problem with that model is that there's such WIDE range of products these days, who can afford to give 30 bucks a month to several different options? A la Carte would be a better option with the endless choices a viewer has.

All it's going to take is a company with the money and the vision. They'll buy their own content, sell it every possible way and further damage the paysite model. You are exactly right, it's easy to claim a site is worth $30 if your customers were in a bubble. They aren't. They would have to pay tens of thousands per month to have access to everything and it's not happening. Those customers would gladly pay NetFlix prices to view content from hundreds of suppliers and someone will make that happen soon.

all those are different you can't lump them together.

pimproll has a netflix type site everything for 9.99. none of this is new or hasn't been tried before.

That's like saying a single movie distributor has a NetFlix competitor. NetFlix combines content from multiple sources and lets me watch what I want, when I want, however the fuck I want. Pimproll does not offer that.

that fact that porn is just not entertainment but a masturbation aid makes it a different beast as far as entertainment.

you can't just take a method of delivery from movies and music and port it over. people engage with porn and consume it in a unique way so the preferred sales and delivery is going to be different.

The only reason I don't have Hulu Plus is because I have Netflix. The extra money is one thing, but I don't like the idea of having this huge pile of different services to keep track of.

actually your dead wrong

people will actually buy your shit AFTER you have just GIVEN it to them for free if you understand the new marketplace.

Supply and demand.

That's an interesting point.

Also I wonder how much of porn sales is an impulse purchase. A horny guy surfing the free promo stuff, like legit tubes, sees a girl he just has to see more of and is willing to fork over a few dollars for more of her. I'd guess much more so than music, where the consumer probably hears the exact ain't on the radio ten or twenty times before deciding to buy it when they get home. A few hours later they actually get around to buying it.

Agree. Most people view a couple of scenes, sort out the one they want, jerk off and go about the rest of their lives. There are many ways to make a system to fit their needs.

Have a "wallet" type payment that a surfer can top up as he goes along deduct according to BW downloaded, charge by the days logged in charge per scene as you say. And more.

All harm the side of the business Stocktrader is in, traffic. It will mean surfers will pay less initially. They may stay members longer or they may convert faster. We don't know.
What we do know is it will have to be members areas that keep members buying and that means paying shooters more. It will mean less money for traffic, initially and with more being spent on content this will mean that money will have to be found. Only place it can be found is the "traffic" costs.

The "marketing" wil count for less, because marketing stops when the surfer sees the site. When he signs up, it's 100% down to the content of the tour. Not just the pictures and videos.

I think the most basic way to look at piracy is this.

People seem to only associate theft with actual real things - TANGIBLE GOODS :2 cents:

How to solve this problem = no idea.

What you are describing has been around for a while. There are many sites that offer pay per view. The pricing might not be great (in all honesty I'm not sure how much they charge) but there are many sites out there where you can pay per minute or pay to just watch one video on the site and nothing more. If you just want to watch 8 minutes of a movie, that is all you pay for.

Even if you came up with a world class system that delivered a ton of great content at a very good price that the buyer could pay per minute or video watched etc you still need traffic. The best site in the world is nothing without visitors. This isn't Field of Dreams. If you build it, they just don't show up. You still have to market the site and get people to i.

Yep. many people who illegally download movies and music would never in a million years consider walking into a store and stealing something, yet somehow they feel like it is okay to pirate content.

Exactly - it's a mindset / perceived value of something they can touch and hold.

Bought it, found this guy on Netflix a while ago, love his comedy.

Spot on. Pirating is now cultural. They download it because it's free sometimes, not because they want it. It's free so grab it and then decide if they like it. Scum will always find an excuse to be scum, as Jim points out in the previous post.

Will crashing the price or adopting a price structure, as I suggested, bring enough back to paying after the way we treated them? Highly unlikely IMO.

Will affiliates send traffic to sites where they earn less or likely to earn less? Highly unlikely IMO. Kane points it out here.

Yes I know there are sites, as you say they have to over charge to get traffic. Classic Catch 22.

We made our bed before hosting costs nose dived, we now have to live with it. We built the wall and now we can't knock it down. Affiliates are very much in charge. :(

Even Pornhub is an "affiliate" in that it's not a paysite, it's purely a site to drive traffic to certain places. Multiply the traffic of PH by the 20 other top Tubes, reckon on the conversion rate. Then compare it to 2005 and do the same with the top 20 TGP sites. And you have in a nutshell why the business has nose dived.

