The hilariously ironic thing about SOPA supporters...
 

Regardless of your spot on the totem poll in the adult world the amount of money to be made from taking advantage sites with user generated content surpasses anything you make in this industry. You are supporting a bill that could harm sites that are actually relevant in 2012 hoping to prop up a business model that is going to continue to suffer regardless of what bill is passed or even if piracy is wiped out completely.

You know those people that hopped on the adult train in the late 90's and made easy money? While you're busy bitching about things you can't change others are taking advantage of these new resources and getting a huge head start.

Think about that.

The way I see it, is after watching what's happened over the last 3 to 4 years...
the only people who are profiting are the sites who allowed user uploads of stolen content and then deliberately removed the watermarks and started selling ad space to dating, cams, penis pills, etc.

I know what you think you know. But can you tell me one good example of somebody (an affiliate) who is somehow taking advantage of these sites and seeing great sales from them (and doesn't actually own one of the big sites)?

'Cause I see what my affiliates do in 2011. And it's about 1% of what they could do in 2007 for sales and traffic.

When I talk directly to other program owners it's the same thing. We are all generating our own traffic for the majority of sales in 2011.

What I'd like to see is a post that actually says something to explain how this great new system of making tons of money off of full scenes works for any affiliate that doesn't own the illegit tube or torrent or file share site.

If it's so great and so much money is being made...then where are all the affiliates? And where are all their sales? And why have so many people been fired from so many companies over the last few years. And why are the shows and conventions like a graveyard in comparsion to what it used to be?

Surely there should be a whole new wave of genius affiliates who have mastered the intricacies of this incredible gigantic money making machine called piracy and all the companies in the porn biz should be having the biggest year of all time in sales.

But what we see in reality is just the opposite.

I'd like you to point me to the affiliates that are making great money. And when I say "great money" I mean the kind of money that I made as an affiliate. High 6 figures to 1 million dollars a year.

Where are they? And if they are out there...how come every program owner I talk to is doing the same thing as me...generating their own traffic and sales for the majority of their revenue?

I'm being completely sincere in this question. In my opinion I can outsell anybody in any situation. (I would assume that all of you have the same attitude or you wouldn't be in the game). So instead of reading posts about all this greatness that's out there with these scores of affiliates who are just raking it in...I'm saying: "Where are they and why is the affiliate model on life support if this is true?"

Robbie, I wasn't talking about tubes. I agree with you, tubes helped fuck the industry faster than should have been natural. I don't keep tabs on them but I assume they are still filled with stolen content, even the ones that promised to clean up their acts? I don't like anyone having their content stolen, it pissed me off when I was looted and I'm just a nobody that had some tiny ass sites in the big scheme of things.

I was talking more about YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and all of the other sites that benefit from user uploaded content. The way people consume online is shifting hard. Hell, how many people read Facebook exclusively these days? No searching Google, no leaving the closed system. If you don't have a presence there you are seeing less and less opportunities to even introduce a surfer to your website. Built in friends, dating opportunites, games, search, chat, news, shopping and everything else the casual users do online.

As for your affiliate question, I don't know anyone promoting porn and doing a million a year currently. I've honestly only talked to a few pure affiliates in the last 10 years that really knew what they were doing. Sure there are some that are obviously smart on GFY but I have no idea what they really make.

You know what is ironic?

A guy that doesn't produce content or has to battle the pirates arguing about how wrong SOPA is.

I don't produce porn content. I produce a lot of shit that is still easily stolen and has been stolen going back to 2001 when I got into this business. In fact, I've been accused of stealing my own damn scripts because some asshole was selling them cheap on his piece of shit website filled with hundreds of other scripts that were almost certainly stolen as well.

Now what's the magic bullet to stop that, SOPA? I really don't think so.

I totally agree about using social networking for sales. We are killing it with sales from youtube, twitter, facebook, digg, and tumblr

Are you really of the opinion that SOPA is going to take those sites down?

