Adult Entertainment Antes Up In DRM War

At the recent adult entertainment awards, host Greg Fitzsimmons highlighted the deep relationship between the internet and pornography stating "'The Internet was completely funded by porn,' he said [...] And if it wasn't for the Internet, he added, 'you guys would be completely out of business.' The audience, packed with porn actors and adult entertainment moguls like Jenna Jameson and Larry Flynt, roared with laughter." Now it appears that the adult entertainment industry has chosen to ante up in the DRM battle as well. Some companies have chosen to take sides, like Digital Playground who will be supporting Sony's Blu-Ray. Others, like Vivid Entertainment, seem to think that the answer is diversity and will be supporting both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

Somewhat true...

[_PimpDaddy7_]

And if it wasn't for the Internet, he added, 'you guys would be completely out of business.'

Somewhat true, but the porn industry has been VERY resourceful and has been able to use technology to their advantage for years. They were the first to really push deeply(bad pun intended) the DVD market.

Re:Power of porn?

[Shadow Wrought]

I think a lot of support for the the theory comes from the rankings of search terms. Since most of the top search terms revolve around pornography, it follows that a lot of people out there are trying to find it. That plus the pornographic sites were making large profits years before Amazon turned the corner.

Pron is the only use for alternate DVD scenes etc

[Werrismys]

The only interactive, multiple-point-of-view DVD's I've seen were all pron. Almost like those sucky adult games the japanese make.

Re:Power of porn?

[Trish21]

Hi, I'm new to Slashdot. I've been enjoying reading some of the threads the past week or so. What about the flip side of the coin: how much the VCR & the internet have helped the porn industry. Not just financially, but by taking the porn industry out of the closet, if you will and making it more mainstream.

Search terms...

[Spy der Mann]

does that mean porn is also the cause of all spyware and viruses on the net? Because I've heard most spyware and viruses come from "low reputation websites".

Just wondering.

Re:What!

[networkBoy]

Ironically this is what will get joe sixpack interested in DRM.
You see, joe doesn't want jane to know about the digital stash, but if the DRM forces him "out of the closet" so to speak he will be quite upset (as well as possibly single).

-nB

The Truth

[PastAustin]

I heard somewhere that there are three things that have a lot of popularity online.

1.) Porn
2.) UFOs
3.) Fantasy Football (more popular than porn during football season)

I think that he's very right to say that the internet is the only reason these people are in business. There are so many disgusting pieces of smut to feast your eyes on that it's actually amazing that we all get anything done online. It once was that you would go online and stumble on a couple porno sites. Now it has moved in every direction. There is 3D porn software, there are websites where you can watch girls in Austria get naked, there are websites where you can watch someone's grandmother get it from all sides. I personally don't like any of this stuff but it is truly what keeps the internet going. If it weren't for all these websites, successful or not, there would be a couple million unregistered domains and who knows how many horny men.

My point is that it's a good point that he makes.

I personally have seen internet porn and I have many friends who watch internet porn, however I don't know that many people who buy the DVD / Mags / VHS tapes. I would be interested to see the quality of a Blue-Ray / HD-DVD porn because I would imagine it would be amazing. So in my opinion moving to a high-def format would up physical sales but perhaps stunt online sales (due to long downloads)

What do you think?

Re:Power of porn?

[Billosaur]

Porn is never the intial driving force behind these inventions but eventually the sex fanatics find a way to take the technology and use it for their purposes and make their presence felt. And so what? If they become a driving force in the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray fracas, that will just spice things up, because hey, the whole argument is pretty dull. Besides, can you imagine the advertising?!?

DRM?

[Travoltus]

This article appeared to be more along the lines of "Adult Entertainment Antes Up In the HD DVD Format War" than "Adult Entertainment Antes Up In DRM War".

I didn't even see "DRM" or "copy protection/prevention" in the entire article.

Was there another article to this that I missed?

It's backwards

[max born]

The Internet was completely funded by porn," he said from the stage of the 23rd annual AVN Awards show. And if it wasn't for the Internet, he added, "you guys would be completely out of business."

I think you have it the wrong way round, porn was completely funded by the Internet and if it wasn't for the Internet's distribution system you guys wouldn't have a medium to generate that $2.5 billion revenue, you'd still be relegated to the back rooms of selected video stores selling tapes and DVDs.

hmm.

[Archon-X]

I must admit, I find it interesting how 'mainstream' identities love casting references to pornography as if it will get them brownie points on their target demographic.
'Porn does this..' - 'Porn did that'.

If it's loved so much (and it is), why is the industry constantly under attack?
Read: Obscenity laws [FBI raids on STORY sites]
Read: 2257 laws [Forcing primary content producers to release the ID, names and addresses of models]
Read: .xxx [forcing adult onto one controlled platform]

etc etc etc.

