Tactics in the Porn Industry's Fight Against Piracy

An anonymous reader writes "A C|Net article discusses the technological innovations being used by the porn industry to ensure they stay relevant (like streaming HD-quality feeds and remote interaction), as well as profitable. Live performances and cutting-edge technology combine to ensure a steady stream of revenue in the age of free downloads. 'Now Kink.com is on the cutting edge of the fight against video piracy. While mainstream entertainment outlets like Viacom and NBC complain noisily about YouTube, Kink.com, with neither the resources nor the mainstream appeal of its giant counterparts, is in an even tougher fight: Protecting the content it produces that's continually copied and reposted on the dozens of Web sites that traffic in poached adult material.'"

Re:Irony

[an.echte.trilingue]

I think the point is that they are not doing anything to "fight" piracy and condemn immoral pirates (if you bother to RTFA you will see that kink.com never talks about fighting piracy and they never call it wrong), they are trying to evolve their business model so that it is profitable in the age of modern technology. This is what the rest of the movie/recording industry should be doing as well, but since the "big four" have a voice loud enough to get politicians to change the laws, they are trying to support their obsolete business model through litigation. The adult entertainment industry, which does not have the luxury of such a public voice, is finding ways to innovate.

So the message is not, "hey you dirty immoral pirates take a lesson from us porn starts", the message is "hey you silly family entertainers, if a bunch of us porn stars can turn a profit with the help of modern technology, why can't you?"

Re:Summary: they stream live shows

[imroy]

They move to live streams (although at higher resolution than most non-porn streams seem to offer), to make it more difficult and less interesting to copy content.

Honestly, how would that help? Doesn't anyone know about downscaling? A lot of porn video clips still seem to be 320x240 (or at least less than 640x480) in either MPEG-1 or WMV. So all anyone has to do is capture the stream, downscale it to a more reasonable picture size, re-encode it and sell it on their site. You also don't need the massive amounts of bandwidth or storage that these guys need. Realistically, do you really need HD video to watch a woman getting screwed by three hung guys?

Re:Summary: they stream live shows

[ichigo 2.0]

According to TFA, they stream live shows at 1080i. I'm assuming they'll have some kind of interaction down the road, which would make a capture of the stream have less value. This is what people have been saying music artists should move to, i.e. selling concerts instead of recordings.

I find it curious...

[ralf1]

That the last 3 articles I have read on Slashdot about porn industry technology challenges and advances have all referenced kink.com. As many porn sites as there are, this seems like an odd coincidence. Sounds like a subtle advertising campaign to me.

Re:Irony

[cliffski]

so how does someone writing a book do this then? "live readings" may not exactly be as profitable.
And how does this apply to people making software, movies or games?

With all other situations where people break the law, efforts are made to enforce it better. With copyright infringement, the call goes out to "change your broken business model". why?
All business models will fail if people are allowed to break the law. No shop can employ enough security to prevent everyone shoplifting at once. Show me a business model that is not dependent on the law being adhered to.

The games industry is adapting to mass piracy by abandoing the open platform that is the PC, in favour of online games and consoles. For the singleplayer RPG or flight sim fan, the way piracy has forced a 're-evaluation of the business model' is just to wipe out the entire industry. Not exactly the optimal solution for consumers.

Re:Irony

[an.echte.trilingue]

so how does someone writing a book do this then? "live readings" may not exactly be as profitable.
And how does this apply to people making software, movies or games?

Books are a false parallel since technology is not threatening their existing business model: print books are still much more popular than e-books an will remain that way for a very long time. I suppose you could argue that people are reading less due to alternative activities (such as TV and the slashdot), but in that case authors are just losing out because nobody wants their product. Besides, the greatest literature or the english language (Shakespeare) was produced at a time when plagiarism was common, accepted practice. Seemed to work well enough to keep him writing for his entire lifetime.

As for software, most people who write Linux get paid for their efforts. I am sure that whoever owns WoW does not really mind if people pirate their game since most of their revenue is from subscriptions to their servers. For things that people want, ways to get paid for producing them exist without needing to hobble technology.