The argument "it brought millions to porn" is bullshit. As most left their money at home. :Oh crap

yeah isn't it terrible that you can't do the same shit with your copyright content that you can do with real tangible goods

like sell them, rent them, break the apart and make new stuff with them

oh wait

maybe copyright is not the same fucking thing as selling tangible goods and misrepresenting it as such is a scum bag move

you want people to feel bad about piracy give them all the rights they would have with real tangible goods first.

you mean people want to use torrents like a radio station

the horror they want to use the new technology like the old technology

how dare they not let you force them backward while continue to benefit from the technology shift

don't they realize they deserve to be second class citizens when it comes to technology enhancements.




if you understood the shift you would realize that you actually have control

you have a government granted monopoly for christ sake

how stupid do you have to be not to realize that power.

Which would be fine if 1000s didn't for the one who does. Argue with the numbers, you still get what I mean.

There's another problem with bringing down the prices. It assumes the site has something unique the buyer has to buy, as he can't get this brand for free. Well that applies to a handful of sites. Few a very few have something like that. So what ever site A &C do to get the free loaders back sites C-Z are doing little to nothing or just loading their content on free tubes.

Argue with the numbers, the principle remains the same.

Clips 4 sale is fine for Ma & Pa and part timers. Fail.

100% spot on. Eradicate piracy and Tubes get the traffic.

So contribute something other than the usual flame. Assuming you have anything to contribute.

Whether we like it or not 99.99% or even a bigger % of porn consumers are telling you one thing. We're simply not competing with the free model.

clips4sale, PPV, or any other models are not working well enough to continue to support the industry I knew. And unless we can come up with something that Pornhub can't give away, can't be pirated and can be afforded. The industry will continue to shrink.

Candyflip and others may not like me saying that, doesn't make the truth wrong. Naturally a few will come in and tell us how well they're doing. Without posting any real proof. The evidence is all around us.

I'm just glad I made my money when porn was shrink wrapped.

Why would clips4sale complete? Not only do they not have a good selection the site looks like it's from 1996. Then there's this.

Price: $7.99 USD
Length: 7 minutes

So a 7 minute clip delivered instantly online should cost more than a cheap DVD?

Come on now, you can't throw up shit then say the model doesn't work because not enough buy the garbage.

And PPV? Nobody wants to pay $30 for 15 minutes of a damn movie. The point is to offer a better price, not worse.

I wouldn't even watch his performance for free ...

unless you're buying really shitty, old, redundant content, 100k isn't going to buy you much in terms of quantity:2 cents:

You don't need exclusive content to offer it at a better price point. As long as it's not something years old you could do well.

http://www.videobox.com/tour/home/

Porn should be cheaper, not more expensive than mainstream imo. I'm talking like $1 or so per movie and then people will wind up spending more than they would have on a membership anyways and you'll have more people doing it.
If I'm jerking off and just have to see some hot movie I'm looking at, I'm not going to think twice about only a buck but my brain will take over and stop me from spending like $60.

I agree which is why I brought up the point that places like NetFlix have so much more invested in their content but can still hit the $10 per month price point. Louis CK sold a full DVD quality recording for $5, that's at least reasonable.

It should be cheaper because there just so much of it -- and a lot of it is the same exact shit. I love Jayden James, but how many different scenes of giving a blowjob, getting fucked in 3 positions and eating a load do I need to see?

The porn industry you knew was alot smaller and alot more profitable. I think its going to go back to that. Porn isnt profitable at $2 a scene when you have pay production, affiliates, traffic ,etc etc.
Porn isnt mainstream. Run Run Shaw once said give me a movie with a beginning ,middle ,end and made under 5 million dollars and I will make a profit with it. That's because of licensing.
When you see a dvd for 50 million dollar movie can be so cheap because its been licensed in a dozen different ways and then there are the fancy accounting so even if it doesnt make money it makes money. In main stream you produce one hit tv series that shoots 100 episodes , if you never work again you are set for life. Getting checks til you die, porn doesnt work that way.

Music you have licensing in commercials, going on tour, selling t shirts and assorted bullshit to sell.
Its not as cut and dry.
Louis CK maybe selling online for $5 bucks but trust me that wont be the only way his people will sell it. First there is the tickets to the show, then the shit sold at the show, then the licensing for TV, maybe a cd ,itunes and then a dvd.

yes just saying - as been said for years now - "itunes of porn!" or "netflix of porn!" is very very simplistic and ignores the very real differences between ms and adult entertainment and how it is consumed.

