Manwin and Pink Visual Answer Your Digital Finger Printing/Filtering Questions

I?ll begin with the complaints. First, signupdamnit writes, ?I think the digital fingerprinting technology should be far cheaper and more open.? I find this statement to be the most ironic comment in the entire thread, yet it seems to represent an attitude that is quite pervasive. Vobile, the software company with which FSC has contracted, expects to be paid a fair price for their intellectual property. They have invested millions upon millions of dollars in this technology, there is an expense to operating and administering these information systems, and they are business people who would like to see a return on their investment. One would think that a group of content owners could sympathize with the fact that Vobile is not willing to give away their intellectual property or to sell their services at a loss. (If you think that Vobile?s prices have been inflated, that they are making more than a reasonable return on their investment, I strongly encourage you to check out the other providers?BayTSP for example, an excellent company that offers a product/services very similar to Vobile?s.)

Second, signupdamnit believes that he ?should not be required to work with any one organization or provider.? Yes, in order to participate in APAP, you must be a member of FSC. FSC invested months upon months of work and incurred significant expenses in order to design APAP as a Member?s Benefit. Membership Benefits, for any membership organization, are available to those who pay membership dues/fees. Again, I would think that this would be a relatively simple concept for webmasters who run membership sites. Would you open up your ?member?s only? area to people who haven?t purchased a membership simply because they don?t think it?s ?fair.??

Third, several people have claimed that APAP is a cash grab. Others claim that it is a struggle for FSC?s relevance. And yet others claim that it is outside the scope of FSC?s Strategic Plan. The Free Speech Coalition is a 501(c)6?a membership organization/trade association. More specifically, FSC is a group of adult entertainment companies that came together to collaborate on litigating, lobbying, educating, collective bargaining, bulk purchasing, etc. It is a group of adult companies, funded by adult companies, and governed by adult companies. (Here, I have to correct Robbie. Robbie claims that FSC is ?supposed to be representing a consortium of adult companies in first amendment cases.? FSC was never and is not now limited to First Amendment issues in its mission. I?ll be the first person to acknowledge that this name is misleading and unfortunate?I wish to hell the founders had chosen something different. While the founders were right in that the name is more politically palatable to the mainstream than something like ?The Pornographer?s Union,? it has led to nothing but misconceptions within the industry. I want to be clear on this. FSC?s mission is: to lead, protect and support the growth and development of the adult entertainment community.

Every year, the entire FSC membership elects members to its Board of Directors. Every three years, these elected representatives develop a Strategic Plan. In the Strategic Plan, they answer the questions, ?What are our highest priorities?? They ask, ?What issues are relevant to us?? ?Over the next three years, what should the scope of our work be?? ?How do we want to spend our money--the money that we, collectively as members, have pooled for this purpose??

The vast majority of issues/problems addressed by FSC require a tremendous expense, and membership dues are used to cover those expenses. When FSC fights .xxx, we don?t make any money; we spend a great deal of money. When FSC fights Cal/OSHA, AHF, and the LA Country Department of Health in order to prevent mandatory condoms, we don?t make any money; we spend a great deal of money. When FSC fights Calderon and his 25% tax on adult products, we don?t make any money; we spend a great deal of money. Despite the fact that these issues affect the entire industry, those companies who pay FSC membership dues shoulder the entire burden. And, it?s important to note that FSC?s membership dues have not increased by one single penny in 30 years. Now, FSC has developed a program to fight piracy, and because we developed a pricing structure that covers the cost of hiring an attorney and administering the program, we are being accused of a ?cash grab.? Unbelievable.

If, despite the reality of what FSC is, you believe that FSC is some sort of nefarious group of parasites feasting on the profits of the adult industry, if you believe that FSC is really some secret group of opportunists living in million dollar Malibu mansions, do not join. Do not become a member. Do not give FSC one single penny. Problem solved. You have nothing more to bitch about.

Now, for those interested in looking forward and who are open to a thoughtful and organized approach to addressing the problem of piracy, both Robbie?s and Allison?s comments make is clear that I have done a poor job in communicating exactly how we got to where we are today. So, I?d like to take this opportunity to correct my mistake and tell you the story of how APAP came to be.

It began, not months ago, as Allison wrote, but rather two years ago, when FSC?s Board of Directors acknowledged the fact that ad hoc approaches to the problem were not working, that FSC had been remiss in not addressing this issue earlier, and that an organized strategy against piracy would be one of the coalition?s strategic priorities. As directed by the Board, I immediately began work on a piracy project plan.

