It sounds like you need to educate your members. First, you asked them probably about streaming flash or something like that, members don't have a clue what that is.

But if you took a movie and put it into a kick ass player like videobox has, you would get a very different response from your members. Just like HD doesn't really attract more people, but the myth goes on.

Streaming flash is basic protection, it works to stop general theft. And with better DRM, members can still download, view forever, stream without bulky software.

Music and Movie DRM is different. you buy a DVD or CD or Mp3, you own it, it really is yours. You can legally copy it to cd, mp3 player, put on a box.. movies, software, backups, all that is legal. So... when you add DRM to this, you take away something that is mine.

When you buy a membership to a porn site, you buy a subscription to access content, not own anything. Even if you can download it, the person doesn't own it. If they did they could resell it, so you need to make a choice.

Why refuse to look at the 100's of possible solutions with the answer, DRM isn't an option? You might as well close your doors and go out of business if you think you will be able to continue on with how things are.

And that isn't fully in reference to piracy or drm.

I agree with you 100% about DRM, but not your 99% figure.

I have never seen nor heard of DRM that is not crackable. 100% of things can and have been cracked wide open.

DRM isn't dead for the people successfully using it... It's dead for you because of your business methods....

If you have no DRM then it's 100% cracked and stolen all the time, without question.. you will NEVER stop from being pirated.

If you have DRM, 99.9% of piracy is stopped from members and people that don't know they are pirating. So now you only have to worry about .1% rather than the for sure 100%.

None of my members complain about DRM. If they do, so what? Let them go elsewhere and steal somebody else's content.

If everybody had used a DRM type system then we would not be facing the problems we are facing today. Instead, people said: "Oh, the poor members don't like it." So it was tossed to the side by most.

These days members don't like being members at all. They prefer to go to the tube sites and such. If you want to deliver everything that your members want, why don't you just stop charging? Doesn't make any sense right? Neither does letting them steal your content because you are afraid of losing a few members. That's called greed and in the long run, it has and will continue to hurt our industry.

DRM is the way to go. I'm sure there will be better ways in the future but for now, DRM is it. If you are not using it then you are contributing to the problem and not the solution.

I'm not sure I'd dismiss WWE as niche, their website (wwe.com) has a sub-500 Alexa and they have their three free TV shows with a 1 million+ audience every week.

I've already said this shit already.

A lawsuit in neither simple or expedient :Oh crap

This is all academic isn't it when all it takes is for a couple of big tubes to break your code and then let anyone, and everyone, download your shit for free?

Or am I missing something here?

Please stop posting common sense...This is GFY.

Videobox has a streaming Flash video player PLUS Windows Media Video files in three different sizes. The members of Videobox preview the scenes using the Flash player and then save their favorite scenes to their hard drives. If Videobox took away the downloadable files there would be a member rebellion - "I'm not paying for this shit if I can't save anything - I can get streaming videos for free all day long at Tube8.com!'

I think those numbers are a little optimistic, but even if they're not, you still have a problem.

Like I said before, all it takes is for a couple of big tubes to break your code and then let everyone download your shit for free.

Once that happens your member's content is all over the web.

Then why hasn't torrents and tubes cracked VOD that have 30k-50k full DVD's?

Tubes don't get your movies from the member areas, that's crazy talk. They don't put near that much attention into you as you think. They do get the movies from forums and torrents, and most of those are uploaded from your members.

Of course the members would rebell, they pitch the members on the download feature but they keep them with the streaming feature... that player they have is bad ass, who in hell would ever want to download a crappy video when I can start/stream/loop, jump, all types of crap, the same movie all on-demand..

And that's why they keep the members.. that's why they spent so much time and money on making the player out of this world.

Ok so what is the name of a modern, efficient, DRM company :thumbsup

I run Twistys to please our members. I think I'm doing a pretty good job at it. We rank near the top in member's area satisfaction, member's retention, and paysite size. I don't know what more I could do. Doing anything that goes against those 3 things is not in my best interest.

I disagree. The people that pay for porn, and especially those on VideoBox and Twistys, are collectors as well as consumers. A high % of our members want the hard version of the content. Whether it is to save for later or for viewing on another media (ie TV). VideoBox and Twistys do not attract super fetish people. We attract a different type of member and if VideoBox removed downloads guess what VideosZ and a number of their competitors would pick up all the members that would leave VideoBox because of that.