I know that youtube has really cleaned it's act up a lot. Most major artists and companies have their own "channel" now. And Facebook....that one's a tricky beast already. Just ask anybody in porn who has had their profile taken down for no reason at all. The only reason CM"s is still up is because the guys at Facebook are fans of hers and when it got taken down she communicated with them directly (they thought her profile was an impersonator at first).

So I would think that Facebook will be just fine. They police the crap out of it already (as does youtube).

Twitter isn't even a concern with that is it? At least I don't think so.

Anyway...I agree 100% that social networking sites are great tools if you can back it up with what you're selling. We use our band as a legit "mainstream" way to use social networking and then the whole thing kinda takes on a "viral" life of it's own.

I just don't agree that SOPA is going to take down Facebook, or youtube, or google. I think that Google may be held to the fire to clean up it's act (the "Images" tab has more copywritten content on it than any pirate site in the world...and should be eliminated and/or filtered).

go to bed.

Those sites have enough money to deal with any possible fallout. I'm worried more about similar sites that get shelved because the risk / reward is too high for a startup.

That may be something that happens too.

But right now, I know a few folks who haven't opened up porn sites for that same reason. They face tremendous legal risk (2257, etc.) right off the bat as well as very high startup costs. And with piracy the way it is now...they simply are afraid to move forward because everything will be stolen and devalued.

I'm sure it's that way for a lot of other potential businesses out there in mainstream as well. But once the environment is changed to stop stealing...those business could finally move forward and prosper.

Just saying, there are two sides to every story. I know some people (like gideongallery) are all convinced that automated user upload scripts are somehow a great leap in technology and marketing, etc.

But my personal opinion is that we simply don't know how many truly innovative ideas and technologies have been repressed while creative folks have held back waiting on a law to be enacted that would stop their work from being stolen.

I guess we'll all find out soon enough. One way or another....either this law or one very similar is going to happen. The DMCA law is too outdated and simply hasn't worked.

That isn't ironic. Alanis has a lot to answer for.

you do a lot of speculating & making assumptions with your arguments. I read the bill, & its written in legal jargon that is very difficult to follow. Unless your a legal scholar i have no idea how you draw your conclusions.

no matter. its not like voting has any power over washington. The pols listen to their campaign contributors, the guys that can cut sweetheart deals on their mortgage. so why fight amongst ourselves over something we have no control over.

I've been in this business alone for 10 years now, you have to know how to interpret bills to push adult. Anyhow, there are plenty of smart people that make similar arguments. You can find them all over the net if you look.

I'm one of those people.

I've actually switched my adult animation project to a graphic novel, because at least its a physical product.

What you have said is exactly why you really need to take some time and read the
actual bill.

What you said about DMCA is part of the problem. It is an US law.
That means nothing in China!

So faced with foreign sites not acting properly when getting a DMCA, SOPA was proposed.
When you read SOPA the focus is on "foreign websites" and "sites dedicated to theft".

See the only way to get the foreign websites to comply is to cut them off.
The DMCA will work for American sites, but that's not what SOPA is about.

Section 101 is just definitions of the terms used in the bill.

The next section in the bill is section 102 :

After section 102 is section 103 :

Youtube, facebook and twitter are not foreign nor are they dedicated to theft.


The rest of the bill deals with basic copyright law that is already legal and has been
for a long time such as streaming copyrighted material without authorization.
This is not new law!!!!!!

Other than that the bill grants immunity to sites like facebook, youtube, google etc...
for "voluntarily cutting off infringing sites".

Google cutting off a site with impunity is not something new! See thread :

My site banned by google, need advise

:1orglaugh

i don't think its that simple. Hollywood sells DVDs, they get ripped & thats how they end up in the piratesphere. claudiamarie has a protection plan, but robbie still deals with stolen content.

LA direct models...in the past I could download pics of their latest models. they updated their site so that you can't download images anymore. problem solved? no. 'cause now i just screen cap & paste into photoshop & wallah, create a jpg.

there will be tradeoffs & costs that go with SOPA. question is, do you prefer those costs to the costs of the status quo, which is rampant piracy of copyrighted content. it cost me thousands to make a bouncing boob site, it costs nothing for others to use it for their own commerce. The cost of piracy must be dramatically increased.