While I do have some expertise in collective bargaining and negotiations, I have limited knowledge of that for which I was negotiating?tools that could be used to fight piracy. On Nov. 18, 2008, FSC hosted an anti-piracy summit. Speakers included Dean Garfield, Executive VP, MPAA; Lawrence Kanusher, Senior VP, Sony Music; David Kaplan, VP, Warner Bros. Studios; David Ring, VP, UMG Recordings; Steve Kang, Senior Counsel, NBC-Universal; Alasdair McMullan, Senior VP, EMI Music, Michael Huppe, General Counsel, SoundExchange; Jennifer Pariser, Senior Counsel, Sony Music; Scott Coffman, President, AEBN; Steve Hirsch, Managing Partner, Vivid Entertainment; and a number of attorneys from Jenner & Block and attorneys from Mitchell, Silbergber & Knupp.

In addition to educating myself and others about the technological solutions available and what other industries were doing, I began to ask our members, practically individually, how we should approach the problem of piracy. In January 2008, at AEE, I had dinner with Scott Coffman (AEBN), Ilan Buni (Gamelink), Eric Johnson (Sureflix), and Richard Cohen (Hotmovies). We spent hours talking about how piracy has affected their companies and the various ways that they would like FSC to proceed in finding tools and developing programs to fight it.

Then, at the xbiz conference in February, we held a meeting with producers, to discuss approaches to piracy. In attendance at that meeting were Phil Harvey and Bob Johnson (Adam & Eve), Steve Hirsch (Vivid), Theresa Flynt and Michael Klein (Hustler), Ali Joone and Samantha Lewis (Digital Playgroung), Rob Novinger and Tony Rios (Channel One), Steve Orenstein and Avi Bitton (Wicked), Bruce Lehay and Keith Webb (Titan), Frank Koretsky (IVD/Pleasure), Christian Mann and John Stagliano (Evil Angel), and Christopher Alexander (Anabolic).

Over the next year, we continued to meet. This group came up with ideas, met with our mainstream counterparts to see what they were doing about copyright infringement, met with tube sites, piloted a few mass-DMCA takedown targets, and organized multi-plaintiff litigation.

It became immediately apparent to all involved that our industry was underdeveloped as far as the technology needed to combat piracy. We met with the companies our mainstream counterparts recommended. During our initial conversations with these companies, we found that, typically, studios pay $30,000 monthly for their services. We negotiated with a number of companies and were able to develop a system where FSC would purchase the product for participating members. Through aggressive negotiations and bulk purchasing we have been able to save FSC members tens of thousands. Throughout the negotiations we made it clear that if the program did not work for the smallest of companies, it would not work at all. Now a studio can track their material, send takedown notices and receive the rest of the APAP benefits for as little as $400/month. That is a marked improvement over $30k for software alone.

FSC contracted with Gill Sperlein a very successful and aggressive copyright infringement attorney and Gill oversees the program that launched last April. APAP is a month to month program because we want to make sure that adult businesses do not feel trapped into a program they don?t like. No one has dropped the program since its inception and we have had many new members. APAP continues to grow and change as we are in constant contact with participants responding to their needs and feedback.

This week we announced that a number of tubesites have agreed to utilize APAP?s software program to block content from going up on their sites. Not only will the software block pirated content from going up, but also offer an opportunity for the content provider to monetize the traffic-the multi million viewers coming to these sites.

At the request of our participants, we are developing the same platform for filesharing sites and will roll that out by month?s end.

Working with Vobile, FSC?s APAP program will stay on the cutting edge of copyright infringement technology and working with our member participants we will continue to build on this ground-breaking program.

Thanks for addressing the issues.

I think everyone understands the desire to make a profit. But one thing which really troubles me is that I have yet to see an accounting for how these fees will be distributed among all parties involved. Not just generalities but exact figures and percentages. For instance is Manwin getting a % of all fees even when Manwin neither owns the tube in question or the content? What's the exact agreement and where exactly are the monies going. Full disclosure of fee disbursement would help a lot. I'm sure you have some sort of contract already in place among the key players so it seems odd for it to be some sort of secret if you seek industry wide participation and support.

I'll touch on technological issues once I've read more on the technology and any other options available so I will save that for a later time.

Good post DDuke...however, the companies you had meetings with in Jan. of 2008 had not YET felt the impact of piracy to the extent it became by the end of 2008/beginning of 2009. So those meetings don't mean much. Hell, I talked to so many paysite owners over the last couple of years and I can tell you flat out that at the beginning of 2008 I was still being told to "not worry about it" and "it's good advertising and branding"

Also, in regards to the cost.

Yes, I'm sure that Hollywood studios with giant budgets are getting milked pretty good pricewise. And it's great that you were somehow able to convince the software people to give us such a great break.

But again...it comes down to how effective it is versus cost.

A major studio releases "Iron Man 2" for instance. Hell yeah it's worth 30 grand to them to try and keep it down to a dull roar on pirate sites.

I release "Claudia-Marie Gets Butt Fucked By Pornhub" this week. Next week I release "Claudia-Marie Blows The FSC" and next week I release something else and so on and so forth...
BIG difference. So explaining how much the software fee for Hollywood vs. Adult is kinda pointless.