Everybody's business is different and has different issues. I can't speak for what would be best for AaronM just like he really can't speak for what is best for Twistys. At the end of the day the member decides with their purchasing power and the results from that speak for themselves. That is why I keep asking for one Top Tier Paysite that uses DRM. The results don't lie. The surfers vote with their $$$ anybody who wants to ignore that might as well stop calling themselves a businessman. I'm in this to make $$$. The way we run things we make $$$.

You are wrong.

TORRENTS, REPRESENT AT LEAST 80% of the online porn Illegal downloads, via azureus, and file sharing via RapidShare, depositfiles, etc.

Tubes are NOTHING when you compare them with TORRENTS and File Sharing via forums. I repeat, Tubes are nothing in comparisson to Torrents and File Sharing. More than 90% of the webmasters have the inverse picture there and subestimate torrents and rapidshare links via forums.. And over estimate tubies.

Since most people in the biz have no fucking idea about this, then we are FAR AWAY to even TRY to solve the problem.

Take a look at these sites
VideosZ
VideoBox
RealityKings
BangBros
NaughtyAmerica
Karups
Atk

They all follow a very similar business model. It's funny because every person PRO Drm in this thread thinks completely different from every owner of those sites. I'm not talking about DRM specifically but the general mentality and thought process regarding members. The important thing to remember is the owners of all those sites make waaaaaaaaay more money than all the PRO Drm people make. I'm not trying to be a dick I'm just stating the facts. Those sites all have very similar business models and it's a proven winner. That should tell you something about what members want.

Who cares if they want to collect it? Let them go collect it on another site, pirate it, then come back to yours for the good shit.

You want to run a business that makes everyone happy but you..

Topbucks videos can't be downloaded.. they aren't DRM protected so much, but you aren't running into collect anything. Old DRM that all the paysites tested, didn't work. New DRM that the majority of VOD sites use, works like a champ and pisses nobody off.

Surfers buy what you tell them they are getting. If you have 10 videos on your tour, the member doesn't expect 30. If your tour has flash streams and you don't say the movies can be downloaded, then you won't get complaints. They pay either way, drm or not, and always have.

To me, you aren't looking for solutions.. Have you tried not allowing downloads to new members, but giving them a kick ass flash player option instead?

Or a notice in the members area that asks the members to not share/upload the movies they collect.

You are the master of building and testing.. welp, this is the next step.

VideosZ
VideoBox
RealityKings
BangBros

All advertise on tubes/piracy sites, and vz and vb have whitelabels setup with several of them pulling down 50-100 sales a day from a text link in a menu.

The difference between these guys and the others you listed, even yourself. Is they understand what it means to get eye balls on your content/site. When it comes to ND/BB, they understand it more than anyone.

They still do more traffic than anyone, and they are the most pirated sites online. The most password leaks, the most everything, they ignore webmasters and even members.. They break every rule that everyone in here said you must do..... And yet, still #1...

For them, DRM isn't needed... Eyeballs are.

For people that think piracy is taking away from them, if they feel it does.. then DRM is for you.


My opionion though, you need to pirate your shit more, upload it on video networks, get yourself on social networks, create fan bases all over the world, and get eyeballs on your shit. Get yourself on forums you aren't on, get people talking about you, for you..

But, that's not the subject of this post..

That's the natural market progression of reducing costs and passing it on to pricing to deliver more customers for that product. It's another thing to give that product away and sell a lower value item on the back of that, which is essentially the free models plan. IMO that makes as much sense as sub prime mortgages.

From what I understand, Apple is dropping DRM from certain (older) iTunes downloads, as its presence is affecting sales.

I sell porn, and I am also a surfer -- and I would never join a site I couldn't download and keep forever the content on that site. I am certain there are more people who think like me, than who think differently.

Gotta give your customers what they want, or someone else will and they will be their customers.

you know I respect you but I cant see them pulling 50 to 100 sign ups a day on a tube full of free full scenes. What is the motivation?

True, but those are commodity like items in which the cost to produce/provide those items has also decreased while demand has gone up. The price to produce A-list quality music, movies, or porn, has not substantially decreased.

Instead, the boneheads in this industry kept production costs the same but devalued the product by giving it away free. I'm not an MBA but I believe that's the opposite of what a successful business does.

I think my point is that just because a delivery model has evolved to provide free distribution doesn't mean a true free business model can follow. If someone invented a magic key that opened and started any car, would that mean the auto industry is moving towards free?

But I guess the thread is about DRM and streaming now :)

But doing nothing is?

Every single DRM system out their can be broken. If you have a site that you think has some kind of super duper DRM that can be broken post a link and I will have that video on a Tube site in no time.

