Good Read: Dave Cummings - Thanks to Piracy, There's Stench from the Trench

[AsianDivaGirlsWebDude]

Dave Cummings writes: For many years, my monthly column has been titled "From The Trenches"; BUT, because of the devastation resulting from rampant piracy and the impact of the weak economy, I'm now having difficulty finding the "trenches" so I can write about them. Where did the trenches go? What Trenches?

I understand that many actresses and actors (called "talent") are also searching for the "trenches"; in their situation the "trenches" are the porn shoots, the numbers of which appear to be tanking. Why should the remaining studios incur the expense of making new porn when the piracy/uploading/downloading thieves make it extremely difficult to even cover the shooting expenses!

Down-loaders who "take", instead of "paying for" their porn via DVD purchases or Video-On Demand, seem to be stealing copyrighted Porn Industry materials off of the Internet, thus pounding more nails into the Adult Industry coffins. Isn't stealing still an actual crime! What Trenches??

Surviving thievery isn't easy. Downsizing decreases office and warehouse size and number of employees, as well as the number of trenches. Budget cuts reduce the number and content of shoots; some porn productions no longer have the number of scenes that they previously had, or the number of participants; crew sizes, and in some cases the quality/quantity and experience of the crews, has sometimes been downgraded to save on salaries.

Like me, I imagine that Ron Jeremy has also had to alter some on-set eating habits and cuisine consumption standards now that a number of studios have shaved their on-set catering costs. What Trenches???

The ranks of distributors seem to be thinning. I imagine that UPS revenues from porn companies are down since the shipments of DVD sales have sunk like stepping into quicksand. Likewise, agents appear to be feeling the piracy, too. Video-on-demand companies look like they are challenged to reap the business they enjoyed pre-piracy.

Judging by the decreasing number of pages and advertisers, I've noticed that the Adult Industry publications seem under some duress; same for the number Adult Industry online forum threads and postings. It looks like new girls are still seeking to become porn talent, but that there appears to be too many of them for the reduced number of available bookings, thus some have a relatively shorter career now days. What Trenches????

I suspect that the actors/actresses, including me, are having a more difficult time making ends meet. I sense that, like me, a lot of the talent folks are ordering from the $1 menu items at McDonalds. I think many Adult Industry people and entities are cutting some corners as a means of hanging-on. What Trenches?????

"Trenches" supply happenings that readers want to hear about, in a gossip way as well as a news-reporting way. Yes, the economy and other outside influences impact the porn Industry, sometimes significantly. But, in my opinion, the main "trenches abductors" are primarily the piracy criminals, and herewith I am calling out the up-loaders, the illegal sites that allow copyright infringement, and the actual down-loaders. What trenches??????

May the fleas of a thousand camels and millions of cats and dogs infest the pubic and nose hairs of anyone and everyone who has contributed to the red ink heaped upon the Adult Industry, and the wandering off of many of the Trenches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dave Cummings

http://www.********.com/read.php?ID=54664



Awesome and timely op-ed piece Dave!!!

ADG

[Paul Markham]

Sorry to say this Dave.

BUT

WE KNOW. And have done for a long time.

What we need is a solution that works to reduce it.

[DWB]

Piracy hurts everyone not involved in piracy.

[rock-reed]

Micropayments like iTunes

[mavruda]

Originally Posted by DWB

Piracy hurts everyone not involved in piracy.

I hope you don't showing us the way of pirate to make money so we don't get hurt ?

[davecummings]

Besides porn-making companies and VOD sites, many other adult site owners have been hurt, too! Piracy indeed hurts a LOT of various people and entities. Yikes!!!

[garce]

Originally Posted by rock-reed

Micropayments like iTunes

As soon as you get your porn listed on the app store you'll be kicking ass.

Micropayments have been a tried and true method of payment in the porn business long before Apple adopted it as a method of payment. I think a lot of people have had - and may still continue to have - success with ClipShare and other similar services. I never used it - I could be wrong.

The thing about micro payments is this: The largest providers of micropayments tend to have a captive audience.

Can someone point me to a full version of Angry Birds that I can download to my PC and play for free? It might be out there somewhere. On the other hand, every porn video that you are trying to sell IS (or was) available for free.

Such are the times we live in...

[alias]

Another Manwin success story.

