The Pornographers vs. The Pirates

conq writes "BusinessWeek has a piece on how pornography is again leading the way and showing Holywood how to fight back against piracy. From the article: 'Some producers of porn are starting to share revenues from online movies with the distributors of their DVDs, who might otherwise feel endangered by digital distribution online. Bolder yet, one large studio is allowing fans who buy movies online to burn them from their computers onto DVDs, with some protections included, of course.'"

The naked truth...

[jkrise]

People who love porn would not mind DRM or any other restrictive technology - most porn lovers don't wish to have their names advertised, and a bit of money is not an issue.

Not so with what the RIAA calls Pirates.

It isn't needed.

[Lave]

I doubt there is anything with a higher pirated/legit ratio than porn.

I know no-one who has bought porn - but everyone has watched it.

Why hasn't porn gone bust like the movie and music industries say will happen to them?

If a legitimate market can keep porn afloat an inherently embarrassing purchase - then everything else doesn't need to worry

Re:It isn't needed.

[vinsanity1]

> I know no-one who has bought porn yeah, but i know no-one who has masturbated. "there are those who do, and there's those who lie about it".

Coz They Cant Lobby

[ikejam]

I think it has more to do with the fact that since no politican can afford to be seen lobbied by a porn cartel, they have to come up with fairer solutions...

Re:It isn't needed.

[LoonyMike]

SPAM also has a low clicks/emails rate (I think), but the few clicks are enough to make it profitable.
Low-budget porn movies might also need a relatively small number of sales to make money, even if they are massively pirated.

Will they really tell you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think your father will openly tell you that just last week he purchased a subscription to this fantastic bondage porno site? Do you think your boss will tell you that ten minutes ago, between meetings with clients, he spent $19.95 for the "Girls Gone Crazy: Kansas City!" and "Eugenia's Booby Paradise" video combo he saw advertised on TV last night? Do you think that the Republican senator who just rallied against sexuality in video games, and who also just bought some photos of girls fellating horses, will let you know? Probably not.

Then again, you likely don't understand the true size of the market. Even if they have a 99% piracy rate, that 1% of sales is so much that they're all very well off.

Bigger Business

[pianoman113]

Pornography has always been a huge business, and they have always been on the bleeding edge of technology. Look at the internet. Long before their was the World Wide Web there were dial-in BBS's where people could download pornography. When VCRs came out, pornography was almost immediately available on video cassettes.
The pornography business' profit margin is much higher and that allows them much more freedom to innovate in their distribution. That, and they have no doubt that people will continue to consume their product.
I doubt they'll ever eliminate the pirates, but they will lead the way technologically for flexible video distribution.

Re:It isn't needed.

[just_forget_it]

I'm surprised no one has brought this us even. The Porn industry is one of the richest in this country, and they are also the most heavily pirated. Kind of destroys the "Piracy hurts record sales" argument.

World peace

[Roy van Rijn]

The biggest advances in internet technology are made because of porn, file-sharing, P2P, search engines, image formats (more porn per mb), movie encryption etc.

But there is one thing I don't believe, Porn isn't going to stop piracy, it created it! (One of the best things on the web!)
If porn proves to be the key in stopping piracy, then I truly think porn will create world peace...

And... why burn on DVD for personal use...???
Isn't porn something you only watch once, you know the whole story and get bored? Isn't that the whole reason we watch porn, because the same woman every night bores us!?

Re:Now there is a porn video I'd watch...

[Lord Kano]

How is it that taking ass-to-mouths and getting bukkake facials qualifies these people as "Stars"?

The kid that cleans up at the stables isn't called the "Barn Star".

LK

Re:It isn't needed.

[Eivind]

You mean you know noone who will admit to having bougth porn.... Not the same thing.

Besides, porn movies are embarassingly low-budget. What counts as a "high budget" porn-movie doesn't even show up on the radar for budgeting normal movies. And some of the low-budget porn-movies have budgets down in the 4-digits range.

You don't need to sell an awful lot to make a profit if your total budget is less than a years salary.

Re:The naked truth...

