Wow, I just read a very entertaining and informative blog post on the New York Times website by Kal Raustiala, a professor at UCLA Law School, and Chris Spriggim, a professor at the University of Virginia Law School. They have researched the effects of the porn equivalents of Youtube, and it is significant. I guess it makes sense that these web sites would do more harm to the porn industry than youtube does to the television or music industry. They highlight one website called Pornhub, which is the 53rd most visited website on the internet, compared to, CNN at number 59, New York Times at 96, Youtube at number 3, and then Vivid, a prominent American porn producer at number 19,543. The article goes on to point out that the porn dvd industry is declining severely. While this is also happening to other industries that are being affected by internet piracy, i think it is more damaging to the porn industry than the others. With music, television, and film, watching youtube clips can act as an advertisement or a form of promotion for the real product. However, in the porn industry i would imagine that the free internet clips act as a substitute, because as the article states, “Pornogrophy is, in large part, a utilitarian product, and for most consumers, the purpose for which it is employed is served just as well by a five minute porn-tube clip.” This is definitely not true of other more art driven piracy which is used for more cultural purposes than simply utilitarian. The long term effect that internet piracy will have on the porn industry in largely unknown. I think, based on these findings that it will be pretty large, but i am sure that based on demand society will never have a lack of porn. The article goes on to reveal that porn companies are trying to produce bigger scale projects such as 3D porn to compete with piracy. I guess people loved Avatar, right? Anyway, here is a link to a hysterical youtube clip of pornstars, or i’m sorry, “Performers” explaining why piracy is wrong. Enjoy.
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I don’t think it is that surprising that those “Performers” try to explain that piracy is wrong. The industry looses probably a huge market share due to the fact that the content in question is readily available for free. Thus, they try to appeal to people’s consciousness, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
However, I am not sure if watching porn on the internet really qualifies as piracy,due to those websites hosting the aforementioned short clips, rather than listing a plethora of links to file sharing networks.
Unlike a feature film or a documentary, pornography mostly just depicts different ways of conducting intercourse, there is not much of a script needed and most people do not watch it, because they want go gain a new perspective on society or because of the appealing dramatic arch.
Sex always sell and so will probably porn, however since it is freely available in high numbers, I would say that the financial heydays of porn are long gone, no need for filthy booths and hidden videotapes.
Just like the independent film industry, the porno industry is looking for new viable market models and due what you labeled as more art driven piracy, independent film will rather find a viable model, is regular movies are much less shunned by our society than porn.