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Tactics in the Porn Industry's Fight Against Piracy 113

Posted by Zonk from the interesting-times dept.
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.'"
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Tactics in the Porn Industry's Fight Against Piracy More

Tactics in the Porn Industry's Fight Against Piracy

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  • The idea of "remote interaction" sounds very promising. :D

  • Summary: they stream live shows (Score:5, Informative)

    by null-und-eins ( 162254 ) on Saturday March 31, 2007 @05:46AM (#18554449) Homepage
    Unless you are interested in the business story of a porn outlet, there is almost nothing in TFA about copyright. 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. Editors: Why was this omitted from the summary?

    • Re:Summary: they stream live shows (Score:5, Insightful)

      by imroy ( 755 ) <imroykun@gmail.com> on Saturday March 31, 2007 @06:19AM (#18554549) Homepage Journal

      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 (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Ilgaz ( 86384 ) on Saturday March 31, 2007 @06:33AM (#18554605) Homepage

        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?

        Those low res files you talk about are leaked by Porn industry themselves. :) Yes, they are that clever to use a technology (P2P) which was called evil by MPAA to suit their own promotion.

        You would be surprised that porn industry are the first ones to use DVD technology in its full feature set like multiple angles.

        Massive amounts of bandwidth? Once I had a friend working for a huge network vendor. He said their best customers are porn industry and funny that they could be counted as people "running the internet" after all those dotcom crashes.

      • Re:Summary: they stream live shows (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ichigo 2.0 ( 900288 ) on Saturday March 31, 2007 @06:49AM (#18554679)
        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.
        • Interaction? What, do you wave your mouse at the naughty bits?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 )
          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: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by jamienk ( 62492 )
            >> I want the epic movies that took years of hard work to produce.

            I want the same, except a version that is much harder to make, takes even more years, requires higher paid actors, more expensive/elaborate visual effects, has music composed and played by the most expensive possible musicians, plays only in theaters that allow you watch in a personalized jacuzzi with a team of fluffers keeping me interested, and who's bottom line production costs (not including marketing) is over $1bn USD.

            As for music,
          • I found your comment intriguing. It appears to be genuine.

            I respect your opinion but completely disagree with it. I feel that a world without copyright would result in vastly greater creativity. I think what you are describing is entertainment. Entertainment is fine but we seem to have sacrificed everything on its altar.

            BTW I was a great fan of Tolkien as an adolescent (The Silmarillion remains my favourite) but I didn't go anywhere near the LoTR movies. I know I would have detested them. So maybe that's in
        • The shows are already interactive - members are in a chat room that is being read by a monitor who communicates feedback to the rigger. In the future we'll have many of the user comments read aloud by a text-to-speech system. Jeff (yes, the IT staff are avid /.ers)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ant P. ( 974313 )
          Live streaming 1080i? I know it's possible in the rest of the world where 10-100Mbps is common, but how would they get that to US customers still living in the stone age?

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by carpe_noctem ( 457178 )
        Realistically, do you really need HD video to watch a woman getting screwed by three hung guys?

        This is a question you really don't want to ask the slashdot community, trust me....
      • Actually it's the other way around. The women don't want to be shown on HD video because it makes "flaws" more visible like blemishes and implant scars. Now that depends on the woman, in this case it was Jesse Jane that made the comment. Maybe she feels vulnerable because she has weird-ass implants and patchy skin that only looks semi-decent at specific angles under carefully adjusted lighting :P Back in normal-porn land, higher-res video started many years ago when camgirls started using high-end camco

      • Realistically, do you really need HD video to watch a woman getting screwed by three hung guys?

        You'd be surprised how many of Kink.com's videos have absolutely no intercourse at all, and of the ones that do have intercourse it is usually not the primary focus.

  • Protecting the content it produces that's continually copied and reposted on the dozens of Web sites that traffic in poached adult material.
    Slip in false videos containing clips of infamous "Mr. Hands" incident, and -dear god- hope that they will get a major turn-off!

  • it's a euphemism. (Score:5, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Saturday March 31, 2007 @05:49AM (#18554463) Homepage
    Live performances and cutting-edge technology combine to ensure a steady stream of revenue

    Oh, so that's what they're calling it these days.

