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Media The Internet Hardware

Adult Entertainment Antes Up In DRM War 241

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the can't-we-all-just-get-along dept.
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.
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Adult Entertainment Antes Up In DRM War More

Adult Entertainment Antes Up In DRM War

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  • What! (Score:5, Funny)

    by poppageek ( 115260 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @12:41PM (#14540751)
    There is porn on the internet? :-O

    • That emoticon is just so wrong for this discussion (Score:5, Funny)

      by mindaktiviti ( 630001 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:06PM (#14541060)
      Here's why...

      B====D~ ~ ~ O-:

    • Re:What! (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yep. Little known fact: The internet was derived from an earlier project, ARPAnet, which was designed so that in a nuclear war, top military officials would have high-reliability access to pornography!
    • This article is worthless without pics!!! ;)

  • Just Like VHS or Beta (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) * <eldavojohnNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday January 23, 2006 @12:42PM (#14540768) Journal
    Once a friend of mine commented that VHS was superior in quality to Betamax but that the only reason VHS won was because Sony refused to license porn on their format. Whether this is true or not [hyperthink.net] is probably debatable. But now we see the industry vying for licenses to the porn industry for their new formats. Why? Perhaps Sony learned their lesson with Betamax ...

    Ironically, I'm going to wager that Spongebob and Pikachu have more clout than Jenna Jameson and Larry Flynt in the format war. Because every child needs a babysitter and that babysitter always comes in the newest format.

    • Re:Just Like VHS or Beta (Score:4, Funny)

      by hotdiggitydawg ( 881316 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @12:46PM (#14540815)
      I disagree. Without porn, there would presumably be more children...
    • Nonsense. There was plenty of porn available in Beta format. I personally owned at least 12 different porn titles on Beta.
    • This is not VHS vs BETA all over again, and porn is not the deciding factor.

      1. The Key Difference between Blu-Ray/HDVD & VHS/Beta: Home Video Exists.
      2. Porn is not the deciding factor, because content exists. In the Home Video industry infancy, none did - except for porn.
      3. Blue-Ray will probably win due to computing convergence. (assuming relatively equal prices on a recording capacity basis)

                When the Home Video Player war came out, there was no home video standard - and no home video content. Pornography drove the industry because there was no existing content, and people would (will) pay for porn videos. Since the movie industry was reluctant to make any move - the only content was porn. Perhaps VHS won because it was cheaper (lower cost for content providers), or becuase Sony really refused to license Betamax to Porn. In any case, at that time Porn was the content provider for the early home video industry. (Side note, I remember seeing Record size Video Disks of non-porn-Movies before ever seeing tapes. (I also remember that piracy was going to distroy the motion picutre industry.)

                Today, the home video industry is a large (booming) industry. Tapes have been supplanted by Digital Disks for content providers, and for recording. I suspect that the key difference in who wins the Blue-Ray/DVD battle is going to be price. People were willing to pay $$$$ for video decks when none existed, but are unlikely to pay $$$$ for video that is only of improved quality. (See the takeup rates for HDTV)

                The short version is that whomever can reach critical mass production & lower costs first wins. The key difference may be storage capacity for computers. Why, you ask, will computers be a key factor for a Home Video technology? Because the replacement of Computer Backup Tape drives may provide enough of a market to gain true Mass Production capacity first.

                One of the claims why Sony lost the Beta/VHS battle was that it took two tapes for many movies. That is, it cost 2x to produce a Beta Tape set relative to a VHS set. This is not going to be a problem, as both camps are stating that they will have the capacity to put movies in HD with extras on their disks. Since Sony, et. al., are claiming that they will have much higher capacity for Blu-Ray, they will probably be used for computer backups in business systems. (You know, the Autoloaders that currently cost $15,000 & $100/tape) This will help Sony get the cost down faster. In the end, price matters & we are only talking about imporoved video. No one really cares if Sponge-Bob is in High Defination or not anyhow.
    • Ironically, I'm going to wager that Spongebob and Pikachu have more clout than Jenna Jameson and Larry Flynt in the format war. Because every child needs a babysitter and that babysitter always comes in the newest format.

