Stealing. It’s Bad: Cyber Pirates at the Gate

In Sunday’s Variety there is a very interesting article regarding pornography and piracy - certainly an issue both the mainstream and the adult businesses have had to deal with head-on. All this piracy talk got me thinking about an article I wrote awhile back about, that’s right, stealing content. I figured all the information and comments still applied. So what better time than the present to track down old copy I toiled over and re-purpose it in the name of creativity and self-absorption?

Anyway…here comes the headline.

Thou Shalt Not Steal: Copyright Infringement Is Not Only A Sin, It's Against The Law

The Eighth Commandment - that's the one about ripping people off - is sandwiched between "Thou shalt not commit adultery" and "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." It's a simple enough message to understand, touching all of the big injustices, from cheating and dishonesty to fraud and gambling. Although it's safe to assume the scribe of the 10 rules to live by couldn't have imagined the Internet and its machinations, the part of the Eighth Commandment that reads "respect what belongs to others" has become grayed in relation to digital content and those who steal said work of others for their own personal gain.

Copyright abuses of the written word, music, film, and any other material "that constitutes ownership of a verifiable expression of ideas," are protected under Copyright Law of the United States of America. However, the advent of the World Wide Web has created a host of new copyright questions and the search for a modicum of protection. Web-based commerce destinations and/or individual websites continuously struggle to thwart cyber thieves and their unauthorized use of images and other content.

The Wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the righteous showeth mercy and giveth (Ps: 37:21)

A copyright case like Napster versus the music industry or the MPAA versus movie pirates everywhere grabs headlines with its ready-made storylines for TV news and legal ramifications affecting the pop culture audience. Yet most cases of cyber theft fly under the radar of mainstream media, especially when a vast number of victims are players in the adult entertainment business. "In the adult world, there's a perception that adult stuff is illegal, even though it isn't," says David Levine, host of the WCOOL.com radio show and president of Convergence Inc., a company that aligns websites (Sextoy.com, SextoyClub.com, SextoyCatalog.com, and others) designed for affiliate revenue sharing. "But when something is illegal, that might make people that are crooked feel a bit more emboldened or justified to steal it or to create havoc."

Adult DVD Empire (www.adultdvdempire.com) feels that pain. A popular e-commerce website that sells DVDs, VHS tapes, CD-ROMs, and adult novelties, AdultDVDEmpire.com has been infringed upon on more than one occasion. "What happens in this industry is any competitor of ours comes out, takes all of our box covers, downloads them, and puts them on their page," says Jeff Rix, president and founder of Adult DVD Empire. "I don't think any of our competitors have entered a synopsis. They just take ours."

"Copy and paste" is how J.T. Smith, the company's marketing manager, sums up the pirating. Thieves can easily swipe material, leaving behind a trail of legal and economic headaches for the victimized company to deal with.

Beyond legal recourse, there are few options for protection, but making an example of pirates in court can be an effective deterrent. "Try to take a few of the biggest offenders to court; that's all you really can do," Rix says, adding that his company has begun watermarking to deter theft and also to make it easier to present evidence against those who have stolen material from their Website.

Of course, cyber pirates are already developing techniques to erase said watermarks. "There's just not much you can do," Rix says.

"I tell people, 'If you're selling our pictures through our affiliate program, then [you] can use the pictures,'" says WCOOL's Levine. He may be relaxed about providing content to program members, but he keeps a close watch on outright theft. "I'm trying to have a system that can not be beaten just by someone copying me. I try to make it where it's just not that simple."

To that end, Rix and his staff at Adult DVD Empire have worked to build a solid infrastructure with a variety of product, good customer service, and a reputation for legitimacy, which, they believe, will help to set them apart from knock-off sites that may have stolen content. Nevertheless, a cyber thief can virtually take each aspect of their site in a few months' time and apply it to a new, competing Website.

"We have to put out a cease-and-desist order for just about every competitor that comes up," says Rix. It seems, he says, that nary a week goes by without a phone call to the lawyers. In most of the cases where Rix's team finds infringement, the legal strong-arming does its job. "Most of the people cooperate," says Rix, "but never to the degree we wanted them to."