Exactly right, no matter what you do there will be piracy. You don't fuck over paying customers trying to tamp out something that can't be stopped either way.

Cost you thousands to make a site that you want customers to pay $350 per year for. Some single songs cost that much to produce and they sell for $0.99. Millions are spent on movies that rent for $1 or sell for $15 to $20. The economy sucks, the market has shifted and piracy is the least of your worries if getting paysite joins is your 5 year plan.

Robbie still cant stomach the idea that tides turn, fortunes come and go and he is no longer making what he used to. news flash bud; neither is anyone else. SOPA wont kill DMCA, DMCA is how the tubes operate. You are just hoping that something/anything will bring back your golden ticket... sadly, its gone.

One reason the affiliate model is dying, is because all the smart/big affiliates started their own programs. There are still a good number of people making mid to high six figures without owning any paysites, but if they want you to know who they are, they can speak for themselves.

Go back in time(say 1999) and imagine if the internet were to BAN streaming video, simply because all the TV networks got together and convinced the idiots in congress that allowing people to watch videos on the internet would kill off all TV advertising.

you cant stifle innovation simply to protect dying business models... you just can't. Pretty sure Paolo from TripleXcash learned that trying to fight RedTube.

I haven't read the actual bill yet. I probably should before forming a definite opinion then again 99% of you probably haven't either. I'm only in favor of something as drastic as SOPA if it will work worldwide. I'm also skeptical that if it is passed it will really benefit adult. I think they'll look after the movie and music industry but they won't give two shits about us.

I'm actually in favor of dismantling companies like Manwin and making them pay out retroactively all the sponsors they have used content for without permission as well as all affiliates who can demonstrate they have lost income over the piracy. I think the entire company should be bankrupted and the leaders extradited to the US to face charges on piracy. That's how strongly I feel. I believe that intent of the DMCA was never to allow the things which we are commonly seeing going on and I believe many of the people taking advantage of it deserve to have their assets seized, distributed to their victims, and then imprisoned. So I doubt anyone questions how I feel. :1orglaugh I will applaud when I see this happen.

That being said I don't want to see the government have a stranglehold on the internet either. So I'm not sure about some of things I am hearing about SOPA. Then again much of what was good about the internet has already been destroyed or is in the process of being destroyed. We're already seeing a few major companies and sites starting to take over everything and increasingly ISPs are abolishing flat rate models and otherwise trying to exploit users accessing the system. Sometimes I wonder if there is much left to save.

signupdamnit, you are correct that DMCA was probably never meant to allow what we see going on but copyrights were never meant to function as they do today either.

War on drugs is in no way even similar to piracy... with war on drugs, the consumer has no alternative, there is no way to legally get drugs, so that's why it will never get stopped...

with piracy on the other hand, there clearly IS an alternative, paying for shit like people have been doing for 1000s of years...

:2 cents:

Your example is highly flawed. All internet videos are not owned by the TV networks. The situation now and in porn is that many of these companies have content which they do not own the rights to on their sites. Some have grown very big and grew their entire operation based on piracy and loopholes in the DMCA.

Most of us aren't advocating that these people shouldn't be allowed to serve full length content which they own the rights to. Let them do that if they want and can. No one is telling them that they can't. I would suggest that they should have to also pay retroactively for their illegal use of content in the past and for unfair competition but that's just me. Let's just stop the bleeding first.

There is no "dying business model". Get piracy under control and people will pay for porn. It's just that simple. Always was and always will be.

This isn't "innovation"...it's STEALING. I easily outpaced guys like you and "adapted" just fine with every new true innovation.

But STEALING is NOT "innovation" or a "business model". It's just stealing.

The only way to "adapt" to that is to get out of the business or start stealing yourself. And we've seen both of those types of "adapting" by a lot of people already.

