Dealing With Copyright Online: Porn v. Music 340
zzled writes "The New York Times (registration required, etc.) has an article on the porn industry's take on filesharing / copyright infringement. 'Many companies that distribute X-rated material say they do not worry too much about consumers sharing among themselves; they often unleash their lawyers only when someone is trying to profit by copying their goods and trying to sell them.' ... The article isn't particularly brilliant or insightful, but was an interesting read, especially with the explicit comparison to the approach taken by the music and movie industries."
The real math of filesharing (Score:5, Insightful)
without piracy:
- Normal customer base (x)
Most people think:
with piracy:
- Paying customers (x')
- Pirates (y)
The equation created is x' = x-y meaning piracy has cost you y sales. It's just not that simple. It's more like this:
with piracy:
- Paying customers (x')
Pirates:
- Those who would have payed if no crack was avaliable - (a)
- Those who won't pay, but heard of it through piracy - (b)
- "Try before you buy" who then buy - (c)
- "Try before you buy" who decide it's not worth it - (d)
- collectors who pirate, but don't use - (e)
- New people refered/introduced to by pirates other than (a) - (y)
- Those who won't/can't buy your program, but donate in other ways - (z)
I'm not saying anything about anyone's morals, right or wrong, simply how their actions affect the developer.
The equation now looks like this: x' = x - a + c + y + z*(whatever ratio you consider these donations to be worth)
Note that b, d and e won't pay no matter what, and so are simply free advertising, and not a lost sale.
So the only thing those people could cost you is an injury to your pride. Not such a bad thing in my books, perhaps even a good thing. Pride can be quite a detriment.
Also note, every group except x and d can bring more members to every group.
The question is: Is a > c+y?
(Ignoring z, since in most cases it can only be 0: How do you "donate" back to MS? Note this isn't a piracy problem, but rather companies refusing to accept the reality of the world: that these people exist.)
In my experience, b, c and y are huge factors, while a is very minor, especially in the "shareware" arena where freeware competition is often abundant.
Got Porn? (Score:5, Insightful)
Free samples are a must for content sellers (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumers are not going to turn over money for content when they can't look inside the box to see what they're getting. If a content pusher doesn't have some free samples floating somewhere, there's no way they're going to be able to convince consumers that they've got the goods inside their sealed box. There has to be a free preview of some kind.
You're never going to buy a CD from an artist you've never heard sing, therefore some form of advanced sampling has to exist. I guess the porn industry realizes that the same rules apply to them, and since they don't quite yet have the ability to broadcast on the radio, they're letting filesharing do the job for them.
I suppose one could argue (Score:5, Insightful)
Though they seem to be giving it away - tons of web sites bill free porn for me, I just need to give them my credit card number to verify my age....yeah...
Smart (Score:5, Insightful)
These guys are smart, aren't they?
Re:Got Porn? (Score:5, Insightful)
Devil's Advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
But besides, your formula is far too complex and with too many variables that are impossible to even guess. It's a safe bet that there are some people out there who illegally download files to save money, and who would buy the product if they couldn't download it for free. It's not necessarily a safe bet that, by allowing piracy, you'll end up with more overall sales.
Free Music and Pay Porn in the future. (Score:4, Insightful)
Fundamental difference in material... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm changing groups (Score:0, Insightful)
Laying Low (Score:5, Insightful)
I would expect that the porn industry would have a much more difficult time if they did want to take the same stance as the music business. Can you imagine US politicians standing up and proudly supporting them in the same way as they do for the music distributors?
When you operate at the fringes of your country's moral and legal tolerance, surely the last thing you want to do is attract attention or get involved in legal battles? Of course many will argue (correctly IMNSHO) that the music distribution also pushes the boundaries of morality and legality, but the key difference is that their core business is not directly about sex. Janet Jackson gave us a clear demonstration last week of just how hung up a good proportion of the USA is. In many other nations, this incident would have barely raised any eyebrows, but in the US it's apparently world war three.
Like it or not, the RIAA's campaigning has won over much public support or acceptance - for every slashdotter who sees them as a menace, there's probably a large number of other people who see them as perfectly reasonable. But pornographers wouldn't get that kind of response and they know it. They're more likely to get themselves shut down than anything else if they raise a stink. As much as I'd like to think their attitude is because the porn business is more enlightened, I think their real motive is more likely just self-protection.
