Ya, and you will never stop that kind of piracy.... The average Joe doesn't visit B2B music boards the way they used to flock to napster... Itunes is the proof.

total internet anonymity - is there such thing?

dang.....

1) It didn't work for music
2) It is not working for mainstream movies
And THOSE industries have a lot more credibility than porn.
They might overcharge/underdeliver, but they don't do shady xsales, sell you a membership to a members area that hasnt been updated since 1999 with 8 movies.

And lastly, and most importantly, the content protection suits that are mainly going on at the moment, are very much of the 'extort many, most will pay' type. And MOST OF THAT MONEY GOES TO THE LAWYERS not the artists or owners depending on what area you're talking about.

Just *try* and spin that set of facts such that the average person doesn't come out with the idea that, it's not shady to download content anymore, because, the people that made it are the worst shady crooks and extortionists anyways. So therefore, it's almost morally justifiable to download their shit.

Also, 1 download does not equal 1 lost sale, and your average person knows that.
This shit won't succeed in the grand scheme until there's some rationality and a gut check.

what's to stop people from moving to tube/streaming sites with full porn movies instead?

It is essential to do SOMETHING. That is beyond debate. Suing downloaders is unfortunate, I wish a better measure would present itself.

I am SURE of the following
1) It is not a solution
2) It will damage both sides, quite possibly do more damage to content producers than to down-loaders.
3) It is not good for the industry as a whole.
4) The issue could be exploited by those whose end goal is to increase online censorship.

Is it better or worse than doing nothing? I don't know.

Sue them and make the price something they will have the ability to pay. Do so in a massive campaign and make it pay for itself with possibly a profit. Why not? Tubes have their way of doing business, we have the LAW!

If this was food and the product had a limited supply and could not be recopied by the thousands in an hour, you'd all be fighting to stop it since you wouldn't have any food to buy!

But since you all are complete dipshits you fight it without realizing your paycheck is going to move into the pennies on the dollar range. Then it will be too late and you will all wonder why you are working 9 to 5 again!

Yes. Old shit, but I own the rights to it :)

you (and everyone else) needs to stop spouting this drivil

make a better product - they will steal it
make a shittier product - they will steal it
make a unique product - they will steal it
make any product worth paying for - they will steal it


find another excuse to defend the counterfeiting - cause these are lame

.

Blackmail isn`t good for industry.
If I was a porn consumer and I learn that porn companies blackmail people with making their name public I would never buy a porn subscription again...
This kind of things should`t be in the media attention.
There are stupid and greedy people in this industry, and one bad move and everybody is fucked. It`s a meter of time.

Fitty lawsuits:thumbsup

Actually it does matter if you produce content or not. If you deal with all the bullshit, buying equipment learning how to shoot with said equipment, learning editing. Sweating your balls off shooting in hot hotel rooms, lugging gear for shooting trips. Flaky models,record keeping.
If you do that you tend to feel very different about then if you are a dating site affiliate or you sell ads on some ad network. Also people on torrents arent customers.No one says boy I like these 10 gigs of porn scenes I got for nothing. Now Im going to buy a membership .

That's bad. :Oh crap

DigiProtect is the scam operation in the UK everyone is talking about? I know the story but don't know the name of the company.

I don't oppose it, however I think it would be more effective to sue the people who are stealing the content and then uploading it to the torrents / tube sites. I think that is who they should go after the real offender. The end down loader is guilty but not as guilty as the person who stolen it and then distributed it.

Its like going after crack addicts instead of the drug dealers. Why not go to the source of the problem??? Since they can't shut down the torrents / tube sites because of DMCA why not go after the people who put the content on the torrents? If there is nothing on the torrents then there is nothing to download.

also I find it funny when people call this a cash grab but the torrent operators they are running them out of the goodness of their hearts?

I agree with this statement 110%.

If they want to sue the DOWNLOADER then they should be sueing that person for the cost of 1 or 2 months membership to their site at most.

If they want to sue the person who STOLE the content and UPLOADED it and made it available to millions of people for free, then sue that fucker for thousands of dollars.

