Adult is the content most often downloaded via peer-to-peer networks, according to consumer and retail information group NPD Group.
Adult content accounted for nearly 60 percent of the material downloaded via P2P file-sharing networks in U.S. households with members who regularly use the Internet. The study also found 8 percent (six million) households downloaded at least one digital video file during the third quarter of 2006. Television content (20 percent of households) and mainstream movie content (5 percent of households) rounded out the figures.
The numbers represent a growing concern among adult content producers who worry that earning money from content that can be downloaded illegally easily will become more difficult in the future.
“Our biggest concern is that five times as many people are stealing adult content online as are paying for it,” said Keith Webb, vice president of Io Group, the parent company of Titan Media, a leading provider of gay adult content through its DVD releases and its website, TitanMen.
“As adult always leads the way in online technology, we are letting people get used to not paying for adult content,” Webb told AVNOnline.com. “Once they get it for free, it gets harder and harder to get them to pay for it.”
As Webb noted, “Video-on-demand and pay-per-view distributors such as AEBN, Maleflixxx, and NakedSword have the most to lose in this scenario.”
Webb suggested studios contribute a percentage of proceeds from VOD sales into a legal fund designated toward combating online piracy.
Io Group’s attorney, Gill Sperlein, added, “It is clear that very soon most adult content will be delivered online, and in that environment rampant piracy can be devastating. Titan Media has understood this for some time. Piracy is the number one threat to the adult industry, but until now only a few studios have taken any effort at all to fight it.”
Webb continued, “We all know that online distribution is the future. The amount of revenue and business to be had going forward is tremendous, but unless we all pull together as an industry and start doing something to prevent piracy, then we all stand to lose much more than we gain.”
