While most adult media file sharers are perfectly legal and law-abiding folks who have obtained their wares legitimately through paid memberships to adult websites, there are more than a few who do in fact attempt to steal content in order to profit for their own, or simply to take credit for material that is not their own.
In a depressed economy, though, even legal file sharing through such venues as bit torrents or "tube sites" (sites similar to the popular You Tube that allows uploading and public viewing of video clips, but explicitly catering to XXX tastes) or through file storage/file sharing sites as Hotfile or RapidShare or Megaupload (and its adult kin Megaporn), can be very much harmful to the original producers of such material who expect a fair compensation for their work. This can be especially true of independent sites that aren't dependent on large establishment production houses such as Naughty America or Brazzers, and the so-called "at home" sites hosted by performers and models out of their own home that rely on exclusive home-grown content.
Not suprisingly, it is mostly the latter group that has attempted to fight back against what they see as intellectual property theft, and some of them have gone so far as to seek legal action against companies they see as enablers of "property theft". The softcore megasite Perfect 10's unsuccessful attempt to seek damages against Google for their use of thumbnails in their Google Photos app is one example; the recent lawsuit of Pink Visual against Brazzers for the latter's tube sites violating the former's copyright by showing PW's clips without permission is another.
The primary defenses used by the filesharing and tube sites has been that they can't really control what their users upload and store on their servers, and that most of the supposed "copyrighted" material is uploaded by members who legally sought and own them through legitimate paying memberships to those sites. They say that the most they can do is to detect the obviously illegal theives and shut them down as soon as possible...but to target a whole service is throwing out the baby with the bathwater and punishing the innocent as much as the guilty.
Nevertheless, that has not cooled the anger of those who constantly see their hard earned work reproduced and copied illegally and passed on through file sharing sites and tubes.
One such performer/webmistress is Vicky Vette: reigning MILF superstar and owner of the very popular Vicky at Home website and rapidly rising multi-model Vette Nation Army network. (Disclosure alert: I am a moderator of Vicky's members' forum, and own and co-moderate several Yahoo! groups dedicated to her network.) She has had an ongoing battle with defending her intellectual property against copyright thieves since her original site took off in 2002; but when she discovered recently that some of her material was being illegally stolen and passed around through services like RapidShare, it jolted her to action. Quoting from an entry at her home site blog:
Pretty simple business plan, film sex and sell it, a plan that is being threatened by file sharing – the practice of uploading movies for downloading by others free. Now perhaps I should be flattered that stuff I sell is being ’shared’ but I have recently started a full frontal campaign against one of these file sharing mongers – Rapidshare. For those of you not familiar with Rapidshare you can download whatever you want for free – supposedly from users just like you who have uploaded their movies to share. Why am I upset with Rapidshare and others like them? Rapidshare are thieves. They make money by selling memberships, advertising and other scams. Yes… when something is up on their server you can in theory download it for free, but they do cute things like ‘for $9.95 you can get this file quicker and easier’. There are also all kinds of links to Adultfriendfinder where you can supposedly date ME if you have a membership. Do I get a piece of the action if they sell memberships, advertising or otherwise when a user is so inclined to spend a few bucks? Not a penny. Do they seem to care if someone puts up my movies for sharing by millions of people free? Apparently not. Rapidshare is doing to movies what Napster did to music… destroying the industries it is cheating.
You would think that it would be easy to get Rapidshare NOT to put up my adult videos and share them with the world if I asked them right? NOT so. One of my more popular website flicks is Lavatory Occupied – a series of videos shot in zany lavatories all over the world (including on a 747). Not exactly high art but I own them and Rapidshare cannot legally host or give it away. I wrote to them after I found Lavatory Occupied and other links and they immediately took down/disabled the links. Problem solved right? Errr no. A couple days later more links reappeared. So I wrote again and threatened them. Problem solved right? Errr, no. The links were taken down but a couple of days later more videos were put up in their place. I just got done writing them yet again today. A revolving door of stolen movies.
[...]
