Nate Glass is fighting porn piracy 10,000 torrents (and a few tube sites) at a time. His new company, Take Down Piracy, is the result of years of living in the little-known world of porn customer service .
Glass, now in his mid-30s, has been working in the adult business for nearly two decades, and counts Larry Flynt and First Amendment lawyer Louis Sirkin among his heroes. But, like Flynt, Glass was not a die-hard advocate of Free Speech and libertarian values from birth. It took jail time in Texas and 3-foot Kansas snowdrifts.
“I’ve been in jail 11 times for Pandering Obscenity,” Glass says. “Once you’re in the position where your rights are taken away, you develop some hard and fast theories about personal liberty.”
Glass was 20 and living in Dallas. He hadn’t been to college. He applied for a position at a small Texas adult chain called New Fine Arts that paid $7 an hour plus commission, and he got the job.
While there were definite perks, as a porn fan, to this gig, Glass says he got a warning up front.
“My manager told me, ‘There’s a chance that while working here you’ll go to jail. It’s a misdemeanor. It’ll only affect you if you want to be President.’ And I didn’t really want to be President at the time.”
At regular intervals, detectives from the Dallas Vice Squad would purchase items at the store from Glass or his coworkers and then, about a month later, the employee would receive a court summons.
“We were a really clean store,” Glass says. “Couples-friendly, tasteful billboards around town…but [the police] would try to get you on obscenity because of community standards.”
“Community Standards” is the stickiest point of the Miller Test of Obscenity, a 3-part regimen developed during the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case Miller v. California. The other two parts, including 1.) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks “serious” literary, artistic, or political value, and 2.) whether the sexual acts depicted are against applicable state law, are much more black and white than 3.) whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards,” would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
“Prurient,” from the Latin word for “itch,” means lustful. So the job of Dallas cops was to buy movies that made them feel lustful and then bust the poor slobs who sold the movies to them.
“We knew the cops after awhile,” says Glass. “One guy looked like Sam Waterston and he would always buy the nylon and foot fetish movies. But one of the guys that gave me the most trouble was the guy who bought the Max Hardcore movies.”
The employees in the gay and transsexual side of the store rarely got busted, Glass says, because he thinks the cops “didn’t want to be seen back at the station watching tranny movies.”
At court, Glass was instructed to plead no contest to the misdemeanor charge, after which he would be given a window of time to turn himself in. Glass and his coworkers would go to jail so often that they developed a system.
“I’d show up to the jail with a hoodie sweatshirt, two quarters, and two dimes. I learned to turn myself in on a Wednesday or Thursday so I didn’t have to deal with the weekend drunks.”
The store would pay all his legal expenses, Glass says. “The store was never going to be shut down. The legal fees were just a necessary expense of doing business in Dallas.”
Glass was young and he knew the charges were ridiculous. But he loved his job.
“I still feel like I’m part of that fraternity of porn store clerks,” Glass says. “It’s a very particular group of people.”
But one day Glass decided to take a jury trial, and he won.
“I forget which Max Hardcore movie they busted me for,” Glass says. “I never saw the movie. But they played it for the jury and some of the lines were like (Glass imitates Max Hardcore), ‘I’ve got four fingers in your cunt, little girl: do you think I can get the fifth?’ (Glass imitates a Central Casting Max Hardcore starlet) ‘Oh, no, Max, I don’t!'”
Glass was getting scared. The system seemed rigged.
“I was 20. Out of a 40-person jury pool, there was maybe one guy under 30. This was not a jury of my peers. That’s why whenever I get a jury summons, I go and I don’t try to wiggle out of it. I want to be the peer on somebody’s jury.
“But porn obscenity trials are such a show. As John Stagliano says, ‘The only people who are ever forced to watch [porn movies] is the jury at obscenity trials.'”
Though he was found innocent, the trial took its toll on Glass. He followed his girlfriend (now his wife) to Austin and tried to get work as an accountant.