      Are you currently aware of what happens when you type "Spongebob Pikachu Porn" into a google images search.
    • Once a friend of mine commented that VHS was superior in quality to Betamax but that the only reason VHS won was because Sony refused to license porn on their format. Whether this is true or not is probably debatable.

      AFAIK it was Philip's V2000 format that refused to bring porn, and died off as a consequence (presumably).

      But I don't think the new format race will be decided by porn. When video hit the streets, people could watch porn in the privacy of their home instead of in sleazy cinema's. But most p

    • I think the more convincing theory on the failure of Betamax was copyright issues and the bad blood that resulted in The Betamax Case [eff.org].

      As I understand it, the high quality of recordings on Betamax caused worry with the content creators that infringement would run rampant. In turn, content creators boycotted Beta to try to keep the format from gaining ground. The poor quality of VHS, it's degradation over time, and it's limited dubbing ability made it safe from the industry's wrath.

      Porn wasn't the main dr

  • Power of porn? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by timster ( 32400 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @12:43PM (#14540773)
    This theory -- that porn was the "true" #1 force behind the VCR and the Internet -- has been repeated so many times that it's taken almost as a truism. But how true is it really? My personal experience suggests that people purchased Internet access for information and communication purposes, and that for the most part it was sites like Amazon that brought us e-commerce. Does anybody know of any research or science that backs up or refutes this claim?

    • Re:Power of porn? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .thguorw.wodahs.> on Monday January 23, 2006 @12:47PM (#14540835) Homepage Journal
      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.

      • Search terms... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <spydermann.slash ... com minus distro> on Monday January 23, 2006 @12:51PM (#14540888) Homepage Journal
        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.
      • I think that just because people end up using the internet for porn, does not mean that the internet would have failed without porn, or that porn is responsible for the internet or its speed in any way. There's a lot of porn magazines, and porn that can be watched on TV (Broadcast or video). I don't think that magazines would not exist if it wasn't for porn, or that TV would be much different if there wasn't any porn available on it. Just because a high percentage of the web is porn, does not mean that p
      • 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, par

      • But that's somewhat deceptive. Non-porn sites tend to be fairly well organized, and link to sites on the same topic that are useful. If you are looking for information on (for example) antique bicycles, you do one search, then surf forth from the top few hits, quickly finding the good stuff. Porn sites on the other hand tend to be self-refferential rats nests of unhelpful links, and the strategy for finding sttuff is much more search-intensive. Uh, or, uh, so I've heard.

        Porn sites have an easier time b

    • Re:Power of porn? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Trish21 ( 946656 ) <Teddy2121@hotmail.com> on Monday January 23, 2006 @12:50PM (#14540879) Homepage
      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.

    • Re:Power of porn? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by DynamoJoe ( 879038 )
      My first job out of college in 1996 was as a help desk rep for a south florida ISP. Because our sales staff were mainly retirees, we had a disproportionately huge number of geriatric users (try walking them through Dial Up Scripting).

      Anyway, I remember taking many calls (sometimes several calls per night) from old fogies who 'just bought the internet and wanted to get to the dirty pictures'. Of course, YMMV, but I think porn did fund a lot of the internet's growth well before amazon.com started luring us

    • Re:Power of porn? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Billosaur ( 927319 ) *

      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?!?

    • Boy you're late to the party - Usenet (Score:5, Informative)

      by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:01PM (#14541005)
      The web is a newcomer. The internet existed long before that. Usenet, email, gopher, ftp were the applications people were using and yes, distribution of porn was *very* popular.

       

    • Re:Power of porn? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ancedotally, I pay for internet access to get information, play games and communicate with my friends.

      I pay for a usenet feed to get porn.

      What was the question again?