I am writing this blog to do my small part in the way of a public service announcement. If you are using the services of Rapidshare or others like it, remember that the performers are getting ZERO. If you became a member at Rapidshare so that you could get a quick download, remember that no one is making a dime but the scumbags running these services. If you sign up to a dating site because you are surfing rapidshare, were turned on by the porn you see, and feel like hooking up on one of the dating sites advertised remember most of the profiles you are salivating over were simply made up by a bunch of guys thinking of ways to get you to spend your money. No, the big breasted blonde named ‘Inga’ does not live down the street from you.
You would think a massive country like the good old United States of America would do something legally to protect ALL copyright owners. After all Rapishare and companies like them steal not only porn but also from major hollywood movies etc. Now I would love to think that Eric Holder from the Department of Justice was thinking about porn when he made an announcement on February 10, 2010 that a ‘task force’ was being set up to confront intellectual property crimes but I kind of doubt it. GET THAT LINK HERE. I also think it is an empty promise. I am however happy to see that the police on February 12 in Poland of all places arrested 3 people running a File Sharing Forum for Rapidshare Uploads. GET THAT LINK HERE . The masterminds behind this Forum with 30,000… yes 30,000 users? Aged 21, 16 and 15 with 6 computers between them. The people who responded to this ‘news’ (which did not exactly make CNN) made comments showing the mindset of our society…Incidentally, RapidShare is based in Switzerland, so it is probably questionable whether US copyright laws would actually be applicable, and the Justice Department isn't exactly too kind to defending porn these days.
On the other hand, though, there was a recent case in Germany where a group of book publishing companies and producers were successful in getting legal sanctions against RapidShare for copyright violations in postiing their work withoug permission....and that might give some impetus to Ms. Vette's argument.
Of course, RapidShare is only one of many companies who offer file sharing, and the ease of downloading and the popularity of filesharing would make it a rather tough case to sell for going after the companies or even the users (the latter being the favored strategy of mainstream anti-piracy groups like the MPAA or RIAA through their lawsuits against individual filesharers or sabatoge via DCMA malware). Also, many fileshare groups insist that given the millions of profit that already exist through price gouging for regular consumers of material, it is inevitable and simply unstoppable. and counterproductive to go after user, who may respond by not buying the product itself and really destroying the profits of the industry. (Not to mention the broader attitudes against the adult sexual media in general.)
To that, Vicky responded with this:
I kind of expect some harsh responses to this blog. Vicky… you are a pornstar, don’t sweat the small stuff, you have to be rich! Vicky.. think of it as free advertising for your site! Vicky… I put stuff up myself (I own it and I want to share it!). Vicky who cares… it is only porn?! Vicky.. move to Poland if you are so concerned! In case you have not noticed, adult companies and performers are hurting. Your DVD’s? Less common. Like any movie, producing ‘art’… in this case people having sex on camera.. costs money. Costs include the ‘actors’, a camera dude or two, a photographer etc. When a company puts out ‘Vicky Vette Has Sex With a Me and All my Myspace Friends 83′ and rather than BUY it, you run to Rapidshare and get it because someone uploaded it and Rapidshare allows it…. who wins? Rapidshare. The folks making the adult stuff you want to ‘enjoy’ are not making enough for their own mansions anymore and going out of business. If you steal Part 83 there is no reason to make Part 84 of ‘Vicky Vette Has Sex with Me and all my Myspace Friends’.
Should we care about the porn producers who make adult movies? Just a bunch of scumbags right? That is sure the perception, but think about the performers too – whose numbers are dwindling. Have you guys wondered where the next Jenna Jameson is? It has been a while since someone like that has appeared in adult for a reason. It is becoming increasingly difficult for adult stars to make money to do such a profession. Why bare all for the camera if the results are stolen? The Jenna Jameson’s of the world are staying in school, staying as strippers and doing anything BUT getting into adult. A good thing? Maybe, but if you are a fan of hot girls in adult… not. Companies don’t have the money to promote ’stars’ anymore and there is no point becoming an adult star if you still are living in a one bedroom apartment in Reseda wondering when you are going to become famous like Jenna. To be blunt, if you can make more money dancing at the ‘Foxy Lady’ than appearing in a skin flick… why bare all for a dwindling chance at fame?
Why bother with this blog? I am doing my small part. Educating my small slice of the world that you should think twice about using Rapidshare and companies like it. If something is FREE…. someone is getting ripped off. If you are uploading your movies to Rapidshare and places like it…… you are helping Rapidshare make money and the owners who run it.Whatever you may think about fire sharing, we all can agree on one thing: stealing someone's content without their permission is definitely WRONG. Stealing their content and claiming it as your own is even worse.