“But FDIC-insured employers kept seeing these Crimes Sexual in Nature on my record,” he says. “It never said that I was working at a perfectly legal porn store and it was part of the job to be in stings. And I couldn’t be on the lease for apartments for the same reason.”
(“It was insane,” Glass says. “I got busted for selling ‘Debbie Does Dallas’ in Dallas“!
“Did you really get busted for selling ‘Debbie Does Dallas’?” I ask.
“No.”)
So Glass went to work for another porn store. This time it was Dreamers in Austin.
“I worked for a guy named Doug Richards,” Glass says, “and he taught me so much. That guy is a giant. I defy you, as a customer, to have a better customer experience than you’d get at Dreamers. We wore shirts and ties, it was well lit, and it was inexpensive. Working class guys didn’t lose all their money there.”
Richards steadily promoted Glass until he became the buyer for the chain.
“Doug was shrewd and practical and fair. He donated all the late fees to charities. He just hammered in common sense principles. Bring in the new stuff, replace what’s moving. ‘It didn’t sell at this price, but it really sold at this price.’ Listen to customers. Old school stuff.
“And he would tell stories about bent-nose guys showing up to his stores in the 70s and saying ‘You don’t own this store anymore.’ So he didn’t own the store anymore. He really gave me an appreciation, along with the times I’d been in jail, that people really sacrifice for this business. And people don’t realize it.”
During his porn store days, Glass would read AVN magazine and hope to be in it. He was thrilled when he went to his first Adult Entertainment Expo representing Dreamers. In 2008 he got an opportunity to work with Hush Hush Entertainment, the studio that makes the series “Blacks on Blondes,” which was then being distributed through Shane’s World. His porn clerk skills would be put to use in a very unusual job.
“I took one of the Shane’s World RVs and travelled the country selling ‘Blacks On Blondes,'” Glass says. “I saw America through its porn stores.”
Between October 2007 and March 2010, Glass visited more than 2,000 big and small porn stores, keeping scrupulous files and building what is probably an unrivaled database.
“I am an Excel junkie,” Glass says.
Like many people who work in porn, porn itself isn’t the draw for Glass.
“Before going on the road, I remember taking the RV up to Big Bear Lake for a Shane’s World shoot,” Glass says. “We had Dana DeArmond, Sarah Vandella (who is now known as Sara Sloane), Rachel Roxx, and Amy Ried. That was a lot of drama. I don’t encourage trying it yourself. It’s the story I think of when people back home think I’ve got the greatest job in the world just because I work in porn. You don’t want to peel that curtain back…”
While on the road, Glass would find early examples of digital piracy on store shelves. Mass-copied DVD-Rs that the stores would rent to customers.
“It was pretty clear what the stores were doing,” Glass says. “I’d report back to the people I knew in the business and we had stores in Baltimore and Texas shut down.”
Glass had his wife with him (they got married in Las Vegas) but the years on the road were strenuous. The couple stayed in trailer parks, got snowed in in Topeka, had no air conditioning during a summer stint in Florida, and found that New York was the wild west when it came to porn.
“There was so much piracy there that it was impossible,” Glass says. “I’d call up a store to make a sales call and they would hang up. A lot of them would actually say ‘Don’t come here.””
When Glass finally got off the road and settled in Los Angeles, he had a better understanding of the piracy issues facing the porn industry than many trying to make a living from making porn.
Because, along with seeing evidence of piracy on store shelves, Glass began tracking instances of online piracy for is clients, and sending notice to file-sharing services and tube sites. This resulted in the creation of Take Down Piracy, a service that gives notice to porn pirates and the companies sponsoring them.
“Pornhub and Brazzers have done more damage to the porn industry than Traci Lords, John Ashcroft, and Andrea Dworkin combined,” Glass says. “These people are assholes and need to be stopped.”
