Did TopBucks/Visual Pink Sellout When They Settle With Mansef/Manwin?

No. Without details of what the settlement was it's impossible to say. They might of walked away with money or were scared away by the counter suit.

They had the balls to take it to court. Needs more with that kind of nerve, if we are to curb piracy.

I agree with Paul.

This shows they pushed Manwin into some action.

http://www.ynot.com/modules.php?op=m...icle&sid=51977

You have to look at the thread about piracy posted by allison yesterday.

The impression I got is that they will be working together going forward.

You bet your ass they did...

When you start making deals with the devil...

And for those who think "oh, well at least they had the balls to take them to court"... no, they did not. "Having balls" would have meant seeing it through to the end and not being paid off or intimidated (though I'd put money on them being paid off)...

And don't get me started on this whole "anti piracy" bullshit.. it's just another way for them to suck dry as many sites/programs/business' as they possibly can.

Oh look more people expecting a company to pay for a fight they aren't even in...

BTW - How many of you NO's actually promoted Topbucks? IE: Actually did something to support the fight?

Anyway....

I think many of the problems in this industry were perpetuated by people not saying and doing enough. Everyone here who does any business in adult is involved in some way and should not be intimidated into not having a voice.

That said I understand that Top Bucks might have faced some difficult choices against the 500 lb gorilla but I'm skeptical of the settlement being a step forward for the industry as a whole rather than just a few companies.

This wasn't an industry class action lawsuit, it wasn't anyone else but one company putting up all the time and all of the money, to protect something they own.

The courts don't give a care about what we own (as in me, you, industry) because we aren't in the courts fighting over it. TB couldn't fight for "us" even if they tried.


I'm not sure what some of you expected to happen, but I can promises you other Court cases have already defined what will happen in these situations and nobody, for damn sure a porn company, is going to change that.

Thank you. I am grateful that there is still intelligent life to be found on this planet...

And for the record, I did call this one from day one. Not telling you I told you so because I know that you already know what I am talking about...

There are people who actually support and believe in them all this time including myself until now. But now not so sure.

I use their mobile stuff even though it wasn't the best converting program I still kept them anyway. Plus I didn't convert my site to illegal tube when some of my traders do. I actually drop them when I found out some of the MGP I was trading with become illegal tube. So I'm actually doing something.

I just talk to a few people, they now said they won't even give a fuck if they turn their MGP into illegal tube. Chances of them be taken down is almost zero, plus it a lot easier to hide your ass or make it extremely difficult so you won't be sued. If they can't shut down PH, they won't shut down anything. That's my biggest fear as it look like more MGP is converting to illegal tube. And when these site do they'll have a much harder time fighting piracy, plus at the same time killing off people who actually support them.

As I said it before and I'll say it again, their contents on tube is not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is they need to stop more site from converting into illegal tube. With this settlement it not doing that, but the opposite according to traders I'm talking to .

bump for more vote

i guess its apparent that most of you have no idea as to what this "deal" will mean in the long run...

i am tired of trying to educate people that have blinders on..

i am going back to being the resident fucking asshole here...

its much more fun...








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I would tell your friends to packup millions to pay people off then... Most tubes couldn't afford a fight like that, settlement or not - and most won't be able to afford to be forced to do digital finger printing either.

Either way, even if they took them to court, all the way to trial. The outcome would been the same, pay some money and be forced to use digital finger printing. No amount of money, time, legal action, or even a class action law suit would have changed that.

What it means is they protected what they own and others didn't, and you expect them to protect the entire industry, to do something that is completely impossible. Which is ridiculous.

Is this a joke? Why should I tell my traders to packup millions? What make you think it so easy for them to be sued? Last time I check another company here sue Hardsextube and it still up and alive and well for trademark infringement. My former trader who switch to illegal tube is still up and well and he's in the 5K-6K alexa ranking and growing. The problem for me is I need to find trades to replace these guys and it extremely difficult. Try suing an offshore shell company and good luck with that. When guys switch to legal to illegal they are going to hide their ass and it going to be extremely expensive to sue all over, not just in the US. Most likely most will be offshore anyway. By the time, if their lawyers are successful, it will be extremely expensive and the only thing they get is a shell company. Good luck with to sue a guy from Russia or Ukraine in their own back yard. By the time they are suing the son of a bitch, the look around and it like 'fuck now another 1000 illegal tubes get pop up'.