Watch out for censorship

[argoff]

Once the "officially DRM'd" industry realises that they can't lock people (or profit) into their content managment schemes - then they will come out saying we need to protect kids from pron, and we need to outlaw any porn that isn't digitaly signed "for, OH MY GOD, the sake of the children!". Hollywood, and big media, will then surely jump on the bandwagon, and it won't be long before they try to outlaw any content that is't DRM controlled.

...And protection-cracking funded by ?

[HPNpilot]

'The Internet was completely funded by porn,'

Perhaps, but IIRC all the Macrovision "picture enhancers" were sold so people could copy rented porn tapes.

Maybe in this case porn using the newest digital protections will cause a thriving black market for the newest cracks.

Re:What!

[networkBoy]

I was meaning more from the aspect of:
You can not play this pr0n on your computer because it does not support the following rights management hardware/software/firmware:
Foo, Bar, and Baz.

Joe: Honey, we need a new monitor and video card.
Jane: Why dear?
Joe: So I can play . . . um . . . my new games.
Jane: What you have already works fine dear, you play too many games already.
Joe (to self): I'm gonna kill whoever invented this DRM crap!

-nB

I do agree that the common folk will not be given access ot the DRM systems. Mostly because whatever they are will be flawed and rely on the DMCA to prevent tampering.
-nB

Re:Power of porn?

[Sique]

It's not only that. Porn sites were the first sites that actually tried to sell something over the internet. They were the first to try out identification (of people the shop has never seen and never will see in persona), automated user setup, online payments etc.pp. When the Dotcom bubble started to grow, porn content already had online stores, pay-per-view, pay-per-click-through and all the other really hot business bingo triggers.

Porn was also (at least here in Germany) the first that actually made the internet popular, when 'investigative journalists' discovered that students at the universities were wasting tax payer money to wank off. That was exactly when Xlink (which actually meant eXtended local inter net Karlsruhe) spun off from University of Karlsruhe and Eunet from University of Dortmund, which were the first to commercially offer Internet services to the public. Suddenly everyone knew about this Internet thingy, and about the fact that you could get GIF (Girls In Files) there.

Re:Just Like VHS or Beta

[Anonymous Coward]

Sponge Bob might have the kind of clout you claim if he were Spooge Bob. Remember (and this is staggering and sick) that the adult entertainment industry (vids, internet, live shows, toys, mags, etc.) makes approximately the same amount of money annually as the movie, music, and sports industries...combined. "Approximate" because there is more than a little under the table (oh, the potential for double entendres) dealing. See Forbes last June or July.

Now does this mean that the adult video part is roughly equivalent to the movie indeustry as a whole? I don't know. But it does mean that many people grossly underestimate the vast profit (= power) of the adult entertainment industry.

Re:Power of porn?

[Trish21]

By mainstream, I mean that the porn audience is not just the proverbial dude in the trenchcoat at local porn theater anymore. It's our neighbors, ourselves. The VCR and the internet brought a level of privacy to porn consumption that increased and diversified the porn audience.

Re:Power of porn?

[slashdotmsiriv]

Since most of the top search terms revolve around pornography This is partially because most of the web-based porn businesses employ shamelessly and extensively Page Rank manipulation tricks. For example they create numerous dummy pages, which sometimes contain nothing more than repetitions of the porn keywords, that link to their site. Also as you may have noticed, the link density in porn sites is substantially increased. Every single one of their pages has tens of links to some other of their pages, partially allowing for more page rank to flow to their sites.

Re:What!

[Sloppy]

Ironically this is what will get joe sixpack interested in DRM. You see, joe doesn't want jane to know about the digital stash, but if the DRM forces him "out of the closet" so to speak he will be quite upset (as well as possibly single).

If that's true, then joe has issues that go way the fuck beyond DRM. Why would anyone want an SO who objects to porn? Damn, people are so messed up. It's time for the "sex is evil" meme to die.

Re:Power of porn?

[slashdotmsiriv]

They may not admit it publically, but they can't deny that no other customer is capable of ripping thier new child prodigy to pieces as fast and as "efficently" as we are.
I must admit that for a couple of secs, before I get the actual meaning, I felt rather uncomfortable reading this sentence. Somehow "child", "ripping to pieces" and "pornography" don't quite sound good in the same context :).

Re:Huh, that's surprising. What about p2p and porn

[NeutronCowboy]

I think that on the contrary, it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is no need for DRM for the content industry to flourish. Porn has got to be the most ripped content there is. And yet, it is raking in profits that make every other industry green with envy. So when traditional media companies say that they need DRM because of the Internet... I say shove it.