Stick a Fork in Porn - Death By Corporatization

[NashVegas]

http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69351,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

There's a widespread notion that pornographers eagerly jump on new technology long before it goes mainstream, but with Apple Computer's new video-playing iPod, the adult industry is largely staying away.

With a couple of exceptions, porno producers are in no hurry to provide stag movies for the iPod, thanks to fears of a public outcry and a government crackdown.

"We can't blindly walk into this," said L.R. Clinton Fayling, president of Brickhouse Mobile, a Los Angeles company that is licensing adult material for mobile phones.

"We want to be conservative in investigating the opportunity of the iPod, to see how we can make money, what are the specifications, and what kind of safeguards are in place," he said.

When has the porn industry ever worried about public outcry? It's gotten way too big, way too safe.

[Loonman]

1. Stag movies?

Who the hell says that anymore? Phoney baloney hipsters like the WIRED writers, that's who.

[khashka]

3. Yeah, that struck me as odd too

Stag movies went out with Eisenhower.

What an odd little article...

Khash.

[LeftyMom]

2. Why would anyone

want to watch porn on such a tiny screen anyhow? I mean we used to program little stick figure porn clips into our graphing calculators in high school, but that was just for a captive audience that would do anything to avoid actual math. I can't imagine paying for actual video on the same size screen (maybe once for the novelty value,) you couldn't see much.

[NashVegas]

4. The Same People

Who'd watch it in 90 pixel-wide QuickTime formats

[mongo]

5. calculator porn?

Oh, my.... :rofl:

Now that's some geeky porn (and I mean that in the nicest possible way).

[LeftyMom]

6. It beat actually doing math

:shrug:

Yes, I'm a geek.

[Taverner]

9. Two words: public bathroom

One can take care of biznets anywhere...

Trust me, the first pornographer to make this available for the ipod, will be rich.

Trust me on that.

[mongo]

7. It's not so much "corporatization"

Because the companies making porn range from one-man shows to large companies, but the companies are still closely held family corporations.

The only exception is Private Entertainment, which is mostly a European company. You can't buy stock in Vivid or LFP (Hustler) on Wall Street.

No, the industry is being attacked on multiple fronts, and is shaking in their boots. Instead of starting new ventures into new technology, they are buliding war chests to fight the government, or at least be able to pay huge fines and still stay in business.

Major players are rolling over instead of standing to fight too. Too many people and companies were destroyed in the 80's when the last government crackdown occurred. With RICO you can lose your entire company for a federal obscenity charge now. Easier to just let the government extort money out of your company than take your chances with a jury.

[NashVegas]

8. Family Ownership? That's Changing

The producers may be small - but think of the distributors. It's not just the smelly storefront.

This is what I'm referring to:

http://www.insightmag.com/media/paper441/news/2001/01/08/CoverStory/Porn-500-210808.shtml

Fortune 500 companies are swooping down from their financial kingdoms to compete in the pornography industry for a market flush with profits, growth potential and increasing public tolerance.

Porn is being downloaded, ordered, rented and tuned in at startling rates across America. And, with millions of customers spending billions of dollars on pornography, corporate America is starting to compete for a piece of that pie. In 1999 pornography sales in the United States exceeded $10 billion - a market so lucrative that even blue-chip companies such as General Motors Corp. (GM) and AT&T Corp. have jumped into the dirty game. These two Fortune 500 companies are piping pornography by cable and satellite feeds into American homes, providing distribution that porn producers require to increase their production of smut, perversion and filth.

Bryn Pryor, managing editor of Adult Video News Online (AVN), hails the entrance of corporate America as essential to the growth of pornography in the domestic market. "It's more distribution for the industry, so it's all to the good. It's more places for them to sell their product," Pryor tells Insight. He is optimistic about the growth of video production the added cable and satellite distribution will create.

With net sales and revenue of $177 billion in 1999, GM is the largest company in the world, operating in more than 55 countries. Through its ownership of Hughes Electronics and DirecTV, a satellite-TV company, it has a reach of 9 million homes throughout America, offering each family news, sports, movies - and porn. Or, as DirecTV labels it on their Website, "provocative entertainment from the leaders in adult entertainment."

[mongo]

10. So, GM and AT&T are part of the adult industry now?

Such a small portion of their overall profits are derived from adult entertainment that they have absolutly no bearing on the business. They don't fund productions, they don't fund forays into new technology, etc.

They buy productions to show on their pay-per-view services - period.

They are not the ones risking their freedom and livelyhood to provide entertainment. They aren't the ones marketing the DVD's into the adult stores. Calling GM part of the adult industry is like calling McDonalds part of the weight loss industry.

Nice balanced article too "providing distribution that porn producers require to increase their production of smut, perversion and filth."