    • Re:Power of porn? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:15PM (#14541143)
      > My personal experience suggests that people purchased Internet access for information and communication purposes, and that for the most part it was sites like Amazon that brought us e-commerce. Does anybody know of any research or science that backs up or refutes this claim?

      It goes back farther than that.

      Instead of thinking "Amazon" and "e-commerce", think USENET and alt.sex.

      Once upon a time, alt.sex was the main reason (well, if you were a college student) to do this USENET thing. Then some schmuck figured out that you could uuencode a binary file into 7-bit-clean text, and upload it into alt.sex, and every other schmuck on the planet could see teh b00bies.

      When a scanner cost thousands of dollars, you could get your b00bies in one of three ways: Buy the dead trees (and deal with storing them :), download the pictures from a pay BBS at 2400 baud (because someone else paid thousands of dollars for a scanner), or copy them from the news spool free (and not have to wait, because the college's 56k leased line was up 24/7!) from USENET, because some other guy who already bought the dead trees was willing to use the scanner in the lab (that had already been paid for :) to scan in the pictures and upload them (again for free, because the leased line was always there) to alt.sex.

      Needless to say, this didn't last long - kilobytes turned into megabytes, hard drives overflowed, links became saturated, and thus was born alt.sex.pictures. And because news admins got tired of dealing with alt.sex.yet.another.funny.group name (which had to be permitted) and denying alt.sex.pictures.* (whose groups would overflow the news spool in rapid order), there was a great split - and thus was born alt.binaries.*.

      Long story short -- USENET administrators needed more diskspace and bandwidth, and at one time, pr0n was indeed a major proportion of all USENET traffic, and even though the transmission network was still in the process of shifting from UUCP store-and-forward technology to a TCP/IP network, the fundamental issues of bandwidth and storage remained.

      That's not to say there weren't other legitimate uses for all that bandwidth and storage; there were. But the growth of USENET (on account of a lot of sites -- even corporate sites, which would be unthinkable today -- maintaining "a full feed", including alt.binaries.*, out of either a sense of tradition or a pervy newsadmin) was in large part fueled by pr0n. And in large part, the growth of USENET drove "the Internet".

      USENET was the first peer-to-peer network. Each "peer" was a machine costing tens of thousands of dollars in hardware, and hundreds of dollars a month, but considering that "consumer-level" communications was limited to 2400-baud modems, the combination of a USENET server to store "everything", and deliver it through the university LAN, was a huge step forward for the end user.

      Typical conversation from circa 1988:

      Fourth-year-student: "USENET? It's like a BBS, with ten thousand message boards, a hundred thousand users, and no waiting to connect to it! And FTP? It's like a download section of a BBS, with no upload quota! And you can get files from anywhere in the world! Look, here's an FTP server with a collection of all those DOS utilities you'll ever need, and it's in Finland, fer Chrissakes, and it doesn't cost a cent to call it up!"

      First-year student: "Finland? Why Finland?"

      Fourth-year student: "Why not? But if you don't like Finland, we'll get it from the mirror at White Sands Missile Range!"

      First-year student: "Whoa!"

      • And in large part, the growth of USENET drove "the Internet".

        I disagree entirely.

        It was the maturation of the World Wide Web, not USENET, that caused the Internet boom period of the mid and late 1990's.

        Indeed as the "mainstream" Internet has grown, Usenet has become more and more marginalized.
      • You nailed it exactly. Those days were exactly like that.

    • Re:Power of porn? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:20PM (#14541193)
      I work at a porn company.

      My company has dedicated 26 Gigs of bandwidth, that during peak are all maxed out.
      We have invested a lot into new technology.

      The fastest web servers, fastest hardware, rate limiting technologies, hacker prevention, etc.
      I know we push our hardware and software to its limits.

      Our vendors like us because we find obscure bugs that no other company is capable of finding - very few companies on the internet are capable of even simulating the amount of traffic we have daily. Not only traffic, but the amount of users trying to hack our systems is astounding, which also pushes the technology to its limits. Our servers get over 150k hits a minute.