But Rix also puts the onus of the copyright issue squarely on the adult companies that "set up these morons. The studios don't care that these sites have stolen all our copyright materials and now they're competing with us. They don't care." Rix concedes that there are companies that support his Website's battle against cyber theft, but by his estimate, "80 percent of the companies couldn't care less."

Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work (Jer. 22:13)

Like Adult DVD Empire, erotic photographer Suze Randall (www.suze.net) has taken steps to thwart infringers. The acclaimed photographer, who has shot for Hustler, Playboy, and Penthouse magazines, is possibly the single most pirated erotic photographer in cyberspace - at one time, as many as 5,000 sites were illegally profiting from Randall's work.

Utilizing in-house monitoring, as well as a spidering device from BayTSP (www.baytsp.com) - a leading provider of anti-piracy and copyright tracking services to the digital media market - and the services of The Association For the Protection of Internet Copyright (APIC, www.a-w.org, www.apic-adult.com), Randall's husband and business partner Humphry Knipe has devised a powerful front against would-be cyberpirates. Additionally, fans and members of Randall's Website and affiliate program (www.pics4clicks.com) play a large role in reporting illegal uses of Randall's content. "Quite often, if I find somebody I particularly don't like I get them hit from all three sides," Knipe says. "And that usually blows them out of the water."

Sometimes, cyber pirates fight back; in those cases, Knipe says, his attorney is "just so happy to hear that. Because then he'll go right after them." But litigation can be a time-consuming and costly endeavor. Says Knipe: "Some of these suits can last for years, but generally speaking, people aren't stupid enough to go that route because they know perfectly well that at the end of the line they're going to lose and they might not have any money to pay the damages. Besides, their lawyers' fees alone are gonna kill them."

"The most important thing to know is the significance of registering your copyrights and depositing them in the Library of Congress," says Clyde DeWitt, partner at the law firm Weston, Garrou & DeWitt. "If a copyright infringement activity begins before registration occurs, then you lose the benefit of being able to recover statutory damages and attorneys' fees."

DeWitt says the severity of the problem is partly due to the fact that it takes very little money to start a Website; also, if the site is based overseas, it is more difficult to enforce copyright protection. "The first two problems are, one, finding the guy, and secondly, even if you find him and you've registered your copyrights and you win the case and get a judgment, you can't get blood from a turnip."

While legal action is the normal course for most who come under copyright attack, legendary adult star and activist Nina Hartley remains unconvinced the judicial system will ever fully embrace the adult industry. "I don't think the court system takes it very seriously, because they say, 'Oh man, it's just smut, what do they care...you get in bed with pornographers, what do you expect?'"

Like many others, Hartley believes cyber theft is part of the price of doing business. "People are going to steal what they can and get away with what they can."

Hartley says a performer like Jill Kelly, who has a large ownership stake in her personal content, is most at risk. While Hartley is not in the content business, she can claim ownership of her name. "After all these years, my name is something I have trademarked and it is my property. It is considered by the government to be my property." Accept no substitutions.

He that overcometh shall inherit all things (Rev. 21:7-8)

"Things are so much better now than they were two years ago," says Suze.net's Knipe. "Two years ago, you could see Suze Randall pictures everywhere; now it's not that easy to find them outside of the pics4clicks program. People are aware of the fact that they are gonna get these nasty emails from all sorts of different directions very quickly."

WCOOL's Levine concedes that someone could copy material from his database, but he believes variation and innovation keep his site a step ahead of cyber thieves. "By the time they copy it, it's changed," he says. "There are so many ways to search and surf and to use the site; it's not even just the content, it's the ability to access the content, and that content is always changing and growing."

While progress has been made to curtail the theft of digital property, most are willing to accept the fact that it has become a part of the overall tapestry of the Internet business. "It's always going to be a back-and-forth," says Levine. "They'll come out with new technology that you can't copy, and the copiers are going to develop a new technology that figures it out."

And as the adult industry attempts to outfox the thieves, consider this clarion call from Jeff Rix, who is mad as hell and isn't gonna take it anymore. "We will go after anyone that takes content from our site. We will go after you."

Amen.