I was making money selling DRM and now I am telling people not to use it, I must be crazy.

Jay

You are correct about the collectors. When I was working with Earl Miller I witnessed this first hand. Earl has an amazing amount of loyal, rebilling members that were collectors and they would definitely get upset and vocal about any format change. I had never seen that before.

And from what I've heard from some of those sites is that they are losing a lot of members due to economy and content theft.

Meanwhile...I've heard some brilliant ideas from people on new technologies to combat this......But everybody seems to be missing one component or another to complete their projects.

Makes you wonder who is going to step to the plate and invest in a real solution. Could be some big money made with a service that works and doesn't piss off the members.

I don?t think that DRM-ing everything is the answer, but another option would be to use it on some of your elite product. You dont need to protect everything. The idea is to maintain your membership base without pissing them off. Let?s say you are Twistys for example and you have Stephen Hicks shoot a very high end glamour set on Bambi X. You go with a higher than usual production value, and you also have an outstanding HD Video to go with it. You call the whole Bambi project a ?bonus? and DRM it all. Offer it in such a way that it is both an extra and is better quality, but educate the surfers that you have to protect that specific content due to its obvious higher value. Surfers seeking out quality should understand this even better. Now you have an additional reason to stay a member of Twistys. Sure you can get a lot of their other (non DRM) content from the tubes but not their best stuff.

DRM is not going to be tolerated by your surfers on lower end stuff, because there will always be a competitor than is willing to undercut you and offer it without. But if your quality is better and exclusive, then they will not be able to do that (legally). You also have the added bonus of having a much better (c) infringement case in court if you had to go that route.

This would not work for every webmaster. Most adult webmasters tend to always go for the lowest possible common denominator. There will always be a lot of competition for the bottom end, but few can compete with the high end. You will surely sell more Honda?s than Ferrari?s, but there will always be a Ferrari market. :2 cents:

and if all the prisoners keep quiet they get off scott free

the problem is the nash equilibrium works against that and results in a shift to everyone confessing.

You really think a fight against the nash equilibrium is going to work, even though it as never worked once yet.

Good luck

I think there was an article written that said the poor economy could be the end of all this free stuff. Even though it seems contrary.

I guess logically, a case could be made that when a surfer spends HIS money to get a membership, why is he going to give it to everyone else for free? That actually seems more in line with human behavior.

But I don't think it's your normal collector/good customer that is stealing your content. It's the guys that get a cracked password or join then chargeback. The rip the site with a program that runs in the background. I think if there was a combo of some DRM and streaming you could strike a balance between protecting your content and keeping members happy.

Someone just needs to put it all together. I think the pieces are all there.

Instances of the Nash equilibrium being defeated / bypassed usually involve the creations of cartels, which involves large scale cooperation and sharing of information.

The Nash equilibrium has holes in it and recent work by game theorists are starting to prove that.

A simple game called the Travelers Dilema by Kaushik Basu shows that.

A Nash equilibrium is not gospel and it is way overused in systems where it really has no application.

You have no idea the kind of volume a lot of the tubes are doing to paysites... They may give away full scenes but surfers are still paying for quality + variety from the exact sites they want.

Volume my friend... that's what happens when you have that much traffic.

We both know piracy makes people never buy again.. it happens, it sucks.. But that doesn't mean the average guy watching a 20 minute tube movie knows it's pirated, it doesn't mean they wouldn't buy porn.. Our problem is, we never get to pitch them other than maybe a url stamp.

Overall though, the tube creates so much raw volume that a repeating header link that says something like free dvd downloads, produces traffic and sales...

Some good ideas.. just shows how important it is to think different to solve the problem rather than continue with the same boxed in thinking.

i suggest you reread the travelers dilema

look carefully at Payoff matrix of the dilema when you do that you realize that travelers dilema is infact a non binomial varient of the nash equilibrium

(in the same way as the three gun man solution)

to many people confuse the simplist example (prisoners dilema) with everything nash came up with.

f(n) in a nash equibrium is not limited to f(2).

Hense multi-participant competitions like the 3 gun man solution.

Err this thread lost me.

All that really needs to be done is to require any site at all that shares video to have 2257 documentation and be registered with the content producer as a valid "license" holder with no exceptions. If you don't have 2257 for every video then you are illegal and your fined and shut down.

The fines alone would pay for all operating expenses. We already have the FBI, FCC, FDA, etc., how about a new agency actually called the DMCA.