SAN FRANCISCO—Heralding what all involved hope is a new spirit of cooperation and teamwork in the industry, the websites xnxx.com and xvideos.com, and a group of industry studios, have announced a partnership to identify and remove pirated content using Vobile’s MediaWise software.
Faced with the ever-present problem of hunting down their stolen content, the studios—Titan Media, Adam & Eve, Evil Angel, Digital Playground, Hustler Video, Raging Stallion Studios, Wicked Pictures, New Sensations, and Zero Tolerance—have opted to offer the carrot before turning to the stick. This is the first partnership of its kind between content producers and user websites.
“While the studios are willing to litigate if necessary, litigation isn’t always the best option—especially when the websites like xvideos.com and xnxx.com are eager to jump into the fray to help find and remove pirated material from their sites,” said attorney Gill Sperlein, who, along with the Free Speech Coalition, helped broker the partnership.
Using MediaWise, the studios can fingerprint their libraries of videos, and then the websites can filter user-uploaded clips through the software to identify copyrighted material. Then, instead of just removing the content, the website can replace it with a teaser clip and an affiliate link back to the copyright holder’s website.
“It’s a win-win solution,” said a spokesperson for the studios. “Sometimes copyright holders have no choice but to bring down the hammer. But, if given the option, we’d much rather work with websites than sue them. We’re very excited to have xvideos.com and xnxx.com as our partners in this pioneering effort.”
The announcement of the partnership comes on the same day as the announcement of the settlement by Ventura Content AVV, parent company of Pink Visual Productions, and Manwin group of companies, parent company of Brazzers, and previous parent companies Mansef Inc. and Interhub, in the copyright infringement lawsuit Ventura filed in February of this year.
For more information about the FSC’s Anti Piracy Action Program (APAP) visit www.fscapap.com.