Re:Pornographers are criminals already anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Adult entertainment is a well established film genre. Why isn't it an honest job? You wake up, drive to work, clock in, bust your hump (or hump your bust) all day, then go home, and cash your cheques.
True, there is a seedier side to some of the fly by night operations, but that's also true of import electronics, major label clothing, accounting and the stock market, as we've seen in the last few years.
Corrupting minds? Nobody is forcing anybody to watch porn. Actually, it's almost always segregated into its own section / room in a store to keep people from having to peruse it unwillingly. You have to willingly pay for it on TV.
Take your religious fundamentalist dogma elsewhere.
As for the illegality of piracy, go talk to the vice-president about halliburton. He wouldn't be doing all that if it were illegal, right?
Porn is ruthlessly competitive (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:the good old days (Score:3, Insightful)
And as this is New York City, there's no need for plain brown paper wrappers to conceal what these magazines are all about. We're not talking about Penthouse or Playboy, but covers that show closeups of ass-to-mouth and animal sex action.
And this is where kids go to get their candy, soda-pop, and ring-dings. I don't know about you, but I was spared the image of a woman going down on a dog until I was well into adulthood. I happen to think that this was a good thing. But today, we're talking about kids of all ages being exposed to this kind of shit.
Fucking hilarious! Instead of having all the city's porn concentrated in well-defined areas like Times Square, Guiliani succeeded in accelerating its spread throughout all of the city's neighborhoods.
Then again, what would you expect? These are the same wizards who brought us the war on drugs.
Re:The real math of filesharing (Score:5, Insightful)
Before, I'd have expected them to be about on par, but this article does make a rather convincing arguement...
Re:The real math of filesharing (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been known to play with high-end graphics and sound packages for kicks. I'm certainly not a professional artist by any stretch, but do enjoy seeing what these packages can do. So instead of paying hundreds or thousands for them just to play, I downloaded them from a p2p app.
Now a bit later, the small start-up I worked for needed some graphic work done for their web site, and I recommended they pick up a copy of the same program, since I had some semblence of familiarity with it and found it quite powerful.
So, my company buys the product whereas they may not have, and I most certainly wouldn't have bought it for myself (too pricey). One sale because of piracy.
Thoughts on Porn and Sharing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not so much the sharing of material that the companies I do work for care about, but the leaking of passwords onto online sites.
When a site gets released onto a list, and several hundred people end up downloading 100meg+ movies, that's essentially a slashdot effect for you. Before I ended up implementing a protection system for one company, they spent upwards of $3k/month in bandwidth overages. This was just for one day of password leaking.
Sometimes sharing porn is good press. That's why all of SW [shanesworld.com]'s images are watermarked, as well as all their videos. That's partly how the word is spread. Of course, making the news on roughly 10 different shows and being contravercial doesn't hurt either :)
I know of some companies that deliberately leak passwords out onto lists for short periods of time just to drive people to the site. That works quite well. Too bad the music industry couldn't learn from something like that.
But then, the problem with the music industry is that people only want to pirate well known artists. With porn, sex is sex. No matter whose ass is involved, as long as it's a fine one, people will watch.
And people will pay. Simple as that.
Re:The real math of filesharing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The real math of filesharing (Score:5, Insightful)
Anybody here ever heard of the Malayan Monkey Trap? It's a hollow log with a hole cut in it to the precise diameter of a monkey's empty hand. Next place a piece of fruit in the log. The first monkey to come along, will reach in and grab the fruit. The monkey being a monkey will die before letting go of that fruit. The hunter can now liesurly walk up to mister monkey and pack his ass into a nice little tote bag.