I think that people in some facets of the entertainment industry are going to have to accept that nobody is willing to pay them for what they do any more and they need to find a better way of making a living. Movies are probably a good example of an entertainment medium on the way out the door: why pay to go to a Lord of the Rings movie when you can be the Lord of the Rings in an on-line world?

With all other situations where people break the law, efforts are made to enforce it better. With copyright infringement, the call goes out to "change your broken business model". why?

No, that is not true. If it were then alcohol would still be illegal in the US. People break the law to get it changed all the time. It is called civil disobedience. In the US it is the only way to challenge an unjust law in court. The call for the music industry to change their business model is not based on copyright infringement, it is based on the fact that media companies base their business model on content distribution methods that are obsolete. Rather than adapting to the new methods, they are trying to hobble the methods. If we as a society allow this kind of thing to happen, you would have laws protecting steam-engine manufactures from rouge internal combustion engines.

All business models will fail if people are allowed to break the law. No shop can employ enough security to prevent everyone shoplifting at once. Show me a business model that is not dependent on the law being adhered to.

mercenaries?

The games industry is adapting to mass piracy by abandoing the open platform that is the PC, in favour of online games and consoles. For the singleplayer RPG or flight sim fan, the way piracy has forced a 're-evaluation of the business model' is just to wipe out the entire industry. Not exactly the optimal solution for consumers.

BS. I can copy a console game easily. The game industry is moving to consoles because with dedicated hardware you can get performance on a $500 console that you need a $3,000 dollar computer to replicate.

Re:Irony

[AutomaticCautionDoor]

why pay to go to a Lord of the Rings movie when you can be the Lord of the Rings in an on-line world?

Because humans have always liked being told stories. Spending day after day spearing bison on the plains doesn't mean we didn't like sitting to watch somebody draw pictures of it in the cave. Spending the afternoon playing make-believe with the other neighborhood kids doesn't mean we don't like sitting as Grandpa tells a ghost tale around the campfire. My girlfriend likes filling our lives with all sorts of over-the-top drama, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to sit and watch "The Notebook" for the thousandth time.

Re:Irony

[Kjella]

Well, another reason is that porn is a damn saturated market with low production costs. I think I recall reading that porn DVDs were coming out at such a rate that you could run it 24/7/365 with no reruns and still only build a backlog. Pretty much no matter what your preference is, there are plenty to choose from.

Compare that to your movie habits, it's pretty few and far between big releases. Also they're not very good substitutes, you're not going to take Star Wars and claim it's exactly like Star Trek and it doesn't matter which one you see, whereas "Blonde teens #13" probably isn't too far from "Young and blonde #11".

So what's this mostly about? It's about differentiating themselves from their competitors, to give their customers something they're not getting from every porn producer with a video cam. Movies don't have that problem, it's not like there a dozen competing movies of Spiderman. Also, it doesn't lend itself well to being broadcast live and/or interactive. That's why I think the analogy is getting rather thin...

Re:Summary: they stream live shows

[IamTheRealMike]

It's a solution for an edge case. I don't want a "live" performance of Lord of the Rings. I want the epic movies that took years of hard work to produce. If the pre-recorded film industry is wiped out by piracy and this lame "solution" is the replacement, I'm not going to be a happy camper.

Re:Irony

[a_nonamiss]

This may be the first post in the history of /. that manages to be both informative and erotic.

Right, picking chicks up at clubs is SO much safer

[Anonymous Coward]

At least these girls typically get tested on a regular basis, which is more than can be said for the general public. And they always (okay, some very rare exceptions) require the use of a condom.

Besides, women sleep around, too. Because of the stigma, they don't brag about it the way guys do. So you're no safer with the girl you've just hooked up with, or got in the sack on the third or fourth date. Probably less.

You want safety? Don't screw anybody. Then you're home-free, you know, provided some drunk doesn't kill you in a car crash or something. I say, take precautions, but go out and LIVE while you can. Use your equipment while it doesn't need Pfizer's little blue pills to work properly.