I am going to keep sending my letters to Rapidshare and keep fighting the fight. Will it help? Probably not… I fear that the biggest culprit in all of this are likely adult movie companies themselves who are likely behind lots of these places. It seems our own community is giving away free stolen content to make money from advertisers/dating sites etc. It would not surprise me that some adult movie producers are deliberately putting up free stuff so that other adult movie producers go out of business – dog eat dog.
Vicky Vette has said that she is currently seeking advice for possible legal action against RapidShare and other venues that illegally post her material; we will follow with updates as they happen.
I'm with her 100% on this. Piracy, whatever the pirates prefer to call it, is the single most devastating element in the perfect storm currently ravaging our industry. The weak economy, the collapse of the overproduction bubble, the increasingly hostile political atmosphere and the industry's own failure to adapt to Internet technology as its primary revenue stream have all contributed, but nothing beats having your merchandise stolen and given away to all your customers for free.
ReplyDeleteIn a very short time, if this is not addressed, we will go from having a glut of new porn to having little or no new porn at all. We cannot and will not make it for free.
In the end, there are no real technical fixes for this problem (do to the analog hole that really isn't a technical problem), copyright laws haven't been effectively enforced for mainstream content on the Internet, much less for porn, and it's a whack-a-mole game to go after either individual individual uploaders or individual downloaders.
For the past couple of years, I've been arguing forcefully for a combined strategy of building a new marketing platform akin to itunes for porn while vigorously pursuing a campaign of consumer education. I don't think most downloaders think of themselves as thieves, or want to see people like Vicky put out of business as a result of their actions, but they have to be made to see that their actions are in fact theft and will in fact have that effect. There will always be those who don't care, but I think particularly where fans of individual performers are concerned, the power of moral suasion is not to be dismissed.
So I'm glad she's going public with this and I hope others will do the same.
The thing with Rapidshare and the like is that, in themselves, they have a legitimate purpose. Most email don't allow you to send a file larger than about 500 Megs, which means even sending something like a large PowerPoint can be difficult. To send something larger, you need to put it on a file sharing site and send somebody the link.
ReplyDeleteWhile having this ability has the side effect of allowing piracy of large files, where sites like Rapidshare cross the line is that they encourage piracy. Basically, they have a membership system based on pay-to-download (at full speed) rather than pay-to-upload, and more notably, encourage uploading of pirated content by crediting uploaders with membership time if they upload files that are in turn frequently downloaded. This has the effect of encouraging the escalation of pirating behavior from being a downloader of pirated content to an uploader as well.
The explosion of file sharing has had one arguably salutary effect, and one I think content providers need to catch up on. File sharing and video sites has made it possible for media of all kinds to be shared very quickly and across international boundaries. I was able to see the BBC program "Hardcore Profits" and respond to it here because the program made it onto the file sharing sites within 24 hours of its broadcast.
Quite often, when I want to get a porn or other DVD that isn't available at a local brick-and-mortar store, I have to order it and wait a week to get it. Now if I simply didn't give a shit, I'd probably often be able to find a pirated version and have it in 15 minutes, in the same resolution. Some companies are figuring out that selling downloadable versions (in the same resolution as the DVD) is the way to go, and, in fact, that's the way I picked up my last several Viv Thomas titles. And, of course, there are many companies (Little Mutt and Sapphic Erotica come to mind) that forgo DVDs entirely and sell high-end video content via website membership.
That still doesn't solve the problem of having stolen content available for free (online porn producers are being about as hard as the ones that stick to the DVD title model), but it does point to the problem that in terms of simply fostering accessibility of content, in many cases, the pirates are actually *ahead* of the legitimate sources.
As for the question of technical fixes, is some kind of digital rights management a possibility? I know this failed miserably for the music industry, but that was a case where the consumer had a legitimate interest in having the downloaded song or album available for playback on several different systems. For porn and other movie content, limiting copies to small number might be more reasonable.
"online porn producers are being about as hard"
ReplyDeleteOops - no pun intended. Online porn producers are being *hit* about as hard.