[BrynM]

People who love porn would not mind DRM or any other restrictive technology

I wouldn't go that far. Remember that there are quite a few porn sites that will happily embed a trojan (the malware not the condoms) into their website. The machines that I've cleaned for friends who like porn are some of the biggest messes I've seen. They all now know that if they want me to clean out their machine, I'll wipe the drives first thing unless they take precautions (anti-virus, firewall, rent their porn rather than download it).

(oh, the inuendo for this article)

Re:It isn't needed.

[SlashDread]

"Why hasn't porn gone bust"

Because people who buy porn dont tell you. But the amount of money spend on online porn is huge. Its a matter of ease of use, and the instant "gratification" (scuse the pun), and online downloads/streams WILL sell.
Regular content industrie is just, uhm, backwards really.

Re:It isn't needed.

[oliverthered]

I'll quite happly wath the low budget films from the 70s so why are modern movie budgets so high? Maybe the movie industry should sort out their cost problems first if the're having problems making a profit.

No chance for support from Uncle Sam

[Opportunist]

Uncle Sam would have to admit that he cared for porn, doubt that will happen soon.

What does it say about the human race

[forgotten_my_nick]

when all our advances in technology can be linked to porn or the military?

Re:The naked truth...

[Trigun]

I've noticed that the more blatant you are about porn, the less likely you are to run into trouble. I know of one manager who loves porn, and is so blatant about it that he doesn't worry about going to the big names (playboy, penthouse, hustler, etc.). The other ones at that office are always so worried about it that they end up going to the out of the way corners of the Internet, and get infected.

When will these people face reality!

[l0rd]

What are these people bitching about? It's ridiculous to see 100% of pircacy as lost revenue.

Newsflash: Most people don't pay for porn. Most people don't need that much porn. Most people aren't your target market.

The way I see this is that a (relative) minority of people actually pay for porn. Everyone else just gets it from P2P and that ain't gonna change.

Re:Hypocrites

[jamstigator]

Heh, I never understood the concept of immorality with porn. It's moral to HAVE sex, but it's immoral to WATCH sex? Even some of the laws are ridiculous. For example, in the state where I live, you can legally have sex with someone for four years, enough time to generate five batches of children, before you can legally WATCH sex. In other words, you can be legally giving blowjobs left and right for 4 years, but during that time you are not allowed to watch any type of instructional video on how to give a GOOD blowjob. That just seems like a waste to me. ;)

Re:What does it say about the human race

[Rude Turnip]

They're abstracts of every other living entity's desire to reproduce and willingness to kill to do so and survive? Just my $0.02.

Re:Bigger Business

[dajak]

I don't think so. It's a cottage industry. Look up reports and numbers for publicly listed porn empires like Private or Beate Uhse. Income is low compared to the normal media, profit margins are in the normal range, and the retailers keep most of the money. The more likely explanation is that these companies have few 'intangible assets' in the form of goodwill, lobbying power in politics, or longterm relationships with partners in related industries anyway, and therefore have little reason to try to resist change.

Re:The naked truth...

[Hillie]

I'm sorry but I have to disagree, whether it be porn or anything else DRM leaves you feeling cheap and used.

Now nevermind the thousands of inuendos and puns that statement may suggest. The fact is that no one wants to pay any amount of money per month on some site that lets you download content, if the content is going to stop working when you quit paying that site money.

Whether that content is porn or music. There are millions of people who would pay a $3.95 trial to buy the ONE song they've been lookin for but unable to find elsewhere or that video they got spammed with that peaked their interest.

With the DRM ripoff schemes of RIAA and some porn sites this is not possible. So let's say you were a member of any music/porn site that used DRM on their files. Restrictive DRM.. you paid a total of maybe $200 to them and you decide you don't want the service anymore, but you do like what you've gotten so far. You quit you're screwed.. so you're telling me I gotta keep paying to keep what I ALREADY PAID FOR?

No thanks. *gives RIAA the finger*

Re:It isn't needed.

[pedalman]

Why hasn't porn gone bust like the movie and music industries say will happen to them?

Because porn; like booze, is one of those recession-proof products that never seems to lose demand. It doesn't matter what the economy is doing. It will always thrive.