SYLMAR, Calif. - The PAK Group, a consortium of adult producers dedicated to fighting video piracy, plans an industry presentation in March to raise awareness and increase membership.
Growing out of a summit of production heads in April 2007, the PAK Group was formally founded and incorporated a little over a month ago by Hush Hush Entertainment owner Andrew Stoddard and Falcon Foto's Jason Tucker. So far, 17 companies have joined the group, including Shane's World Studios, Antigua Pictures, Kink.com, VCX and Teravision, and more are about to come on.
"This is content producers coming together for the sole purpose of enforcing their intellectual property rights," explained Tucker. "It's really simple. We identify our stuff on either a bootleg DVD or on a website, and we find out who owns that and we send you a letter, and if you don't settle with us, we sue you."
Tucker said that his company has been pursuing pirates for about three years, but "to date, it's been very expensive to go this road alone. Now, the cost is being distributed amongst multiple companies, and it makes our ability [greater] to get more people."
The larger purpose of the PAK Group, however, is "sending a message," Tucker said, "that this is not going to be tolerated. So you need to think twice about it and you really need to stop, because if you keep doing it, we're going to find you. And then it's going to cost you everything you have."
Tucker compares the PAK Group to the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America.
"The consolidation of adult content producers under one company moniker for the sole purpose of enforcing intellectual property rights on behalf of the rights owners [is] brand new in the industry," he said. "Nobody's done this before ... not in our business."
The PAK Group will be working with the Free Speech Coalition and the Global Anti-Piracy Agency to fight piracy, which Tucker feels affects everyone working in the adult industry today.
"Whether you're a content producer or not, you're affected by this if you exist in our business," Tucker said. "And it hurts. It hurts everybody on different levels. So I think the message is, if you don't get behind this, you should at least think about how you go about choosing who you do business with, because that alone can effect some change."
To learn more, visit thepakgroup.com.