      When a piece of hardware runs through our system, the vendors feel more assured at the capabilities of thier offerings.

      There are many hardware and software companies in the world that happen to like our industry. 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.

      If a bug or a hole exists, our users and bandwidth find it.

      I personally like this industry, not for the content, but because I always get to play with the newest technological toys - We are at the front of the online industry, pushing the technology to its limits.

      • Re:Power of porn? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Sique ( 173459 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:57PM (#14541618) Homepage
        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:Power of porn? (Score:5, Funny)

        by InterruptDescriptorT ( 531083 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:58PM (#14541627) Homepage
        If [...] a hole exists, our users [...] find it.

        Quite appropriate, given the business you're in.
      • Well, it goes without saying that you need a fat pipe to succeed in the porn industry.
      • well, porn is one of those things that everybody either wants or needs, but never seems to want to fess up to. we all know instinctively that its big business, and because of the customer's desire for discretion will always have the most modern, most subtle delivery methods (haha!).

        i say good for you dude. you get to do what you love, and be paid for it.
      • 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 :).
    • From what I recall the turning point in VCRs was when Star Wars became available on tape. That is certainly when I bought my first VCR.

      The internet was a different story - I bought that because of the technical information that it gave me access to.

    • It was a joke. Greg Fitzsimmons is a comedian. That's why teh pr0n starz "roared with laughter." He must have great delivery, to get such a great response with such crappy old cliche material.
    • My personal experience suggests that people purchased Internet access for information and communication purposes, and that for the most part it was sites like Amazon that brought us e-commerce. Does anybody know of any research or science that backs up or refutes this claim?

      I used to work at a computer shop and I'd give a guestimate thatn about 90% of the machines brought in had some type of porn on them.

      Some of the likes, I wish I didn't see...

      But the worst is when your dad asks you to fix his computer and

  • Somewhat true... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by _PimpDaddy7_ ( 415866 )
    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.

  • What Is It? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Doomedsnowball ( 921841 ) <doomedsnowballs@yahoo.com> on Monday January 23, 2006 @12:46PM (#14540824)
    I watched Orgasmo like, five times! I know what DVDA is... but what is DRM? --shudders--

  • Huh, that's surprising. What about p2p and porn? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Vokkyt ( 739289 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @12:48PM (#14540858)
    I would think that on a whole, the pornography industry would see The Internet as a love/hate relationship. Granted, it allows production and sales to a degree that wasn't fathomable for porn before, however, the mass filesharing means that one well off user can make off with tons of files from the site and host it else where. I mean, I guess it's good to know know that the love that the Internet has for porn is mutual, but wow, that's an awfully warm reception.
    • >>Granted, it allows production and sales to a degree that wasn't fathomable for porn before, however, the mass filesharing means that one well off user can make off with tons of files from the site and host it else where.

      Yah, but it also means that the wanker that likes the video he downloaded with [fill-in-bimbo-here] may go buy more of them with her in it. So the online stuff becomes an overlong commercial.

    • Re:Huh, that's surprising. What about p2p and porn (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NeutronCowboy ( 896098 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @03:13PM (#14542431)
      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.
  • I mean if some companies are supporting Blu-Ray, and others supporting both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD... then it seems like the writing is on the wall.
    • blueray is to betamax and HD-DVD is to VHS
      • blueray is to betamax and HD-DVD is to VHS

        Assuming you mean "as" rather than "and"... could you explain why you think so ?

        Looking at the content providers in this HD disc format war, it really does seem that Blu-ray is getting more support, even if you aren't looking at those covered by this story. It seems a little early to me to call Blu-ray the Betamax. Besides, didn't Betamax come out first?

        • Yeah, I meant "as". Sony backed blueray. Sony backed Betamax. History repeats itself.

