What I Have Learned From Porn (All in the Interests of Research, Natch)
Phil Hendren thinks the answer to video piracy lies with porn. Gulp.
29 Jul 2011, 14:30
Can the movie industry learn from porn?
Did you hear the news yesterday? A Judge decided that Ford, the motor car manufacturer, is aware that its car can kill people and it also knows that its cars have been involved in killing people, therefore it must be banned from selling cars to people because it is complict in deaths caused by its cars. OK, so I made that up, however what did happen yesterday is that a Judge decided, in a case brought by the Motion Picture Association, that BT, knowing that some of its users access a particular website, are complict in how those users use that website to download copyrighted content illegally, therefore BT must block the site because they're complicit.
Now there is so much I could say about the absurdity of this case. I could go on about Internet censorship; make allusions to Britain becoming China; talk about how ridiculously easy it will be to circumvent whatever BT put in place; or even suggest that the ruling is a God send for anyone in the industry of offering global VPN (virtual private network) services with no restrictions. However, I'm not going to talk about those thing, instead I'm going to talk about the MPA and what they should be doing in the hope they might read this. Let me blunt. Instead of going after your current targets which don't you take a leaf out of how the porno industry has dealt with the issue and make yourself some money?
You see, we all know, and as the hit West End musical reminded us, the Internet is for porn. Whatever you want to watch, however sick, twisted, non-deviant, degrading, grotesque or just a bit kinky and weird you may be, its out there for you baby. Available at the click of mouse you can be watching porn o all varieties, from your bog standard man/woman stuff, up to the scatological and even the bizarre like lesbian dwarfs mud wrestling with transsexuals (OK, so I just made that up but I bet it's out there)... and guess what kids.... it's all free..... well sort of.
You can watch this stuff on sites that are like YouTube but exclusively for porn. Don't believe me? Here's a test for you. Think of a sexual term, type it into Google and put the word "tube" after it. If you don't find anything then frankly you're not being imaginative enough, however, if you are imaginative what you will find is the ability to watch many short clips from porno (three minutes etc if you know what I mean *nudge nudge*) along with full "scenes" from other pornos (that's the sex that comes between the thinly veiled attempt at a plot). Crucially you'll notice that the quality is not great, it's just a little Youtube style window etc, but, and this is wher the porn industry has figured out, you can watch the stuff in glorious HD at a price - because you need to see wrinkle detail right?
This is the route the movie industry should be taking. Offer stuff free in low quality and charge subscriptions or one off payments for high quality. Seriously, if you want to stop the mainstream sharing copyrighted content (the hardcore will carry on anyway but will be small) then the quickest and easiest way is to offer the stuff for free but make the quality so poor that people will want and be willing to pay for it in higher quality.
Now that I've made this argument, I believe it is your cue to comment upon my extensive knowledge of porn.
Comments (11)
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The cost of making porn is negligible compared to what the big studios spend on making a single movie. While I can understand the reason, to blame BT or any service provider is daft.
29/07/2011 15:00In 2005 the global porn industry according to Forbes was worth £30bn a year. Just saying.
29/07/2011 15:08I was talking *making* a movie as opposed to making a porn movie. If porn industry is worth £30 billion, I guess the "normal" industry is worth 10 times minimum or more?
Then there's distribution, marketing, CGI, music, subtitles, censor depending on the movie rating and endless other hoops that the porn industry avoids.
Just mentioning.
29/07/2011 15:28Errr you seem to be under the impression that porn is low budget? Pirates XXX - thats a parody of Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl - starring some superly massive stars of the hardcore porn world had a million dollar budget.
Oh yes, and the NY Times review of the film said "a relatively high-budget story of a group of ragtag sailors who go searching for a crew of evil pirates who have a plan for world domination. Also, many of the characters in the movie have sex with one another." - classic review.
29/07/2011 15:42Phil, I do understand and appreciate [hehe], some porn movies cost a fucking lot. However if you look at the whole range of the number of movies made and do an average on the budget, the porn industry is *no where* close.
Forget Holloywood, Bollywood, naah, let's consider a smaller fish than that, nick named Kollywood [ Kodambakkam in Madras / Chennai where many South-Indian studios are located] produces on avarage 300 odd movies a year, roughly in 4 languages [Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telegu]. Each movie cost a LOT to make. For every *average* [budget wise] movie you could make atleast 5 *good* quality porn movies in Hollywood, like the Pirates XXX.
However we are talking numbers that's in the range difference between PC and Mac users, worldwide.
29/07/2011 16:04You are right but I would de-construct your suggestions slightly. I actually believe there is little or no need to offer the content up for free in poor format.
What we really need is the ability to buy, easily, understandably, a simple interface that provides quick and instantaneous supply of product. Apple are getting there, they have such great knowledge from their domination of the digital music market that they're in pole position to capitalise on the guaranteed market that is the film/tv download market.
However, there are two factors that are restricting the growth of this market place. Speed of internet (in most areas downloading 4gig HD files is too long to do on anything other than a torrent, where you can pick up from where you left off). The second is the paranoia of the major film distributors.
Speed will get better, technological progress dictates that it will. As for the distributors, they'll get it eventually. My fundamental point is that the customer hears about something and they want it, one click away purchase power. Currently they do this by downloading watching illegal bootlegged files, you give them an easy, affordable, legitimate way of doing this. Most importantly it needs to be as soon after cinema release as is viable, 3-6 months, not 18.
It's taken years for the music industry to arrive at the point it's at now, a point where the industry has changed but where revenue is good for those who have embraced the new media. (If you're interested in the subject, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is an industry leader and capitalisation of the internet, there's a Michael Masnick case study on his ideas and experiments kicking about on You Tube, it's compelling viewing).
FYI - I am a digital media manager at a record company.
29/07/2011 16:44Am confused now, you seem to be missing the point about Hollywood changing the pricing and sales strategy in line with the movement of technology.. like porn and incidentally music has done.
A wider point tho is that the porn industry are absolute pioneers on the digital platform and have led the way with the technology and maximising its exploitation.
29/07/2011 16:48Note: Comment above was being typed when Andy N made the same point about the music industry finally waking up.
29/07/2011 16:57What I was trying to say is, the porn model cannot be applied to regular movies. Watching sub standard quality porn to watching sub standard quality movie are different.
I'd watch low quality Pirates XXX but would rather not with Pirates of the Caribbean. It's also easier to "clip" porn movies without the plot and upload them in segments with the juicy bits.
I don't understand how the same model would work, I don't have the answer, but as I said, blocking / banning them at a ISP level is daft and isn't going to work.
Who ever comes up with the silver bullet solution is going to make a fortune.
29/07/2011 17:07@Mahesh, you don't understand the point about low quality "previews". They are teasers designed to attract you to watch the full HD thing at the cinema or to buy the DVD/BlueRay to own and watch when you want.
Because it is free it satifies all those who would pirate but because it's also controlled by the distributer/promoter the viewer can be encouraged to check out other products which they may be instead. Most people who pirate films do it on th basis of try before you buy.
You will always get some who do it because they don't want to pay at all, but you can ignore them becasue they will be the minority.
01/08/2011 20:29There's an even bigger problem though
A new movie I wanted came out.
I log on to iTunes and it's £12.99 to download a digital copy. I go to Tesco/Asda/etc and I can purchase that very same movie on DVD for £8.99 as this week's special offer.
On who's planet is a digital copy worth £4 more when you have manufacturing costs, storage, delivery, etc when iTunes has a one off conversion cost, bandwidth and storage costs which cannot cost more than the physical copy surely?
Until the industry stops ripping off customers for going digital only they will lose.... simple as that.
02/08/2011 10:10