such as Zango and other even less savory toolbar marketing systems) to obtain traffic. They allow and encourage spammers, jammers, and pretty much every other questionable technique to get traffic - and they reward those people handsomely for doing the dirty work.

The Producers see that The Willing are making more and more money off of stealing their content. The levels of blatant content theft and public support by The Willing is certainly starting to get some of The Producers up in arms.

Where do you see this all going?

Interesting, looks like "the willing" are more of the "lets-make-money-from-others-downfalls-and-others-hard-work" type of people

Someone invents a drm technology that really works and becomes very rich. I think one thing the producers can do and I will bring this up at the next FSC meeting. Is start to make the public aware children cant be protected from BT's that have mountains of porn on them. No filter will pick them up and we as a industry can do everything in our power to protect kids but with BT and rapid share your kids are still have access to porn without the wall of credit card payment to protect them. We have to get governments to put pressure on these sites in the name of children.

Well, to use an anology similar to DH's, if a guy kicks some other guy's ass, the entire blame isn't to be put on the one delivering the punches. The other one should fight back too. :)

What I'm trying to say is sure, they're stealing and there are tons of profiteers around to cash in on those stealing. But aside from crying to God almighty about the injustice, what have the producers done to fight back? I haven't heard anything about subpoenas, lawsuits, injunctions or anything. Hell, even 2257 was fought more than this, until the FSC decided to throw in the towel.

Tony, interesting theory - but the government doesn't seem to make any difference between a single image of porn and a full movie.

Do you think that the DRM would be "unhackable"? Do you think that The Willing wouldn't be profiting off of hacked version of the movies 3 minutes later?

I can hope can't I ? lol The quick buck artists will always be there, their the reason we are at 1% for cb's. I think until the big boys wake up about and this deal with it, it wouldn't stop.

The only way you can truly make unhackable "DRM" is if you don't let them download the video, but stream it without the possibility of capturing it. Still, even that way you'd probably end up having people use camcorders or whatnot to capture the vid and re-distribute it illegally.

I don't think there is a split in the adult industry. The companies you mentioned will survive and remain prosperous with or without an adult industry. Dating sites aren't beholden to porn sites. Their reach is far, wide, and mainstream. Ditto for traffic brokering.

how can i promote your site? last i checked it was pretty jacked up (the aff program part of it)

Hit up Shaun ICQ: 167682477

CONTENT vs. TRAFFIC

Remember the Gold Rush Days? Remember how difficult it was to obtain content, so many resorted to stealing, scanning, newsgroups etc...

It's not much different today. Until Traffic Providers turn into Studios... They can't do anything BUT steal.

It is somewhat of a symbiotic relationship, however messed up it is, it is a necessary evil. It is starting to become a bigger problem because wide-spread brand saturation without monetary gain for the producers, will eventually kill the industry if something isn't done to pacify this phenomenon.

EVERYONE wants a piece of the pie. They will do ANYTHING to get it. So, a mechanism needs to be put inbetween the WANT and SUPPLY to mute it's effects overall.

Some suggest DRM, however, this is quite costly for a producer to do, especially when the margins are dropping due to piracy & illegal saturation. My suggestion is that producers just start pushing their own traffic, lock out affiliates that you don't know personally, get contracts with traffic providers, and start closing up the content leaks.

If we start looking at this as straight business, develop long lasting relationships with traffic providers, and working together instead of against one another to try and turn a buck, something can be done. Imagine if each producer donated a fund to legal pursuits and hired a team of the best attorneys available for copyright infringement / piracy and started tieing these assholes up in court, jail etc... as well as pursuing the actual users who download the pirated material. The only way to really settle this is in court, by killing their resources, and time. Hitting them in the proverbial wallet, as it were.

DRM is a great idea, however what is being pirated is DVD content usually, and as far as I know there isn't much that can be done to secure a DVD. A guy can walk into any adult video store and buy a DVD, take it home, rip it and put it up for the world to download. It's just too easy. You can't DRM wrap a video store.

Most of this really comes down to internet surfers are becoming more and more intelligent in the ways of the net, and this industry used to lead web technology. We (The Industry) have become lazy, and stopped trying to improve, and the surfers have caught up to us.

As soon as a new technology comes out, someone will try and hack it. It's the way things are, and it may never change. Which challenges all of us to try and stay ahead of the game, and keep coming up with new things to slow the process down. Becoming sedentary in any business is the death of the business.

Our technologies are simple usually, and anyone with half a brain and some programming knowledge can reverse engineer what we do. This is why CocaCola protects it's formula so heavily. If someone could setup a lab and test a Coke, to break down exactly how to make it, and the ingredients were readily available at Safeway, CocaCola Co. would go out of business, because everyone would just make it for themselves.

Anyhow, I'm sure as time goes on and the problem becomes more and more of an issue, some people will start stepping up and doing what it takes to lock it all down.

Until then, we can only do our best with the tools we have. Until someone build new tools that we can work with.

I see a lot of contributing infringers lawsuits coming.

i'd written probably 5000 words on the real FATE OF THE INDUSTRY instead of the dog and pony show we get at the shows every few months, and deleted it.

i know where i am spending my 30k+ on traffic when that time comes to launch the site and i know who is going to get traffic from my network when that time comes.

two parts. those who are ok with stealing. those that aren't

bottom line.

I think this is very true - some people would sell their mother into prostitution for a buck, others wouldn't. The sad part is because they are playing with human nature, many of these scum are making like bandits.

Where do you see this going?

Well said. It's the only way things are going to be fixed. When people step up and say "I'm not sending my traffic to people who are hurting me". Unfortunately, board personas and popularity contests seem to be more important to people here than their future.

I'm amazed that some of the Big TGP's aren't taking a second look at who is selling spots for them. I know I'd have to think twice if I had a service selling spots for me whom didn't give a crap who he sells or buys from.

If I was using a service to sell spots on my sites, I'd expect that service to have a respect for my traffic and not be selling traffic for sites that put my future at risk.

:2 cents:

Sooner or later, the laws and prosecutions will catch up to all of this.. Take someone like thePirateBay... Now I'm not a lawyer, but I could see one of these cases where they're taken to court in the US and found guilty in absensia... and in order to get the money, the companies go after all those paying them for ad spots etc.. Honestly, I'll be laughing my ass off at all these guys that conspire with these thieves and eventually are made to pay for it... They clearly know they're doing it and even say so.. So in effect they're a part of the criminal activities..

Good point and I cant wait for that day, I was even thinking about emailing some of the big companys like warner brothers and pointing them to the threads where companies are willingly stating they know they are supporting content theft so it might turn the tables so they get to really foot the bill for these torrent sites theft.

OK, for that I WILL hold my breath waiting. :)

I think this may be part of the deal in the long run. Sagi AFF was nice enough to point out the PB is 100% legal (it isn't, they are just in a jurisdiction that isn't very good about copyright or protecting the rights of copyright holders). Until there is a legal case made, many of the companies that don't care will continue to do business with these sites.

But how do you feel about this? Do you think this will drive a wedge into the adult business?