Of course it's not the only way he'll sell it, same as you selling a scene for a set price but still offering memberships or cam shows.

Porn is most certainly profitable at $2 per scene. Go add up how many scenes you have, figure out your average customer retention and see just how much they are paying per scene. And that's not counting the fact that you will have a whole new group of customers to sell to that have no interest in $30 per month sites.

Even if it were true that it wouldn't be profitable for YOU to sell $2 scenes you are nothing to the overall industry. It's profitable for them to give it away for free right now, whether you stay in business or not is meaningless in the big scheme of things. If you can't manage it someone else will.

Most here would shit their pants to see how much people spend when the price point is reasonable. Billions of dollars in apps because the price point is a non issue. Everyone you know buys $1 or $2 games on their iPhone or spends $5 here and there on Facebook without blinking. How many do you know paying $30 per month to look at a solo girls website and actually remain members for more than a month or two? $30 is not an impulse price and the only reason it ever worked is because it was new. The direction this industry is going was inevitable, as in nothing done or said would stop it short of legislation that would put most out of business.

How many game developers do you think cursed to hell and back about $1 games on phones? How many recording artists bitched about $1 songs on iTunes? How many Blockbusters bitched about Red Box? You aren't even making new arguments, you have all the history needed to see that you are hoping for a dying model to be revived. Not happening.

Sigh.

There is no reason to bring up differences when there are 5,000 week long discussions we could have in every aspect.

As you said, there are already sites that are successful selling cheap memberships to tons of content. (NetFlix)

As you said, there are already sites that are successfully selling clips at a set price and even though the price is not optimal they still do good. (iTunes)

We all know the free porn / tube model works if done right, at least for those that can afford to do it right.

The only arguments left to have are exactly what price and delivery method is best. This will be discovered in time in the same way everything else has been. Tests, tests and more tests. Someone will come along and do it right, that is a fact. They will be laughed at and discounted until 5 years later when everyone wants to duplicate what they've done. It will be too late.

point is those models are in existence and tubes > them for a reason.

I never said they were the same type of good. I simply pointed out that there are a ton of people who would never in a million years walk into a store and steal a DVD, but they don't hesitate to illegally download a movie because they perceive it as being okay.

Hmm...never seen him before but from watching the preview, I'll save my $5 to spend on something other than a guy talking about another guys monstrous cock. :disgust

and i am saying that problem is BECAUSE people like you /and other copyright holder

keep trying force that bullshit piracy is equal to theft argument down peoples throats

if you treated piracy as a fraud, and fully respected fair use, you would not have this problem at all.

:1orglaugh

I've never paid much attention to your posts and now I know why. You are one misguided person.

how is pointing out your double standard misguided

you guys are equating piracy to shoplifting and complaining that people think their different

yet when i point out all the fabricated restrictions that copyright holders put on their shit

restrictions that don't exist on real world goods your comparing too you call it misguided.

If copyright holders gave buyers every fair use right your wicked little heart could ever desire and allowed them endless rights to do with the content as they saw fit once they purchased it there would still be huge numbers of people who would not buy it because they are cheap bastards who don't want to pay. Illegal downloading has very little to do with people demanding their fair use right and everything to do with people feeling entitled to having it without paying and feeling immune to punishment since they are behind a computer screen.

Sure, but let's not pretend that treating paying customers like shit since the beginning didn't contribute to that. Can you blame them for not trusting / wanting to support this industry?

Do you mean not trusting/supporting the porn industry or the general movie/music/media industry as a whole?

If it is porn, I could see that because there are sites out there that are shady. They have hidden pre-checked cross sales, and then when you get inside the site it sucks and there is no way to cancel without paying for at least one full month of membership fees. Add in that you can end up getting billed for many other sites and a lot of other shit and I can see how mistrust is there.

If we are talking about the mainstream music and movie industry I happen to think that they mostly offer a good product at a fair price and I don't think they treat their paying customers like shit.

Wait, so you believe that tangible goods do not have copyrights attached to them?

That is rather funny, good luck with that train of delusional thought.

Irony: Louis CK making a video available to torrent when everything he's done is replayed on Comedy day after day after fucking day after fucking hour... OMG!

Make him go away.

The dude is on my television 24 hours a day. Why the FUCK do I need a torrent?

