BURBANK, Calif.—The Free Speech Coalition recruited a sizable contingent of the adult industry's best known stars and directors to lend their faces and voices Monday night to a new public service announcement campaign to help spread the word about the damaging effects of content piracy.
Wicked Pictures contract girls Kaylani Lei and Alektra Blue, directors Axel Braun, Cousin Stevie and Will Ryder, Joanna Angel, Kimberly Kane, Ron Jeremy, Julie Meadows, Charlie Laine, Sinnamon Love, Lisa Ann and Nicki Hunter all participated in the shoot, which will comprise the first two in a series of five planned PSAs.
"Everyone, from the performers to the studio to the production crew, donated their time to raise awareness about how illegal downloading hurts all creative artists and to support this project for Free Speech Coalition," FSC membership director Joanne Cachapero told AVN. "They all gave 100 percent and we appreciate their time and effort very much."
The PSA campaign is part of a new FSC anti-piracy action program to assist producers in protecting their content against illegal pilferage. The campaign, Cachapero said, is intended to "raise awareness with the consumer about how piracy affects the whole industry, not just the performers that they see—because of course they relate to the performers probably best of all since they're right there on the screen—but also all the behind the scenes people; the production people, makeup people, cameramen, directors, etc."
The videos that come out of Monday's shoot will be posted on YouTube and made available to producers to include on their DVDs and other platforms. Of course, the looming quandary is how to reach the legions of porn "fans" who now perceive tube sites as Where Porn Comes From, and have no particularly compelling reason to seek it elsewhere ... or even a notion there might be one.
"We're attempting to at least start that dialogue," Cachapero said. "I think that a lot of what I've read in the media about how some of the other entertainment media approached it by going after the consumers seems to have backfired a little bit, in terms of the consumer getting pissed and wanting to download for free even more. Realistically, do we hope to stop piracy entirely? I mean, I think it's kind of impossible at this point."
By having performers and directors serve as voices for the industry via these PSAs, however, Cachapero said consumers might at least begin to "understand what the repercussions are, that we're not going to be able to contribute to local economies, we're not going to be able to pay taxes ... it's a whole trickle-down effect. I mean, I hope they care about that."
And if they don't care about that, she pointed out that they might just care about "the risk of having your computer exposed to Malware, Spyware ... and they're committing a criminal act."
The first anti-piracy PSA is expected to debut in about a month, Cachapero said. For more information, visit www.freespeechcoalition.com.
See a photo gallery from the PSA shoot here.