[garce]

Originally Posted by davecummings

Besides porn-making companies and VOD sites, many other adult site owners have been hurt, too! Piracy indeed hurts a LOT of various people and entities. Yikes!!!

Dave! Although my opinion is worth nothing here anymore (and I don't even care) - are you being sarcastic? I get a bitter, sarcastic feeling from your post.

People who will gladly spend ninety-nine cents (or two bucks - whatever) on an app that they'll use once or twice, will never ever spend one lousy penny on porn.

Why? Porn is free. No matter what device you are using, you can watch any sexual thing you desire for free on numerous tube sites - or just download it from torrents. But who downloads anything anymore besides the Chinese?

I thought adult tubes were fun when they first came online. If I want to whack off now, I just go to YouTube. More free original porn is available at Youtube than anywhere else.

Unless you own a cable company, a hotel chain, or a sattelite television business; counting on people to actually BUY porn is a crap shoot.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by garce

As soon as you get your porn listed on the app store you'll be kicking ass.

Micropayments have been a tried and true method of payment in the porn business long before Apple adopted it as a method of payment. I think a lot of people have had - and may still continue to have - success with ClipShare and other similar services. I never used it - I could be wrong.

The thing about micro payments is this: The largest providers of micropayments tend to have a captive audience.

Can someone point me to a full version of Angry Birds that I can download to my PC and play for free? It might be out there somewhere. On the other hand, every porn video that you are trying to sell IS (or was) available for free.

Such are the times we live in...

Free is simply a better customer experience than paid porn. Until that changes we are on a downhill slope.

Changing it will cost a lot of money. The only place that money can come from is from the "marketing" budget. If the average spent on getting traffic is 50% and only 10% on converting it and retaining it. The reason for the lack of a good customer experience is obvious.

Will affiliates accept a huge drop in payouts and support to pay for a better product?

[Mutt]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Free is simply a better customer experience than paid porn.

BS - free is better for only one reason, it's FREE. good luck competing with FREE. you can improve the customer experience all you want, only a very small % will choose to pay over FREE.

Let's say there were two hamburger restaurants side by side, they both made identical quality hamburgers, one shop charged $3.99 for a hamburger, the other was giving them away for FREE - guess how many customers the guy who makes you pay would have. Your theory is that if you improve the customer experience then the customer will pay - so the one hamburger shop owner whose business is dying takes your advice, he brainstorms on how to make his hamburger shop better than the free one - adds new condiments, nicer bathrooms, lowers his price or adds some more value to what he is charging for i.e. refillable soft drinks/coffee

95% of people are still gonna go get the free hot dog.

piracy is killing the porn industry - if you don't arrest and put away the killer the industry will continue to be murdered one by one.

they've already murdered you - you can keep trying to tell people you've made all the money you need, that you're not in good health to shoot anyway etc - Paul if your business was still viable and profitable you'd hire a studio manager, a photographer, to shoot for you and still be selling fresh newly produced content to webmasters and magazines.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Mutt

BS - free is better for only one reason, it's FREE. good luck competing with FREE. you can improve the customer experience all you want, only a very small % will choose to pay over FREE.

No paying for a site with 30-50 crap scenes.
No paying for a site with cross sells.
No paying for a site which bangs your card.
No paying for a site with 30 calendar days when you might only need it once a week.
No paying for a site with one narrow view of porn shot by one person.
No paying for a site with auto rebilling ad need to cancel memberships.
No paying for a site with an email campaign.
No paying for a site with a CC the wife might find out about.

Free is killing the porn industry and the piracy aspect is just one part. The people getting it for free on piracy sites will move to the massive Tubes sites in hoards and the porn industry will support them. By submitting, not hitting them till they hurt and buying traffic. We're cannibals in that aspect. Go on a traffic thread and ask directly where the traffic comes from?

Edit to add processors to those feeding off piracy and hurting porn sales.

Online is unregulated, uncontrolled and all those who want it that way, welcome to the results.

[Paul Markham]

As I listed there are many reasons why the "User Experience" of free porn in what ever context it takes. Far out weighs the experience when people are paying for it online. Few sites have ever reached the heights of the porn experience delivered by the offline industry, at the base they're similar. At the top offline out performed online by a mile.

The reason is simple. Offline for what ever reasons was paying for a better product. And yes I have said this before because it's one of the main reasons many refuse to pay.