To sue the downloader for anything more than a couple months membership price is total bullshit IMO and I do think it is greed and blackmail at that point since there is ZERO justification to sue them for more since all the download did was not pay for it, they didn't cause any damages like the uploader did.

they are hitting both i think.

4 law firms in the USA alone, just wait another year and it will be like foreclosure attorneys, one in ever thread/board in the industry.

Tube sites are next, since they want to call themselves ISPs, and hide under that protection. They are going to need to hire a law firm to answer the requests...

What do you suggest as an alternative?

As to the amount of the settlements, that is not because it is a cash grab, it is because that's the only way you can get the lawyers to chase it down. If you go after each offender for $29.99, it's not worth the effort. Although the pro-piracy crowd thinks everything should be free, the lawyers haven't quite gotten the memo on that yet so they have to make money. Would you work for a $2 PPS? Same thing.

As for the backlash, that isn't even go to be a factor in these cases like it was in the RIAA cases. The media was behind the backlash against the RIAA. The media only ran stories about teen age girls and old ladies being sued which pushed public opinion against the RIAA. Porn is still seen as dirty and NOBODY in the media is going to try to find sympathy for someone who is stealing so they can jerk off. The same way the newspapers prints pictures of men caught in prostitution stings. The media always sides against people who are caught doing something sexual.

This will play out pretty much the opposite of the RIAA cases IMHO.

I do own intellectual property (mp3's, some movies, wii games)

but...

mp3's i download are from artists i really like and i assist their concert, buy memorabilia etc.

movies: only when its a very suckee movie, i own a lot of original dvd's and blu rays from my real fav movies, movies i download i just watch them once and never again (yet picture quality sucks)

wii games: i own a ps3, so i dont even use it

Xbox360 games: i have a modded xbox360 and i have a lot of pirated games.. but i was banned from xbox live, when i was banned from xbox live i realized theres no use on using a console that doesnt have up date features etc...

so guess what... ive stick to my ps3 that only plays original movies, i have my favorite movies on original formats and the music i love i carry it not on their albums but on their memorabilia.


my point of view is: why try to stop something that wont.. if it becomes illegal its going to be worst, cause people will start smuggling piracy, and as i said in another thread, wherever theres an illegal practice theres money involved, and pirates will want that money.


thanks

The biggest pirates are among us in the industry and we all know who they are you guys are just scared shitless of them and would rather sue some single mother who's kid got on to the computer while she was at work

Maybe a debate about an industry problem? Fuck! You people are idiots sometimes!

courts / governments / general population don't like this industry.

blackmailing a big number of small users will just bring a lot of unwanted attention from everyone. It backlashed for the music industry, it will be much worst for porn.

btw, I'm sure a lot of the users downloading/sharing these torrents are kids in their teens (no money, horny, lots of free time, tech savvy,... ) can you imagine the mess when parents get the letters? they will try to go after eveyone for letting their kids watch this dirt. I'm pretty sure they will never pay a dime.

Users?

lol... that's stupid.. they must sue OWNERS.. not users...

.

The backlash will come. How far is being happy with bit of collateral damage going to go when a few old ladies have heart attacks and die because of the shame of a false accusation. Then the media, who will have been itching to run stories about someone famous ending up on the list of downloaders, will start writing stories about how bad the whole random suing thing is. If you think porn has a bad reputation now, wait and see what it's like then.

I am amazed at the posts here and feel I must respond to some of the more unbelievable and misleading statements here. I would say that my thoughts on the matter should bear some credibility as I am probably the only person here who has actually sued pirates, collected money, and has software to go after pirates. Here goes:

1. "Sell a product worth paying for and you'll cut down on the downloading." Really? So the better the movie, the Less likely someone is to steal it. That makes no sense. Statistics show the most downloaded porn, or mainstream movie, is the good stuff. Why download crap when the #1 porn of the year is also available?

2. Backlash. If someone wants to stand up for the rights of pirates to steal content, I'll take that fight any day, especially in court. Stealing content is a crime. I have to believe that the most of the people defending theft are thieves. I can't believe people depending on selling content to make a living think that stealing content is ok.