What the movie and recording industry is doing is precisely the same on a global scale as poor mister monkey. They don't give a flying FSCK if they're cutting their own throats by employing draconian measures to control the flow of their IP. They see themselves as an endangered species. Worse, in their terror they intend to keep complete and absolute control over who can and who can't use their product under any and all circumstances. In the end, unless they can build a monolithic body of law and enforcement which;
- Crushes all free flow of information,
- Eliminates the free creation and distribution of art outside their purview, and
- Makes illegal the holding of any IP, and/or any machine or method that allows the use of said IP,
They are doomed to go away because the evolving technology will simply flow around them.We are witnessing how frantic survival behavior results in blood ceasing to flow to the higher brain functions. This is fight or flight mixed with pure primate greed... plain and simple. Please stop talking about logic... start talking about how one manages that which is fearful, angry, and irrational. We can expect to see a lot more if this kind of behavior in other areas of global human endeavor, so this should be a good place to practice.
Genda Bendte
"The Zen sig, I leave it to you, to bring the meaning..."
Re:Got Porn? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The real math of filesharing (Score:5, Insightful)
They know they have a product that people will buy. They know how to sell it. They also know that it has a limited shelf-life. They keep producing new content and selling it. Pretty straightforward stuff really.
Porn addiction versus music addiction (Score:5, Insightful)
Music has a powerful network effect, a fashion effect. With porn, you get what you want (if you want any). With music, it's important to listen to what your social class listens to, or you aren't cool.
In that sense I think that popular music has a much more powerful hook than porn, because popular music hooks into the near-universal desire to be accepted by one's peer group.
As far as movie addiction goes, I don't see people camping for two weeks at the porn shop for the next blockbuster to come out, the way they do for Star Wars.
Re:The real math of filesharing (Score:3, Insightful)
I make my living in the adult web biz (Score:2, Insightful)
It is easy to prevent hotlinking of images using htaccess. Also htaccess can be used to prevent site ripping.
To prevent password sharing and brut force password hacking of paysites Strongbox is used. http://webmastersguide.com/?htaccess-cgi/strongbo
sex for code [cleoslinks.com]
"Making pornography isn't like it's an honest job" (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you're quite right, they should quit, join the military and kill people instead.
How to get laid in February (Score:2, Insightful)
In most of the world, there is no such thing as a doggy bag. -- Prof. Kelly Brownell
Re:Porno (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fundamental difference in material... (Score:2, Insightful)
Movies are the same way. In the early days, movies immitated each other with studio talent in the lead parts. Now we have franchises to satisfy the publics never ending quest for the exact same thing.
Re:Pornographers are criminals already anyway (Score:2, Insightful)
You may believe that sex is an immoral act. You may believe that showing people having appropriate mutualy satisfying sex is worse than showing a people bashing each others heads in, but that would be what you believe. Other people may believe it also, but that is not relevent either.
Of Dollars and Dildos (Score:5, Insightful)
All in all, it's really simple-- The recording industry has a larger power base and more money t protect than triple-AAA porn company. of course, the same can't be said about Playboy or Penthouse, which will rabidly go after infringers. It's not surprising that the companies behaviors reflects the size of their empires...
Re:They built THIS city.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe they see it this way.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Porn dealers WANT their content to be distributed (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, well (Score:3, Insightful)
l = p * c * x
Where l is the amount you lost to piracy, p is the amount you make per copy sold (not the retail price), c is the number of copies pirated and x is the percentage of people that would have actually purchased your product had it been impossible to copy.
No unlike the Drake equation, we can get information that will allow us to make good guesses at the second two factors. It would require some research, probably in the form of anonymous survyes but you could get an estimate of how many copies of something were made and how many of those people would have spent the money for it.
Even if both terms were +-10%, it would still be useful and, I believe, clearly show how overblown the numbers claimed by the music industry are.
Re:the good old days (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, you won't find anybody selling drugs in NYC either cause that's a federal crime too.
What a fucking retard.
Re:The real math of filesharing (Score:5, Insightful)
This goes a long way toward explaining why software producers the world over long ago came to terms with infringement by individuals. Technologically it is easy to copy-protect software media: so why don't they? Back in the 80's copy-protection schemes were the rule, not the exception (I know, I wrote and cracked enough of them.) The answers are a. such protection PISSES OFF LEGITIMATE CUSTOMERS which is a dumb idea in a competitive environment and b. would lose them free advertising that they couldn't buy at any price. Sure, while they might prefer that every single copy of their program executing upon any computer system anywhere in the world be paid for up front, enlightened businesses accept a certain level of copyright infringement as a cost of doing business, a cost that may have hidden benefits. Look at the recent Intuit Corporation debacle with Product Activation: it cost them so much business and so much face that they eliminated the activiation requirement and the president of the company issued a formal apology to Intuit's customers! Big mistake, Indy, big mistake!