Bottom line is simple business: How much is it worth? The answer: Whatever someone is willing to pay.

Are there better solutions to keeping stuff off of ALL sites for a quarter of the $450 a month? You better believe there is.

Bottom line: You need to get this rolling on THOUSANDS of pirate sites. I'd forget the "replace vid with trailer" bullshit. That is doing nothing but forcing you to beg pirates to comply. Use the software the correct way: Auto DMCA.

And to do that you're going to need the data base of the pirate sites. Something that you don't have yet.

That's my point. You've went out and secured fancy software. And you don't have the means to implement it correctly yet (a handful of tubes so far).

It's sort of like if I went out and bought a NASCAR race car. I wouldn't have a clue what to do.

You've got a bazooka in your hands but no target at this point.

That's what I'm saying when I say you have ZERO experience. Having meetings and attending seminars isn't going to suddenly smarten you up.

I honestly think you need to drop that price WAY down real quick and try to get tons of folks on board. Otherwise I can't see the cost effectiveness of paying $450 to play video switch-a-roo with a few tube sites. And yes I know you plan on it growing. Well, like ALL businesses you need to have the correct price point for that.

And $450 ain't it. And joining the FSC to bolster you guys up a bit more...well, that's pretty smart on your part. But again...the $450 a month is gonna stop that from happening on a major scale.

It doesn't matter to me or anybody else that runs a business how fancy and "cutting edge" your software is. If I can get better results on over ten thousand pirate sites for a quarter of your price and I don't have to join anybody or anything...well, it's a no-brainer on that one.

Again, I'm not discounting the wonderfulness of this software. Just pointing out the real world here. You're asking people for a premium price and delivering about 9,990 LESS pirate sites being impacted.

You're gonna start out delivering tiny results, you may want to re-think this "Well Hollywood pays a LOT more" business strategy.

I am certainly playing devils advocate here with this discussion. I sincerely wish that you had brought this to the table with at least some of the people who have been actively dealing with piracy while you were having meetings and attending seminars. No offense. But come on man. This thing needs some pit bulls who are hands on experienced and it needs to be tweaked out to start going after ALL pirate sites.

Others have and are doing it. But best of luck on this. Maybe in a few months you'll get it all up to speed. Fastest way would be to set that shit to auto dmca and flag it after a certain period for litigation if it doesn't come down.
That would get REAL results and wouldn't depend on asking pirates to play nice. You could instantly be going after ALL sites instead of a handful (well, that is IF you had the databases of the sites all filled in with dmca info on each of the 10,000 + of them)

Just a quick point here is that you realize you get the funds first in the form of the membership & you then pay the FSC APAP, not the other way around? So you would be tracking each sale via your program & the unique identifiers to associate each sale with where it came from.

Understood. The main question is simply where are the fees paid going exactly? Say a content provider chooses the 35% option.

What percentage of the 35% in this example (if any) goes to............

1. The host tube.
2. The FSC
3. Vobile
4. Manwin (Where neither the host tube or content owner)
5. Your company (Where neither the host tube or content owner)
6. Any other party (please break down individually)

Knowing this might help considerably. I think some of us have our suspicions and the lack of this information only feeds them.

Content owner gets the 55%. Remaining % you pay to the FSC who distributes a portion to Vobile, the host tube, and the FSC retains a portion. I don't remember the exact % for each, but I recall it being close to a even split of 15% each.

Pink Visual is not a party to it. We are just a supporter seeing a larger picture that behooves the entire adult industry to minimize piracy and change the consumer perception that porn is free.

Thanks for that information. I'd really like to see something more specific though and I'd bet many reading would too. So if you or someone else could find out and state the exact % figures going to all parties that would be helpful.

Just to make sure because I guess some earlier info was wrong: 55% to content owner then and not 65%. So on the "rev share" option they pay 45% to this program then and not 35%, correct?

So you're not getting a % of any of this other than if you own the tube or the content. If so, great. I think that helps matters. But what about Manwin and their associated companies. Is the same true for them?

Manwin would get the % only on their tubes. Fabian has already posted why they are interested in using the technology on Manwin tubes and why he envisions more tubes doing the same (see page 1) There is an agreement on the technology

Fabian and I agreed to start this thread purely to educate as the technology is new to the adult industry despite years of use in mainstream.

And yes it is 55/45. I asked my earlier mistake to be corrected, I'm not sure that it was.

I could not agree more.

See thread title. See those words "Manwin"?

This is why no one wants to be involved. Content owners don't need the company RESPONSIBLE for ripping them off telling them how much they have to pay them to stop doing it.

If Manwin is involved = FAIL.

Another very valid point.

So to the question of whether you're going to delete all videos uploaded by a user who's got 3 strikes, the silence is the answer.

How predictable.

I would think DDuke and Allison would be encouraging their newfound friend to enact this as well. I guess a no-cost solution implies a 'no-profit solution' to certain parties and thus no one wants to get on board.