          (plus the manufacturing costs for HD-DVD are less, the manufacturing time is shorter, and it seems that more recording studios - the real manufacturers of media - seem to support HD-DVD. At least last I checked.)
          • Yeah, I meant "as". Sony backed blueray. Sony backed Betamax. History repeats itself.

            Sony noticed that trying to go it alone with Betamax was idiotic - so this time around they made sure to have the larger group of media companies on thier side. Not to mention also putting Blu-Ray in the PS3 which means an order of magnitude more players by the end of the year than HD-DVD offers.

            Given that Blu-Ray will have more content (like VHS) and more players (like VHS), it would seem history will repeat itself - but
          • Yeah, I meant "as". Sony backed blueray. Sony backed Betamax. History repeats itself.

            Yea, but it's not _just_ Sony this time. They learned from that mistake. It's Sony and a whole mess of companies [blu-ray.com], the most notable to me is Samsung... although all of those companies are good, Samsung seems like it's firing on all pistons these days. Anyway, a big part of Sony's problems with Betamax supposedly were caused by the proprietary nature of the format, and that Sony was the only one making players and promoting

            • that's true. My sources are old - it had a much better backing for HD-DVD with regards to media producers. I really don't give a flying monkey, I don't buy into tech until it hits mainstream. But people do tend to remember history, and shaving production costs in an industry where production is king is meaningful
    • supporting both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD

      When people said the way the porn industry goes determines the winner in the hi-def DVD format war, I said the porn industry is quite capable of going both ways and a few others besides. Nice to see it going just as I predicted.

  • The porn industry won't be such a big driver (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 99luftballon ( 838486 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @12:54PM (#14540926)
    Back in the early 80's there was very little access to pornography, particularly film.

    Nowadays the situation is must less restricted and anyone with an internet connection can watch the filth of their choice with little difficulty and with no need of a media player. The internet distribution system is also a lot harder to censor.

    One of the interesting things about the Blu-Ray announcement was that a key driver for the porn company was that PlayStation 3's will have drives built in. Is this an oblique way for calling PS3 players wankers?

  • The Truth (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PastAustin ( 941464 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @12:56PM (#14540955)
    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?
    • I heard somewhere that there are three things that have a lot of popularity online.
      1.) Porn
      2.) UFOs
      3.) Fantasy Football

      That explains why the Nude Touch Football Vixens From Venus web site is always /.ed

  • becaus I get my porn via $currentlyHypedP2PNet

    Maybe we can start the tradition of handing over the porn collection from father to son.

    */me downloading new porn collection*

  • Group Hex (Score:5, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @12:57PM (#14540966)
    Others, like Vivid Entertainment, seem to think that the answer is diversity and will be supporting both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

    It figures that when given the choice, the Porn Industry would opt for a threesome.

  • I only got as far as... (Score:5, Funny)

    by r3adah3ad ( 936993 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:06PM (#14541058)
    "At the adult entertainment awards..." before I choked on my soda (yeah, yeah,here come the replies).
    I mean, come on:

    "Yeah, the music rocked, but the grunts and moans weren't all they could have been."
    -or-
    "The plot was amazing! I never knew what was going to happen next!"

  • Wait! Does that mean... (Score:5, Funny)

    by JaredCE ( 948344 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:07PM (#14541067)
    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,'
    Al Gore is a pornstar?

  • DRM? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Travoltus ( 110240 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:10PM (#14541097) Journal
    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?
    • Was there another article to this that I missed?

      It seems so.. The Vivid article:

      "Digital Rights Management (DRM) is another serious issue that many consumers are anxiously waiting to see how each new format handles. "As with Hollywood movies it is very important to protect our movies. We believe that both formats will offer an acceptable DRM solution. If they do not they will certainly have difficulty getting product," Hirsch [Vivid founder] said."

  • It's backwards (Score:5, Insightful)

    by max born ( 739948 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:13PM (#14541115)
    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.