Another question. Why aren't there mass lawsuits by the likes of Microsoft, Adobe, and the rest against thirteen year old female Limewire users? I'll tell you why. It's because
Now, when it comes to true piracy, the selling of bootleg copies for profit -or- the mass utilization of un-paid-for software in a corporate environment
Re:the good old days (Score:2, Insightful)
"Here, in NYC --that's even if you are really a resident-- won't find bestiality displayed, that's Federal crime we are talking about."
You are full of shit, right up to the brim. There is no federal law against bestiality (but I do give you extra points for spelling it right).
Summary of Bestiality laws by state [internetdump.com]
Reference indicating that there are no federal laws that apply, in the majority of cases [lectlaw.com] (ie those not involving children).
So, please, pull your head out of your ass. Thanks.
Re:Porn and the Internet (Score:4, Insightful)
Another poster also observed that the parent comment is a bit on the absurd side. Not necessarily that the fact is wrong even; but it's not like my personal Apache log shows "traffic on the net." Unless downix works for the NSA, and is leaking some classified information, there's really no way to verify what everyone on the net does.
BTW, I "5-figure takehome salary" could be $10,000... which I would actually call rather shabby (though if it's for part time work, it might still be good). Claiming something like "high 5-figure" would sound a lot more impressive (i.e. meaning >$50k).
What does it say (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not entirely sure I want to know the answer and it's almost positive I'm not going to like it.
Re:Pornographers are criminals already anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
They lived quiet lives in the suburbs, worked hard (actually, if you ask me, very hard for the money they were making) and felt they were doing honest work.
There was actually an interesting sterility to it all...there was nothing dirty about what they were doing, it was their livelyhoods. If anything, she in particular, thought of it as an artform (and there definitely is a large market for much more sophisticated artistic porn.)
I understand why you say what you say...and a lot of people also dont think of it as an honest enterprise, and I entirely understand that. But, the people in the industry do, and that's what I'm disagreeing with in your post.
What Porn teaches us: Music industry's dead, good (Score:4, Insightful)
This is exactly what will/should happen with music. Just imagine: hundreds of different record companies, all with more or less equal access to the market. You'd have lots of new music--some great, some lousy, some that only you and a hundred others would love. And as much as I love Springsteen, it would be fine with me if he only made $5 million a year and several thousand other bands each made $100,000 a year.
The problem for the big five record companies (soon to be only three, through mergers) is that they're on such a scale that they simply wouldn't work on a smaller scale. The big 3 porn cos were small enough and nimble enough to adjust down. The big five are terrified. I spoke with a high-ranking executive at one of the big 5 and he said it's about 50/50 they'll be in business in five years. He said he's kind of looking forward to early retirement. But who cares? Get rid of them. In ten years or fifty, there will still be money to be made in music and there will be companies making it. It would be great if there are many small companies instead of a handful of big ones.
Re:Fundamental difference in material... (Score:3, Insightful)
If so, then I suspect that you're somewhat in the minority on that one.
the pr0n industry... (Score:3, Insightful)
So the RIAA should recognize that most people don't have the time/patience to download 10 or more songs for an album, but hearing one or two might make them go out and by it.
Just my 2 cents from a pr0n freak. LOL.
More complexity (Score:4, Insightful)
* Prescedent. This is a biggie, or has at least been cited as a big worry by the industry. What happens if people get *comfortable* pirating media over P2P? It's a social move that would be very, very difficult to reverse (view cigarettes -- extremely difficult to excise from society after having been introduced).
* The elimination of certain forms of marketing-driven sales. One of the largest United States macroeconomic benefits is the world's best marketing system. Yes, engineers like to insult marketers, but when it comes down to it, the fact that we can sell Elvis in Mongolia is why Western-produced products are valued so highly, and why so much wealth has been brought into the United States. In the past, it has been possible to sell relatively poor content very well with effective marketing, because one is able to ensure that people are unfamiliar with the product that they are buying until after they buy it. Furthermore, (for movie companies in particular) controlling the format in which viewers see content for the first time can be very important in shaping impressions and building word-of-mouth. If they see it in a darkened movie theater on a big screen with surround sound, they may weight it more favorably than the things they see on their old Zenith on VHS at home. If someone sees a poor-quality rip of The Matrix and doesn't pick up on all the fine CG detail, they may have a significantly lower opinion of the movie. First impressions translate into word-of-mouth, which translate into sales.