I'll say this for the millionth time: I am making great money on claudiamarie.com BUT...my affiliate work selling paysite memberships to OTHER paysites is hurting bad.

For you to sit back and make statements with absolutely nothing to back it up is really silly. Until YOU have skin in the game and are actually IN the porn business 100%, then you're comments have about as much weight as a checkout girl at Walmart theorizing on how to raise the companies bottom line.

Robbie, you can't compare your site to the cookie cutters you are promoting. *Those* are the ones that are dying, sites like yours will be around long after the dust settles.

I have a bad feeling you might be right if something doesn't change.

By next years Internext show it will be Manwin on one side of the room with all the companies that they beat down and bought out all popping champagne and partying...and me on the other side of the room all by myself glaring at them. lol

EDIT: I also just realized in my previous post that I used "you're" instead of "your" My grammar teacher just rolled in her grave. :(

One word... Whac-A-Mole

If you're familiar with how that phrase applies to tubes and pirate forums, then you know exactly why DMCA does not and can never work.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, you clearly don't understand the problem.

It's really that simple.

you're exactly right. But I don't know why a lot of people can't understand that when something is free, not many will actually pay money for it. It's human nature.

The digital economy has turned into an honor system. The problem with that is, not many people have either honor or ethics.

I think calling the adult paysite model outdated is a little over reaching. Adult paysites are out of fashion because of piracy, not because the model is no longer appealing to customers. Paying a monthly fee for access to media is still a pretty popular business model. I pay a monthly fee for X Box Live, Netflix, HBO, Showtime, Hulu, etc. So it's not like charging a monthly fee is some sort of crazy notion that customers aren't interested in anymore.

I'm not defending the adult paysite model, but calling it outdated means you have to call all those other things outdated as well because they are basically the same thing.

What's the difference between me paying a monthly fee for Met Art or a monthly fee for HBO? Are the business models that different that one can be called a dinosaur and not the other?

The difference is that companies like Manwin have not decided to open up tubes dedicated to pirating HBO's content. They know better because if they did Fabian would be scared to death to enter the USA.

Price points. I just watched Seasons 1 through 4 of Burn Notice on NetFlix and still have thousands of other things that I can check out. I don't get access to one content provider, I get access to piles of them for a very low price. Funny that they spent more on one show than you will ever spend on your own sites but you want triple the price.

Oh, and I guess you could say they have other revenue streams before it hits NetFlix. They sure do, they sell the seasons on DVD which could easily be done with porn (pay once and download) and they license the content to television stations that mix in some ads to generate their own profit. Sound familiar? It should, because the exact model tubes operate on.

The paysite model isn't dying, the $29.95 per month for whatever paysites YOU shit out onto the internet is what is dying. If someone got access to a large chunk of sites from multiple providers $29.95 might even fly for awhile.

You know, it's not even like it matters if you see the big picture or not. Someday soon someone will go with price points that make a much larger segment of consumers happy and you will have something else to complain about. My bet is on Manwin since they are the only ones making such bold moves lately.

Why are you talking about "my" sites that I "shit out". You're too scared to post anything you make which makes you the only marketing guy on Earth whose business model is keeping his product a secret.

I'm happy to debate with you, but you have no right to bash other sites unless you post one of your own. So stay on topic without the personal attacks unless you have the balls to show what it is you do that is so original.

But besides that, the reason HBO costs slightly less is because more people subscribe to it since it appeals to a larger market. You always pay more for a niche product with a smaller customer base. For example, a company that makes armored cars sells them for hundreds of thousands of dollars because the market is so small for them, while Ford can sell a car for under $20K.

HBO costs nearly the same as a porn membership, yet they have literally tens of thousands of times the number of subscribers and the benefits of economies of scale. By that comparison, HBO is way overpriced compared to a porn site.

Yawn. HBO has infinitely more expenses than any porn site on earth. So if we go add up all the millions in dollars in licensing fees HBO / NetFlix / Cable TV stations pay for the content they publish and divide it by number of users you think they will be paying less than the average porn site? Economy of scale is great, but it doesn't mean they are overcharging for their content.

