| MasterBlow |
08-27-2010 02:34 AM |
Down the Tubes: How free streaming video threatens the porn industry
Editor's note: The following review is about pornography. If the subject itself offends, please stop reading. Why write about it? First, because pornography is "intimately linked with the evolution of communications technology," as one history professor interviewed puts it. Second, because the porn industry, like the music and newspaper industries, faces a technological problem and doesn't know what to do next.
"Piracy has hurt us a lot," says Ali Joone, founder and director of the adult-film company Digital Playground, which last year tracked illegal downloads of its most popular title, Pirates. "Over the course of a month, it was downloaded about four million times. And that's just from a handful of sites. Even if those downloads cost us a thousand customers, let's say, who were going to pay--that hurts."
The porn studios face the same fundamental question as any content provider in the Internet age: how do you protect your stuff once it's "out there"? The answer, so far, is, "Not well."
The tube effect has been profound enough to inspire a recent public-service announcement featuring more than a dozen adult performers and directors pleading with fans not to view pirated porn. One actress, Charley Chase (who did not participate in the PSA but says she faces the same troubles), got into the business in late 2007 on the promise of lots of work at high pay. But the pay has dropped and the work has dried up. "And it's all because of piracy," she says.
According to Travis Nestor, a former agent for and a founder of the now-defunct It Models, a scene that might have paid an actress $900 in 2004 will now net her $600. In the same period, rates for male performers have dropped from around $500 per scene to $300. But that's only half the effect, because there are fewer studios making fewer movies. Joone says that five years ago the industry might have released 400 new titles a week, but that output has been cut in half. "People just aren't buying," he says.
Article |