* Control is a big deal. The ability to produce a few higher-priced limited edition releases can be lucrative.
Re:Missing Poll Option (Score:3, Insightful)
I belong to both the buyer and the pirate group. I'll buy the game, discover that anti-piracy measures in it serve to inhibit gameplay, and have to go searching for a no-CD crack.
No-cd cracking a game you bought doesn't make you a pirate, you aren't infringing on anyones copyright by removing the copy protection. You are of course circumventing copy protection, so the game company could DMCA your ass. I wonder how the case would go in court, trying to prosecute someone for trying to play a game they bought legally? Obvious parallels to DVD Jon and DeCSS.
Re:The real math of filesharing (Score:2, Insightful)
Replace porn movies with albums in the above.
Also remember this is
Re:Devil's Advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
King set some ridiculous terms for continuing his "experiment". He demanded that atleast 75% of the total number of downloads where paid for (and at $1 each). There is just no way that could work...
Baen discovered that (less known) authors sold more (of their other books) if they gave away a novel. More people got to read something the author had produced, and those who liked were more likly to buy another book by that author than before they knew who she/he was. King isn't unknown to most, so this wouldn't apply to him at all.
King set out to "prove" that downloaders where filthy thieves, and make a buck on those few who weren't. But when in all likelyhood less than 75% of the internet "population" have a means to pay for online content (no credit card), and a significant portion of the people downloading the first chapter might even not like it, the 75% demand was just ridiculous.
So he didn' provide anyhing for free... it had more in common with extortion than a free gift.
- Ost
Re:Pornographers are criminals already anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
Sex for any purpose other than reproduction is expressly prohibited by Christianity.
Nonsense. I'm not aware of any mainstream Christian church that says this. Most of the Christian world agrees that adultery is wrong, homosexuality is wrong, fornication is wrong, but sex is good and right -- even beautiful. My church also teaches that masturbation and viewing of pornography are sinful, but considers sex to be a critically important part of a healthy marriage, even when no procreation is involved.
Even Catholics consider sex between husband and wife to be a good thing, regardless of procreative possibilities, though attempting to avoid pregnancy is discouraged, at least officially. Infertile couples are not prohibited from having intercourse, for example.
Re:Finish your reason!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry about that. I guess I should have used the Preview button one more time.
Comparisons drawn between the music industry and software vendors have limited utility when talking about copyright, and copyright enforcement and how it affects their business models. Yes, they both sell "intellectual" property. Yes, those works are copyrighted. But there are very important differences.
When buying music, consumers simply don't care which particular studio produced the music: they really don't (although
Contrast this to the purchasing habits of those who buy software, either for personal or corporate use. It very much does matter whose product you buy, and it very much matters to the companies involved that you make a distinction between their products and their competitors. And that distinction extends from the software product to the reputation of company itself. How many of you even HAVE an opinion of a specific music studio? On the other hand, we ALL have opinions about the various producers of the software we use.
It all comes down to mindshare and familiarity. Why is it that Microsoft is still able to maintain its' monopoly position when there are technologically superior solutions? Why? Because millions upon millions of users were raised on Microsoft way of doing things and can conceive of no other. And, if you want to lock people in to your approach, the best way to do it (just as it is with cigarettes, alcohol, illicit drugs or organized religion) is to hit them young. Does it really matter if little Suzie Filesharer downloads a copy of Photoshop to play with? Sure, technically that counts as a lost sale
Now, before the rest of you knee-jerk types start jumping on me for promoting illegal copying of commercial applications, let me point out that I didn't say that. I am just saying the software companies have a different relationship with their customers (and potential customers) than music companies do, and that is reflected in their stance on copyright infringement.
Also, because software companies are are very concerned about their reputation among current and potential customers, they are leery of the bad PR that
perverts - the lost part of the equation (Score:3, Insightful)