A recent article in Business Week Online took a look at the ongoing battle against piracy within the adult industry.
“The Pornographer vs. the Pirates,” the Business Week Online article, takes a look at larger companies like Vivid Entertainment Group and Private Media, as well as smaller ones like Jason Tucker's Falcon Foto, a company that publishes magazines like Hometown Girls and Virgins, as well as owns the rights to “two million photos and 350 million videos.”
The article goes on to say that Tucker, like many adult companies, has built a task force to combat piracy. “Seven lawyers on Tucker’s payroll chase the pirates; he has half a dozen lawsuits going right now. He also recently hired a software engineering firm to design a program to scour the Net for other unauthorized uses.” Tucker says in the story, "If we can't protect our content, we're dead."
Steven Hirsch, co-CEO of Vivid said in the article, "We lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions, a year to pirates.We just don't know."
As the article investigates closer, it reveals that Hollywood might be able to learn something on the subject of piracy from its adult brethren. As the article puts it, “Where mainstream companies fret endlessly before deciding how to proceed with new technologies and business models, the never-bashful porn industry is making some moves that may well show the way for Hollywood -- whether in thwarting pirates or adapting to digital realities.”
Read the entire Business Week Online article here