"Whac-A-Mole" -- SOPA will just be little better than the DMCA the pirates will just change boats.(Best it will do is to reduce their profile for a time then wash, rinse repeat.)
That is the problem.

Metaphorically and not literally -- if people want something they will do it in spite of any law -- that was my point.


If it can be digitalized the copyright will be infringed -- lock the damn door.

Don't get me wrong -- I am against copyright infringement. But incidental infringement? This board as example; one hotlinked image is infringement? Technically yes if without ownership or license but this is incidental to GFY's purpose. Same could be said of social networking domains.

Should Search Engines have their DNS delisted by USA ISPs for reason of image search, e.g.; Google Images, etc? You could easily say that the image search is predominantly infringing and they are profiting by it. However the collateral damage may be more that you expect -- think about it. Bye-bye Google and most other major search engines ... Bye-bye Search Engine Marketing ...

So to avoid this scenario, Google no longer will have image search and the "bad guys" can't be listed in the SERP results -- that is justified censorship? Is it still justified when the legal ownership of your content is voluntarily is questioned

Read the fine print and understand the difference between the words and and or

The EEF's lawyers saw this.

Voluntary action without court order, only a foreign infringing site and the action is consistent with the entity’s terms of service -- there can be no liability.

We all trust the good judgment of "a service provider, payment network provider, Internet advertising service, advertiser, Internet search engine, domain name registry, or domain name registrar ..." and give them carte blanche :helpme

The problem with this argument is that we already give them carte blanche.
You have no recourse if google bans your site or if a CC processor declines you.

You are basically against the US government saying :

"Please consider content theft in your current system of wacking shit that is shit; and we grant you the same immunity that you already have".

CCBill could cancel your website today for any number of reasons and you have no recourse.

Paypal already canceled the entire porn industry as a whole without any recourse.

This bill is not changing the power of these companies, it's just asking for a focus on
content theft.

Now they already delete a CP site, a virus spreading site, a warez site, an incest site,
a racially hateful site, a fraudulent billing site, a spamming site.............

But OH NO! Not a content theft site!!!!!


:1orglaugh


Get real MoFo.

Yes they were. They were meant to protect the creators of a product from every Tom, Dick and Harry thinking he can "share" his one copy with the world.

How much on Youtube is "User generated" and how much was generated by someone else and uploaded by a Tom, Dick and Harry thinking he can "share" his one copy with the world? The same on Twitter and FB.

When it comes to porn, we know the % of full scenes that are made by couples at home to the number of pirated scenes. So why if the technology changes shouldn't laws change or be passed to update the original intention of the laws? Just because we have the Internet today, should we abandon the protection of the creators to create and profit from their work?

What about murder laws, we now have tasers, if you kill someone with a taser, should it not be included in the law on murder? Extreme ridiculous example, but you get what I mean. Should forums that exist solely on pirated content be aloud to make money on their linking of pirates?

They make money by selling ad space or traffic. Where was the traffic you are selling coming from. Should you be allowed to profit from some Tom, Dick and Harry thinking he can "share" his one copy with the world. By selling the traffic that goes to download it?

I think many peoples views here are tainted by their benefits or losses from piracy. I just looked at some free tones and was amazed at the amount of music from top bands that I should be and will pay for, being available for free. Did the copyright holder give his permission or did some Tom, Dick or Harry, decide to share it with the world?

Pirates need to be blasted out of the water.

Your right, the flaw is not in my logic though, its in the application of SOPA's logic. All internet videos are not owned by TV networks, just like NOT ALL internet videos are pirated. Just as NOT ALL content on sites that SOPA will hurt without due process is violating any law.

scenario A: OMG there are stolen videos on the internet, lets remove videos from the internet
scenario B: OMG there are stolen videos on that site, lets remove the entire site.

Do try and remember, the DMCA is LEGAL, whether you like it or not.