So you really think if someone has a free version that is exactly like the paid version, they will still buy the paid version as some sort of retroactive "thank you" to the artist?

If it were true, why would Louis CK even be doing this? According to you, everyone watching his torrents is going out and buying the hard copies as a way to say thank you. So why is he even trying this new experiment?

People have proven time and time again that they don't mind supporting the artists / content creators they like. Sure some download it for free, they always will. Deal is, it's going to be around no matter what so you either complain about it and do nothing different or complain about it and adjust. Either way complaining had no effect.

You should read this...just so you have a clear understanding of what fair use is. I think you may have a warped idea of what constitutes "fair use".
-------------------------------------------
snipped from copylaw.com

Fair Use in a Nutshell:

A Practical Guide to Fair Use

By Attorney Lloyd J. Jassin

“Words must be weighed not counted.”
-- Old Yiddish proverb



Unfortunately, many creative projects are stillborn or abandoned, because the author, or the author's producer or publisher partner, was intimidated by the subject of “fair use.” This uncertainty is regrettable, since, under many conditions, fair use allows you to copy, display and publish copyrighted works without payment or permission. While not a substitute for legal advice, this article provides guidelines that will and help you to avoid potential problems and allow you take full advantage of the fair use doctrine.

The Basics

Fair use allows scholars, researchers and others to borrow or use small portions of in-copyright works for socially productive purposes without seeking permission. The doctrine -- which complements the First Amendment -- helps courts avoid rigid application of copyright law where rigid application would "stifle the very creativity which the law is designed to foster." Against this backdrop, fair use can be looked at as a balancing act. It is an imperfect attempt to reconcile the competing ideals of free speech with the property rights of individual creators. Fair use recognizes that the reason for our nation's copyright laws is not so much for individual creators, but, rather to promote the progress of art and science.

While invaluable to both the scholar and the pitchman, it should be noted that fair use is not a right but a defense to copyright infringement. As such, it should be looked upon as a privilege, and not a right. The central point is that certain fair use decisions involve risk.

When Do I Need to Ask Permission?

If your work contains "borrowed" material, and you have not obtained permission from the owner of the work, it can only be used if:

(i) the material is in the "public domain" (i.e. out of copyright);

(ii) the material is immune from copyright protection; or

(iii) the proposed use is a "fair use."

Copyright Safe Havens

While beyond the scope of this article, as a general rule, works published before 1923 in the United State are not protected under U.S. copyright law. Similarly, copyright does not protect unadorned or fundamental ideas, concepts, procedures, principles or discoveries. It must be noted, however, that copyright law will protect the way in which an idea, concept, procedure, principle or discovery is expressed. As is to be expected, the dividing line between a naked unprotectable idea, and one that is sufficiently clothed to enjoy copyright protection, is sometimes murky. As such, courts have written scores of ad hoc opinions that attempt to discern the dividing line between the two extremes. The task at hand in each case is finding the proper balance between the free communication of facts while protecting the creator's expression..

Fairness is in the Eye of the Beholder

Justice Stewart, when asked to define pornography, said, "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it." Like pornography, fair use is in the eye of the beholder. It is an equitable doctrine that asks, on a case-by-case basis, whether the unauthorized use advances the purposes of copyright law. Unfortunately, there are no mechanical rules to define with precision what is "fair" and what is "foul." If you wish to rely on fair use, then, your goal is understand the four factors courts weigh to determine if a particular use is a fair use. Those factors are:

The purposes and character of the use, including whether the use is primarily commercial in nature;

The nature of the copyrighted work being borrowed from;

The amount and importance of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;

The effect on the potential market or value of the copyrighted work. Put another way, courts may ask, “Does the use supersede the market for the original?”

From a client counseling perspective, some fair use assessments are straight forward. "Yes, you can use it." In close situations, it may be impossible to dispel all doubt since fair use is a subjective determination. As an artist, author, composer or other creator, you may not learn whether a use is a fair use until after it has been published. However, if you choose to assume the risk, you should do so voluntarily and with knowledge.
Copylaw Fair Use Guidelines

To help evaluate whether a proposed use is a fair use, consider the following:

Fair use is not a simple test, but a delicate balancing of interests. Sometimes even a small (but important) portion borrowed from a larger work may constitute copyright infringement.

While fair use favors criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research, these uses are not automatically deemed fair uses. Only a court can determine with authority whether a particular use is a fair use.