[read “Connecting the dots” on Take Down Piracy]
Armed with a list of a company’s titles and a slew of customized RSS feeds and Firefox plugins, Glass will systematically get pirated content removed from torrent sites by sending DMCA takedown notices, which a server is legally obligated to heed.
1998’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) says, among other things, that an Internet Service Provider is not liable for the content traveling on its bandwidth but must take action when it is informed, via what have become known as DMCA takedown notices, of infringing content.
So if there are pirated copies of “Not Married with Children XXX” on torrent site The Pirate Bay, for example, Glass will bombard the site and its counterparts with “DMCAs.” It is a tedious and exacting job, Glass says, and now he charges companies to do it.
“Just if you consider how much one DVD would cost, retail, compared to 30,000 free torrents of it floating around,” Glass says. “My service is very inexpensive.”
While Glass hates tube and torrent sites, he has seen how the porn world, eager for a quick buck, has accommodated them.
“Penthouse owns Adult Friend Finder, for example,” Glass says, “then Adult Friend Finder advertises on all these piracy sites. I try to find out who’s behind these sites and who is giving money to them.”
But what encourages a “fan,” let’s call him Fan Zero, to upload his store-bought copy of “Pirates” to a pirate site? Altruism?
“No,” Glass says. “Tube sites pay people to upload videos and the same goes for the Cyberlocker sites like Hotfile.com and Fileserve.com, so there is a big financial incentive for the uploaders. ”
And Glass says that it is not some collection of Fan Zeros that is doing the majority of the uploading, but the tubes themselves.
“A tube site will be launched one day and by the next it will have 4,000 clips on it, all uploaded by the same ‘user,'” Glass says. “That’s not some random guy.”
The tubes and torrent sites will then sell advertising and make money from the traffic, Glass says. But he is seeing the tide turn, as the ordinary uploader is now being frustrated in his efforts to make money.
“I see commenters on the sites complaining that their videos are getting taken down due to copyright infringement and that they don’t see the value in it anymore,” says Glass. “And that’s progress.”
But haven’t we evolved into a culture that, in a few short years, expects porn for free?
“Yes,” Glass says. “There is a total sense of entitlement. I met a lawyer in New York once. And he knew the porn industry was in trouble. And he said, ‘Then why do you guys complain about the bad economy when you’re putting all your stuff online for free?’
“It was like he thought free porn was our gift to the world.”
Take Down Piracy has slowly been amassing clients prior to its official launch on November 1. To date it has removed almost a million copyright infringements.
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Post-lawsuits, Pornhub joins Deadbeat Club; “Last Man Working” archive
See also: Take Down Piracy, Porn pros hope to squelch piracy by 2012 (Ars Technica)
My hat is off to Nate and his work with TDP. I also commend you, Gram, for featuring TDP and Nate in this column. He and Take Down Piracy are not names that come to mind immediately when the majority of the industry thinks of anti-piracy resources, but he is one of the true “inside” people working on our behalf and should be supported.
A brief explanation of the level of my unkemptness:
When that picture was taken, I was a few mere days away from an anti-piracy tradeshow. I have this policy of waiting until the absolute last minute to get my hair cut and to shave before I attend a tradeshow. I want to be absolutely the sharpest I can be when meeting new potential customers. So far, my policy has worked out okay, I’ve been told I “clean up well”.
Great article Gram, it was an honor and pleasure to do this interview with you!
I figured the lack of haircut represent your dogged pursuit of Justice at the expense of an occasional trim. I’m sure Thomas Paine got a little raggedy now and then.
Thanks for the kind words Sherry. Luckily for our industry there’s a lot of new anti-piracy companies springing up….the downside is that many of these are Johnny Come Latelys that have no reputation in the biz so there’s no telling if they are on the up-n-up or not. I don’t mind being relatively unknown by the masses, though Gram’s article might change all that, I’m just glad to have the respect of my peers and I’m blessed to work with some really great people.