Unlike most of GFY posts who are sci-fi, your ones are often quite saying the real status of this biz :)

We run cams, most new users come from our own purchase of traffic directly from "tubes" (most of which are indeed made of not so licensed content, one italian director friend of mine found in such a tube one of his late 1990's movies and he was even happy as he lost his own copy LOL), or indirectly via banner networks appearing on tubes, and sites related to tubes (CJ's traffishop/trafficholder etc. which feeds the tube and tube pay back $1 per 1000 uniques or so).
We have nearly no affiliates, except plugin in member areas, so programs it is 90% of our affiliates, and sadly to say (but I surprise no one) their pay users decrease every year, so the future it seems to buy from tubes and sites who link exchange with tubes etc.

It is not the fault of the cam sites, that we get same or more sales from pirate sites, than from other sources, it is mostly a matter of total amounts: a pay site member area can have a conversion 1:10 but send me 10 and every year sends me less (and I don't see so many new programs or sites launched?), a tube convert 1:10,000 but sends me a million, and new tubes are out every day, so do your math, from where a cam site should get its traffic in order to grow? I assume pills and dating it is same. No idea hw it is for pay sites with prerecorded content, I do cams to have not to think at this.

I reported other times here, that by accident (due to ad networks) we got our banners (or skimmed traffic redirects) from full DVD and site rips sites - not tubes with 320x240 video, I mean sites with collection of the whole HD content of a member area uploaded in rapidshare links - or dvdrip - and we GOT SALES, pay users. What we should do - we are not hero's, we want signups.

We used to buy ads from cam4.com too - this is user generated by for real, by live cams, nothing stolen. Tried to buy ads in chaturbate too but they no more advertise other cam sites and I can understand it, since they support now private and group etc.
Maybe to "fight" the stolen content (pirate user uploaded) sites, there should be more "user generated" esp. live sites. As it is cam4 or chaturbate - or our tubecamgirl. A live cam stream can be a recorded (stolen) video too, but it is very rare as it can be caught quickly (chaturbate have a "this is recorded" button that users can click to vote that this is not live), so you should know that all what it is in site, it is user generated live and so not (pirate collection) user uploaded.

But really user generated sites like that can be counted on fingers of 1 hand, while pirate user uploaded ones (I will not comment on tube owner uploading himself lol) are infinite - this is because it is easier and cheaper to setup, and there are traffic networks you can join quickly and bringing income, all quite solid and tested, nothing really custom or new.

One final thing: you can put out of the DNS some major tube domain names, and major torrent and "rapidsharing" sites, but the minor torrent searching tools are quite hard to shut down them all. With big tubes (and let's have rapidshares and netsonic's) out of dns, more people would move to plain torrents with trackers backups. We will see.

adultmobile..I have no doubt that you get most of your cam revenue from buying ads from big tube sites. That's where the traffic is these days. Hell...why would anybody be anywhere else when all the porn in the world is being given away for free.

My hope is that we can get this industry back to a healthy place. Our TGP's used to do 1.2 million uniques a day and we made a fortune with both paysite sales AND cam sales.

But as you know...paysites have been destroyed because of piracy...and all the traffic is at sites full of stolen content.

Here's my thought: Get the STEALING out of the equation. That makes the actual PORN more valuable again. Now the traffic moves to legitimate free sites that don't have "user generated"/stolen porn and are designed to actually sell paysite memberships.

Now your content producers are healthy again. And production gets back to where it should be. Legitimate tubes, blogs, and tgps once again have traffic and send sales to paysites, cam sites, toys, pills, etc.

In other words the way the business is supposed to run.

Take the stealing out of the equation and everything changes.

As far as torrents, etc. I can't speak on what would happen. I would hope that they would be able to be shut down, shut off, and if necessary thrown in prison if they steal.

I'm hopeful this law or something similar is enacted and that once again honest people will be able to make a decent living and you will be able to buy traffic from people like me again with much better ratios than what you're currently getting from illegit tubes.