Quoting from unpublished materials exposes you to greater risk than quoting from published materials. While not determinative in and of itself, if a work is unpublished, that fact weighs against fair use.

Fact-based works, which can be expressed in limited ways, receive less protection than fanciful works that can be expressed in a multitude of ways.

Visual works -- especially full color, high res works -- enjoy a high degree of protection under copyright law.

If you wish to take a conservative approach, avoid verbatim copying. Synthesize facts in your own words. Keep in mind, however, that close paraphrasing may constitute copyright infringement if done extensively.

Never copy more of a copyrighted work than is necessary to make your point understood. The more you borrow, the less likely it will be considered fair use.

Do not take the "heart" of the work you're copying from. If what you've copied is important to the original, it will weigh against finding fair use.

Courts invariably look at the alleged infringer's literary objective. Make certain you comment upon the material you borrow or can otherwise justify its use. By commenting on the original, does it transform the character, meaning, or message of the original? If so, that's a socially productive use, which leans -- when all four factors are tallied -- towards fair use.

Never copy something to avoid paying permission fees, or to avoid creating something on your own.

Lack of credit, or improper credit, weighs against finding fair use. However, giving someone appropriate credit, will not, alone transform a "foul" use into a "fair use.

Parody (not satire), which is a work that that ridicules or mocks an original work by borrowing elements of the old work, is sometimes protected by fair use. If the new work clearly mocks the old one, it may provide some justification for invoking the fair use defense.

Being a non-profit educational institution does not let you off the hook. Even non-commercial users can be sued if the use exceeds the bounds of fair use.

Don't compete with the work you are quoting or copying from. If the use diminishes the market for the copyrighted work (or portions of it), including revenues from licensing fees, it is probably not a fair use. If permission is denied and you feel use is essential to your own work, seek legal advice. Do not quote from copyright material simply to "enliven" your text.

Remember that fair use is a "defense" to copyright infringement, not a right. When in doubt seek permission or consult an attorney.

Sure freeboy sure.

You deal in traffic. Can you give us links to all the sites where you get the traffic from?

Not having a go at you directly, just pointing out the fault of the whole industry and the ludicrous idea of your thread.

Let's look at the title.

Louis C.K. cuts out the middleman and sells his performance video for $5, comments on torrents.

This is the part that matter IMO. He cuts out the middleman which in online porn is you and every other free porn site giving away tons of free porn to get a few sign up in the 1,000s who consume.

We constantly see people putting ads, content or buying traffic from sites that have pirated content on. At the last show I will probably ever attend. Were big banner ads for Tube sites selling traffic, some of those Tubes have pirated content on or very likely they do. Go onto Google search for "Free porn forums" and see who advertises on them. Flirt4free were advertising on one and when I pointed it out, he said he had suspended the affiliate. Not banned, suspended. Why because he wasn't sure it was a site promoting piracy?

The ad stayed up there for ages. Did he redirect the traffic? No. They just kept sending him free traffic. Maybe his company had bought the ad space and the clicks. So the\y were waiting to get their money's worth.

Still no one checked about there the ads were being placed. And this isn't be any means unique.

Not only is "the middle man" the most important part of online porn, some sponsors are more than willing to support the pirates.

Until it becomes illegal to support pirates, it will continue.

Here is the reality.

Louis C.K. didn't cut out the middle man, he just has a different middle man.

In porn if you build a paysite you have three choices. You can promote it yourself and create your own traffic, you can buy traffic from brokers or you can get affiliates to send you traffic. Of course you can do all of the above as well.

Louis C.K. is a famous comic. So he releases this video on his site and he hires a publicist to go out and get him publicity for doing this. That person gets various websites, blogs and news organizations to cover him doing this. They also get him appearances on talk shows, radio shows etc. All of these things drive traffic to his site. He is paying the publicist for this so in a way the publicist is his affiliate only they are getting a base fee as opposed to a percentage of the sales their work creates. They are nothing but traffic brokers working in a different niche.

One thing I will agree with you on is that until porn companies stop advertising on sites that they know offer pirated content there will be no major changes. I don't promote livejasmin for two reasons. First, I suck a promoting cams. Second, it seems like just about every site I have ever seen that had pirated stuff on it has an ad for them on it. They aren't missing out by not having me as an affiliate, but if everyone who promoted them stopped until they stopped supporting sites with pirated content it might hit them where it hurt and they might listen.