3. false positives. I have not had one yet. Our firm's software is so much more advanced than RIAA, that I laugh when people mention us in the same breath as those simpletons. There are trade secrets involved, but I can say that the amount of proof we have that person X downloaded file Y at exactly Z time, etc. is pretty impressive.

4. The people we represent have content being pirated on a massive scale. I have seen attacks on people like Steve Lightspeed, saying he has old content and is not making any money anymore so he is resorting to suing pirates to make money. I do not know how much Steve earns selling content. But I can say he has massive pirating going on, so that means a lot of people want his content.

5. I will keep saying this until I am blue in the face, but here goes: We work on contingency and NEVER make more than the content producer when we do collect money for them. This canard that "all the money just goes to the lawyers" is silly. I wish I got most of the money. I have to suggest that to Steve next time I see him.

6. Blackmail. If making people pay you when you catch them stealing content is blackmail, then so is making someone pay you when they are caught stealing your car. Prosecutors tell Defendants "You agree to this plea deal, and pay X in restitution, or we go to trial and see what the jury thinks of our evidence." If someone did not do what we allege, and we are just making up our accusations, we will have the mother of all counter suits. Despite what the armchair lawyers here think, filing federal lawsuits and going before a judge appointed by the president is no minor task. Since we are batting 100% with our requests to all of the judges hearing all of our cases to date regarding discovery, and our suits in general, I would respectfully suggest that if 1/3 of the federal judges (hey, we are filing a lot, what can we say?) in the Northern District of Illinois thinks these suits have merit, I will trust them over an anonymous poster on gfy.com.

7. Some claim that lawsuits lose money. The RIAA pay their attorneys by the hour. Those attorneys are incentivized to bill as many hours as possible. I work on contingency and only make money if my client does. If my client makes 0, I make less than zero, as I front the costs of the suits. I promise to stop filing these lawsuits the minute I stop making money.

I welcome reasoned responses.

Awwwww. All the poor single mothers.


Do you mean that the porn industry will finally get a bad name for itself? :1orglaugh

I completely agree with these statements....

I provide internet for the 5 tenants that live in one of my properties. How exactly are you able to tell which of the 5 were sitting at any specific computer at a specific time downloading your specific file?

People seem to learn the hard way, go get them...

I'm sure it was by the time they came knocking on the door.

No :1orglaugh

I mean it will get an even worser reputation for just being selling disgusting filth and run by a load of scummy cunts.

Porn should be being promoted as harmless entertainment rather than trying to push the media to associate the lawsuits with a large portion of settle to avoid the embarrassment factor.

then you have to pay the blackmail. sorry this is war. there were be collateral damage.

welcome to ignore.

I'm really curious as to how they will manage this scenario when it comes up. They might be able to pinpoint which computer was used, but there's no way they can determine which of the 5 people would have downloaded the file.

Serious question. I'd like to see a serious answer.

also wondering how many successful lawsuits they have won in court.

Going on this kind of escapade is as useless as the RIAA's strategy. It hasn't worked for them, what makes you think it will work for you? Piracy isn't going to go away anytime soon, instead it's going to increase. Instead of bitching and moaning, be an innovator. Make people not WANT to pirate your shit. Net flix was revolutionary in its approach, for instance. $7.95 a month for unlimited movies and tv shows? It reduced movie piracy dramatically.

cj's/popup hell, blind links/misleading tours, installs, crazy xsells, shady trials, banging cards, free explicit content.
industry was fucking itself from the beginning, too bad there weren't any serious media attention before, otherwise maybe industry would clean its act by some degree.

"blackmailing" pirates to get the message out that sharing stolen content may have its consequences at least will make some people think twice before doing that.

Tell one of your tenants to download one of Steves videos and find out?

I would think an isp can tell if more than one system is on an IP. In my old apartment we would get messages that too many computers were connected and it would reject us. If they are all connected then each computer name will be accessing it leaving some sort of trail.