    • Re:it's a euphemism. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31, 2007 @06:13AM (#18554531)
      Live performances and cutting-edge technology combine to ensure a steady stream of revenue

      Oh, so that's what they're calling it these days.

      It's called a money shot for a reason!

  • When you can't do it live use invisible watermarks (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MaelstromX ( 739241 ) on Saturday March 31, 2007 @05:56AM (#18554491)

    Kink.com's solution is live shows.


    That's one idea, and a good one. However not all porn can be live, it's simply not feasible for certain types. I would say the best way to prevent piracy and ensure that SOMEBODY finances the production of the stuff would be to slap it with invisible, personally identifying watermarks. If they are spotted on pictures and images found in the wild, so to speak, your subscription is cancelled and you don't get a refund.

    Although that might make people want to give them all away the day before their subscription ends, so that part I'm not sure about yet. :)
    • Porn as a product is an interesting one. As a commodity, it's marketplace is almost unsaturateable. So the only real downside for a porn company having paying subscribers reposting material is the potential loss of an individual subscription. I say potential because there is no guarantee that they would have paid you in the first place, and like the other guy said, if they like what they see they might drop by and actually sign up ('probly not but a few will). But, by actually cancelling a subscription
    • If you and a friend buy the same thing, you'll get a stream S mixed with watermarks X and Y (S+X, S+Y). XOR them together; Make zero anything in both files that's 1 in the XOR: The data is the same, and is zero when XORed with itself, whereas a watermark will be ~50% 1 and 50% 0. So, S+X + (random) AND (S+X XNOR S+Y) will destroy a mean of half the watermark bits in X's file.

      Disclaimer: IANACryptologist.
      • True, or just reencode the video. Slight quality loss, but likely not enough to make people complain if the original was hidef and clean.
    • Rather than cancel their subscription, embed personally identifying information and/or their credit card # in the watermark. Then release a program that will scan the video and recover the information.

    • However not all porn can be live, it's simply not feasible for certain types.
      Like necrophiliac porn, for a start.
  • an give an insightful answer, i'll have to do a bit of.... reasearch on this one.
    Gotta go now

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If you want some real insight, then skip the hands on research on the internet and go for scientific experimentation instead. Don't try handling this alone, get you a well qualified research assistant and make sure all safety devices are used appropriately. Wouldn't want your research assistant sueing you over accidental exposure to the results of the experiment. If you and the research assistant work really well together and especially if they contribute as much or more then you do, you might should consid

  • I find it curious... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ralf1 ( 718128 ) on Saturday March 31, 2007 @06:58AM (#18554705)
    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.
    • Actually, I think it just reflects the tastes of the average slashdotter... we tend to be more discerning and have more sophisticated interests.
      • Somehow it makes sense that S&M would be considered "more sophisticated" than regular porn. I have no idea how that works, but it has a ring of truth about it. And now I have a horrible set of mental images involving men with waxed moustaches and PVC smoking jackets. "I say!"
  • Seriously. Anyone with mod points out there get ready to use them - there's going to be a lot of clicks on "Troll" needed.

  • Broken search (Score:3, Informative)

    by Technician ( 215283 ) on Saturday March 31, 2007 @12:41PM (#18556871)
    The main fight a few years ago was burying free content in the endless link maze of search pages. They paid each other for the traffic so in the search lottery, The less you paid to get people to your sight and the more you set along the better you did. Having any real content to keep people at your site was just a waste of bandwidth, so there was seldom any content. The gravy was if you got anybody into your paid site. You could spend all night going from link to link to link to link and not finding any free content.

    The old tech was to wear you out until you settled on a pay site.

    Other than the lawsuit campaign buy the RIAA it's the same thing Media Sentry does seeding P-P sites with dead content to the point where finding free content is a waste of time. They hope you give up and just use a pay site because that is where the content is located. A bunch of sited trying to make a buck on links or content is trying to find out how to compete against free and pirated content which keeps growing anyway.

    Notice how in spite of the death of the old Naptser, that new music content keeps poping up that isn't pirated? Free content that isn't illegal is nice. Keep it up.

    Any new tech for pay content, I would'n know about.. Haven't been there if it involves any DRM.

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