When the gurus of the solo girl site niche were offering us $300.00 for an exclusive set and video. They were very limited in what they got for that money. This runs up through the business. On a solo girl site like ATK Kim was paying the equivalent of 210 initial joins for a solo girl set. For 5 sets and videos he was offering what I would imagine he was taking in a day or even less.

So ATK and loads of other sites were and still are a mountain of crap scenes. Few of the guys shooting at this level had any talent, none had experience and after meeting them a lot didn't have the charm essential for shooting porn. Or if they did they didn't have the brains to move to a better paying market.

The real reason most didn't pay the right price was the promotional costs of dumping traffic on sites that didn't sell well was huge and for many the only solution. A few sites did break this mold and we all know their names.

So the main reason for free being a better experience is simply. You don't get conned by the traffic machine.

[Mutt]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

The people getting it for free on piracy sites will move to the massive Tubes sites in hoards and the porn industry will support them.

tubes are piracy sites - as are file lockers that are fed by blogs and forums where the links to the pirated content are published mostly by affiliates of the file locker commission programs which reward people for stealing the most popular content they can.

why we as an industry haven't launched a class action suit against Oron, Uploaded.to, Netload.in etc is beyond me - these file lockers run under the belief that they are protected by the safe harbor provided by the DMCA for 'service providers'. I don't think it would be very hard to show a court that file lockers are much more than 'service providers' as are the blogs and forums. you don't know until somebody actually makes the argument in a court of law.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Mutt

tubes are piracy sites - as are file lockers that are fed by blogs and forums where the links to the pirated content are published mostly by affiliates of the file locker commission programs which reward people for stealing the most popular content they can.

So long as they act on DMCA's they're legal. Unless you have proof otherwise.

All those who voted for an unregulated Internet have their wish.

why we as an industry haven't launched a class action suit against Oron, Uploaded.to, Netload.in etc is beyond me - these file lockers run under the belief that they are protected by the safe harbor provided by the DMCA for 'service providers'. I don't think it would be very hard to show a court that file lockers are much more than 'service providers' as are the blogs and forums. you don't know until somebody actually makes the argument in a court of law.

It costs too much money. It's best done by richer industries.

Until there a big changes governing the Internet, nothing will change. If the words, that are unacceptable get booted out, the file lockers will get their processing back. It maybe CCbill, Paypal or Uncle Tom Cobbly, they will flourish.

So to change the present system processors, advertisers, traffic sellers and hosting companies need to be put in the frame as responsible for the piracy.

We can be a real thorn in their sides and boycott any processor, hosting, advertiser supporting piracy. Good luck on that front.

We need a regulated Internet or we have to accept what is as what is and not dream.

The only way out for some is to elevate their product above piracy to such a level people will want to buy it. Because the one myth we have created that shows our thinking is that we control traffic, we don't. So a fundamental change in thinking is required by those who can afford it.

Sites need to really appeal to customers. Shooting cheap cloned scenes of any girl who's anything above pretty isn't good enough. Shooting girls blurting out the same canned porn phrases isn't good enough. Shooting the same scene over and over again, just changing the bed to a sofa, isn't good enough. Guys who haven't a clue how to shoot good porn, isn't good enough. Sites with 50-60 scenes, isn't good enough.

Because ultimately that's what the buyer is spending money on. And it's not 1998 anymore. Even when I saw sites people here praised, I could see the product wasn't good enough. It simply didn't compete with the best offline.

What is good enough is great, unique and original porn with personality, in what ever niche the site is selling. Live shows for all to see and these have to be good. Interaction with a model on live webcam, not just 1-1, but this could be an upsell or a bonus to long term members. Promotion not at webmaster shows, do it at customers shows.

And then target the pirates over and over again.

Now all this is going to cost. So can a site afford to spend the money required to create the product and the money affiliates demand to promote it? This is what they want.


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And in a few days there will be more. And someone will be asking a content producer to work for peanuts to pay for it.

No sniping at the examples, you all understand what I'm saying. Yes wall of text.

[DamianJ]

Originally Posted by garce

People who will gladly spend ninety-nine cents (or two bucks - whatever) on an app that they'll use once or twice, will never ever spend one lousy penny on porn.

Why? Porn is free.

They said that about music in the napster days before iTunes came out and provided a fast, easy, reasonably priced alternative.

Think on't.