    • Re:It's backwards (Score:3, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      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

      Porn is a huge percentage of the traffic on the 'net. That 'net is paid for by people who pay for a 'net connection and possibly pay even more per byte transferred. Thus, porn is paying for the net. It's not that they have it backwards, it's that they're only talking about half of the relationshi

  • hmm. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Archon-X ( 264195 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:13PM (#14541118)
    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.
    • If it's loved so much (and it is), why is the industry constantly under attack?

      Because people are socially obliged to pretend that they think porn is a bad thing. People in positions of power, especially. It's an easy way to seem Family-Friendly. A crackdown on Pornography, for the sake of The Children.

    • Re:hmm. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by freeweed ( 309734 )
      If it's loved so much (and it is), why is the industry constantly under attack?

      There's a town in a rural area near the city I grew up in, that's extremely religious, to the point where it's like the town in Footloose: dancing is banned. Also, selling alcohol within town limits is against the law there. There are no other communities within at least 50 miles of any sizable population.

      Someone set up a liquor store literally on the other side of the town line. It's one of the most profitable in the country. Yo

  • Watch out for censorship (Score:5, Insightful)

    by argoff ( 142580 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:17PM (#14541162)
    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 ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HPNpilot ( 735362 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:20PM (#14541204) Homepage
    '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.

  • Am I the only one... (Score:3, Funny)

    by TimTheFoolMan ( 656432 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @01:59PM (#14541638) Homepage Journal
    ...who thinks it's ironic that we'll see Blue Movies on a medium dubbed Blu-Ray?

    Tim

  • Not far off track. (Score:3, Informative)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:12PM (#14541774)
    My comments are not an endorsement of porn, but the porn industry deserves some credit for the adoption of many technologies on the internet in that it was a pioneer. It is not the only industry that has been instrumental, but given its taboo nature, it's not likely that it would get any public acclaim. The adult entertainment industry was always a pioneer in technologies like multimedia, streaming content, and secured online transactions. Adult websites were taking credit card payments long before Amazon.com existed. In almost every hotel room in America, you can get movies on demand. Some of them are most likely not G rated, and the industry was one of the first to offer that service to hotel guests. Other mainstream industries like Hollywood could have been the first but they were not.

    Today it is a huge industry that is not as taboo as it once was. Its power and influence has given it the nickname "America's other Hollywood." A few years ago Frontline covered the industry in an episode entitled American Porn [pbs.org] which you can watch online.

  • I thought most porn is region free (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:15PM (#14541798)
    So where does the DRM come into it? Whichever format they choose most porn studios are going to throw the switches to reach as large an audience as possible.
  • The US Government did and then the telcos. Funding does not equal what it is used for.

    The internet is an enabler for porn's continued funding.

  • HD Porn? What's The Point? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ausoleil ( 322752 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:43PM (#14542117) Homepage
    Think of the benefits that HD porn will offer:

    "Wow, I never knew Jenna Jameson has all those in-grown hairs from shaving her coochie!"

    "Dang, that dude has a dingleberry hanging!"

    "Did you see that! What a scar under her armpit from the implant surgery!"

    And so forth and so on.

    I think HD will make porn look worse, not better...low-def analog tv has a way of hiding the wrinkles, so to speak.

    What's really interesting, however is that porno DVDs will have DRM embedded. Currently, they are not encoded, and how many DVD burners has that sold? More than a few, I think.

  • Phoning Home (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PhotoBoy ( 684898 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:50PM (#14542194)
    If this DRM is like a lot of the other stuff I've seen it will phone home to check if you're allowed to watch the film. I for one don't particularly want my porn phoning home to tell someone you're about to watch Lesbo Rim Jobs From Mars. Isn't there some invasion of privacy law that can be thrown at this?
  • Indeed it is. [google.com]

    The song for those wondering, is from Avenue Q [avenueq.com]
  • "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."

    Um, hello? Both BluRay and HD-DVD implement DRM to some degree, all of which is more strict than what we currently have with DVD-CSS.

    "We play both kinds of music here, country an

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