That's the issue, more freesites is becoming illegal tube. It like a cancer that spread fast and if you can't contain it you'll fail. For people not in the US, flashing a lawsuit is not going to scare anyone. Try suing all the illegal tube now say 2000? Now try suing 20,000 tubes, see how expensive that going to be. Beside criminal are much smarter these days so chances of them being successful will be minimal.

Aren't you the one constantly preaching in every thread that the way to combat the 'illegal' tubes is to not do business with them? Also to not do business with any company that does do business with the tubes?

That was you wasn't it?

Now topbucks is in bed with the biggest. So I'm assuming that you will be letting everyone know not to do biz with TB right? Or have your policies changed recently?

Adapt or die.

Pink Visual / Top Bucks adapted.

Piracy isn't going away unless laws change. It would take multiple huge settlements to force the biggest pirates out of business. The second best thing you can do other than shut them down is force them to work with everybody.

I do not see why everybody is giving PV/TB such a hard time.

Manwin is essentially adopting the same successful technology that Google has with YouTube. You do not hear about content owners bitching about YouTube much these days because the technology works.

You can sue anyone in the world... if they don't respond you get a judgement and take them down at the registrar, host and all else fails, ICANN level.

You would need the money to defend yourself, if you don't defend yourself, you lose. If you do, and you are pirating, you will be forced to pay/settle and be forced to use digital finger printing. If you fail to comply, they will take the judgement to the registrar/icann and shut your site off.

You don't have to sue them all, the ones that have already happened have shaped things greatly. We can already see piracy laws/rules being applied throughout the world, as more legal cases come up, the hammer will come down more and more.

We will never stop piracy, it will always happen... but you can force people to play by the rules which do apply to every person registering a domain in the world.

top bucks realized that they have a saturated program which needs to get more traffic, and going forward they want to be aligned with anyone who has traffic. where do you get it? from the only people who have it now. can't blame them for thinking of themselves first. they sold out the industry though by settling when they could have set a case precedent. don't hate them cause they didn't do your work for you. go sue someone.

Precedence has already been set, they are far from the first piracy case. The settlement (from what know of it here) is right in line with other piracy court cases that went all the way to trial or settlement. No reason to proceed on with something that will produce the same results either way.

Voted NO.

As any copyright holder nowadays, I'd be more than happy to see all illegal tube owners paying huge fines and then sucking Bubba's balls in jail. But realistically it isn't going to happen until most basic laws such as DMCA get amended.

Topbucks did what they could, and what they did benefitted the entire industry - not as much as we all had hoped, but it's still a big progress.

They introduced this new DFP thingy which was long overdue, yes it's pricey and it's reach is limited, but it'll grow over the time and get cheaper.

They also set (or confirmed) a good legal precedent - as TheDoc pointed our several times already, it's now PAY and then be forced to use DFP for all illegal tube owners. So it might be a good idea for the illegal tube owners to use DFP or other forms of content protection from the very beginning to show court their due diligence, to avoid having to pay huge settlements. With the progress of this tech, it'll get harder and harder to hide behind the "safe harbor" if you're not using at least DFP to stop potential infrimgents when it's already widely available and affordable.

When the DFP tech is working full throttle, and that WILL happen sooner or later, running an illegal tube + DFP will be essentially the same as running a legal tube.

Ya, try suing just 1,000 people 1/2 away around the globe and see what that cost. Forget the success, just the cost and already that is a major constrain. Then try suing 10K people, good luck. Then try to collect if you win. Even the RIAA have difficulty collecting from lawsuit they win, so good luck with that.

BINGO! BINGO! That's what I'm saying all along and what some people are suggesting they do. Look at the poll, obviously people disagree with them greatly. Don't sue them directly but indirectly as the chances of getting in contact with these organization like ICANN is easier than spending your $$ finding the SOB. Lawyers cost for this is even cheaper, you go to ICANN or the host and you say OK siteA, B, C etc., using stolen contents and here is proof. It like a one stop shop, instead of hoping around and randomly sue a tube and pray you'll get a settlement. Thank god finally for someone with some common sense out there.

exactly doc. can't blame them for making decisions best for them.

fuck the industry.

topbucks is setting a precedent that every man for himself is the way to go. hopefully people will get that in their heads.

people will see.

thanks for the reply.

and here goes my 1000 post...

