• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, September 14, 2007

In a turn of events that will warm the heart of anyone who had to turn off his computer to stop porn pages from replicating at the speed of light, or tried to stop "adult" sites from continuing to charge their credit card after claiming that submission was for "identification only," or spent 20 minutes deleting overnight porno spam, it appears that "piracy" and amateur video uploads are giving the estimated $50 billion industry a case of ED.

DVD sales and rentals have dropped by 15% to 25% in the last year, and one porn industry executive estimates that no more than 15% or 20% of the porn in the wild is "legitimate." While legitimate porn may seem like an oxymoron, I think he means that most P2P distribution of porn is ripped off from his "industry."

It is hard to gin up any sympathy for an industry that routinely exploits kids and dumber-than-a-rock-but-have-a-great-body (however synthetic) adults, is about as deceptive online as incentivized lead generation, and offers of millions to help transfer funds from lost accounts at Nigerian oil companies. And I think in our newly religiousized government it will be pretty difficult to get legislators to lend their support to laws that in any way protect the production and distribution of footage of people sticking various things in each other's orifices. Nevertheless, a group of 65 producers, attorneys, and other porn industry, uh, members held a piracy conference last week. So far, the end result is a Web site that doesn't work. Not a promising start.

The "industry" thinks perhaps it will fight the onslaught of homemade amateur porn videos by promoting the "quality" of its professional videos. "We use good-quality lighting and very good sound," a porn producer told The New York Times last year. Hmmm--now if they could only get actors and actresses that don't look like they are working that day to keep the monkey off their backs or participating in some sort of ritual video induction into the Aryan Brotherhood. And can we get a soundtrack that doesn't seem to be lifted from a '70s action b-movie?

It has been ominously suggested that if amateur video can bring down the porn industry, it can likewise threaten the future welfare of other video content producers. This presumably from people who have no idea what goes into the funding, writing, acting, direction, production, editing and promotion of even the worst TV shows. It is one thing to set up a digital camcorder on the nightstand while you have at it with your significant-other-of-the-moment--and something else altogether to produce 42 minutes worth of drama that will hold an audience week after monetizable week until you have amassed enough content to move into syndication, where the real money is.

One might be tempted to draw a line from bloggers to the steady decline of the newspaper business--but frankly, that has more to do with the stupidity of the dead tree news industry than smart and facile bloggers.

If you are part of an industry where the cost of entry is a $300 camera and a couple of narcissistic friends who think it's pretty cool to share with the world their oral sex techniques, then you are in some serious trouble. If, on the other hand, your average episode cost is over $1 million a week, or your out-of-pocket is $200 million before the film even opens, I think you can sleep for a few more nights.