Totally agree. While I understand TB got to do what they think is best for them that's fine. I can't speak for everyone who poll Yes, but personally for me, the best way I think to force people to play by the rules is show them that if you don't we'll take it seriously. If TB had won and own Braz and PH, then that serious and it will be a wake up call to alot of illegal tube to change and stop further freesite from consider becoming illegal tube.

But instead they made a secret settlement and force PH to use some digital fingerprinting. Ya, OK digital fingerprinting. If some is smart enough to put the fingerprint on the video, there is always someone else smart enough to know how to get rid of it. If I were to own an illegal tube today, don't even think I care.

Furthermore, even if they are successful in making sure that their stuff will not likely be online it not going to change anything. To win this they have to stop tube giving away stolen stuff, even those that are not theirs, because otherwise people will say OK sure TB have a Shy Love video but u know what I can watch another Shy Love video from tube. See there are already company that are successful at removing their contents, like Digital Playground. Try find Jesse Jane on tube and it very very rare to be found. But because there are "other" stuff similar to it on tube, people can live with that and watch it for free than actually pay.

So to win this war, I personally don't think you can do it alone. You need the whole community to support your cause. So far it not looking that way unfortunately.

In that thread I asked for an exact breakdown of what % goes to the FSC, the tube itself, and Manwin. I must have missed the reply with those answers. They have stated generalities but nothing exact. Shouldn't these figures be public?

It also seems a conflict of interest. I mean isn't one of the major players involved also one of the primary sources of problems? The whole thing to me has the feeling of the Mafia shaking down businesses for "protection money."

The underlying technology may be a step in the right direction but let's see exactly where the money is going. And why not instead make that technology more open and less expensive?

Fingerprinting is not watermarking, it doesn't put anything into the vid thus there's nothing to remove - you can only avoid being detected by this tech if you recompress or rewatermark it so severely that it'll become mostly unrecognizable by the human eye too, at which point it will be useless for all practical purposes.

Let me qoute my own post from the other DFP/Manwin/TB thread:

Nautilus, thanks for the clarification. I must have miss your post in DFP/Manwin/TB thread.

In that case I just need to retract one of my line of comment

and change it to:

My understanding is that most of the money goes to Vobile (who's actually providing the DFP service), not to the parties you mentioned. I'd prefer if they make their figures public too, but they're not obliged to do so.

Well Manvin involvement in this is limited to using the DFP tech at their tubes, they aren't getting any money from fscapap. I'm not 100% sure, but from what was said in the official DFP thread it looks like they're paying money to Vobile too to use their tech to scan uploaded videos, so they aren't getting richer with this deal anyway and aren't getting any cut from the "protection money" to suspect any mafia style extortion scheme.

I'm pretty sure there will be some less expensive or probably even open source and free DFP alternatives in the future. But for now this tech is still very expensive, because people like Vobile who invested millions in it need to recoup their investments and make a nice profit. And it is very CPU heavy, thus infrastructure that is necessary to make it work is expensive too, thus one more reason for the insane fees they charge.

That's typical for most of the new things that hit the market - they start off by being expensive and not transparent, but as the time goes by they're getting cheaper and more transparent. Vobile is not the only DFP provider out there, there are others too but they're all the same - not transparent, never state any prices at their sites, never provide any details as to how exactly their technology work etc. It's just a money grab period for them, like '96-98 in adult.

Alot of what is looking shady in this deal attributes to the nature of DFP market, not to the deal itself. Neither TB nore Manvin and not even fscapap are providing the actual DFP service - it is all done by Vobile, fscapap is just a reseller. Were there any DFP provider that charges $10/month to scan 1000 tubes and allows unlimited amount of videos, they'd probably use it, but there's none yet.

Your sig is weird ...

Well you'll have to be one hell of a smart guy to develop an anti-DFP technology, because things like that are not even looming on the horizon.

They only thing that can "help" you to avoid detection by DFP is to fuck your video up beyond recognition (by humans!), but that's hardly an option because none is going to visit your tube to "enjoy" you 50kb/s bitrate cropped, distorted and heavily rewatermarked "videos".

Youtube's been implementing DFP for awhile now, and it proved to work very well. None's been able to bypass it so far.

That's exactly what I think. Most of us wanted Mansef/manwich to come out with lumps and a black eye. Instead, THE APPEARANCE is they went into a back room and made a deal to kill small players and put money into both their pockets. Things are way too chummy for us that wanted fabian/nathan's balls on a pike.