Good job, Nate.
For what it’s worth, us in the “legit” industry are trying to have people call it “digital theft,” which is ultimately what it is. “Piracy” lends it a romantic air that these assholes don’t deserve.
I don’t know how this will end: in many ways, this is partially the porn, music, and film industries reaping consumer discontent they sowed by throwing bad products against the wall at exorbitant prices jacked up by middlemen for so many years. But digital theft is wrong, however many specious arguments about the value of supposed “1s and 0s” you want to cloak it in, and I see every day how it affects the earnings of working performers in a deeply negative way.
Fight on.
Well put, JR. These freeloaders have indeed romanticized the term “pirate” as if they’re all a bunch of eye-lined Johnny Depps getting their booty. About time they walk the damn plank.
Nate is my *amazing* husband and I can attest to his dedication and hard work. Even though so many copyright owners have all but given in and the apathy can be demoralizing, Nate stays primed and ready for the good fight. I’m so proud of him!!!
Great job Nate! We are soo very proud of you and and your fight against ‘digital theft’. Keep our business alive!
Great article, Gram, and great work, Nate. Nate, are you going to go after picture and video trading forums, too? Some of those post entire site rips.
I go after whatever my clients pay me to go after. Forums are no different than anyone else and I’ll hammer them too.
There’s a reason why PornBB referred to me as the ‘part time admin’.
Dear sir or madam,
I for one weep at your narrow and misplaced belief that a copy equals a lost sale and that 30.000 copies of a random porno would even register on any scale.
The daily inflood of copied pornography is staggering. It is by far the most ubiquitous and most forgettable (Jameson who?) online commodity ever, and the industry itself has made it so with their fresh off the bus 18 y/o feeding frenzy.
Just as badly as you claim pirates romanticize themselves, so do you as the saviour of the downtrodden honest american.
I know for a fact that not just I, but just about any average Joe would sooner go back to free(and legal) sample porn galleries, streams and clips rather than start shelling out for their daily fap.
Selfmade, private use only copies of your top 5 favorite legally rented DVDs would do just as well.
But that is not all.
In an internet-land that is so overflowing with not just free legal “professional” porn, but these days by a sheer mindboggling infinity of selfmade, home produced free and legal amateur porn, times have changed.
Your competition has – if it has really ever been, outside of in your claims alone – long since moved away from the pimply piratey downloader kid and become the hot couple with webcam, fanbase and internet access.
The top demand torrents with the most offers / seeds are now on almost any site a dozen homemade / amateur clips/series. All of them free of charge, and spread with the only demand on their behalf to give whatever positive feedback and suggestions you may have.
All this is is massive woe-is-us spin of an industry that by any and all standards is still doing exceedingly well and is one of the last “robust” economies left in the states.
It was already bad enough when the music industry whined and whinged and made up facts. Porn is exponentially beyond that in terms of being replaceable, low level and utterly expected to be “just good enough”.
Not everyone can be the next Metallica, but everyone can be the next Jenna Jameson(Alexis Texas/Belladonna/replace accordingly), simply because all of the pornstars quite literally WERE just any random girl off of the street initially.
That is the true and great irony of what we are talking about here, and what you are trying to stand up for.
In short:
If you expect all, or for the sake of my argument actually ANY porn filesharers to be wandering moneybags of potential revenue, that just have to be forcefulyl reconverted onto the righteous path of pay-per-view, you are wearing the wrong reality glasses.
First, for someone who argues that professional porn performers can be easily replaced for the average masturbator by blurry badly-lit copies of amateurs who they may likely never see again, you sure tossed some names around (Jameson who indeed: you only mentioned her twice and she hasn’t worked in years as far as I know. She must have intrigued you enough to have claimed some grey matter of yours at some point). The fact of the matter is that Metallica was also just a band playing in a garage at one point as well, selling cheaply-pressed vinyl from a merch table on the Sunset Strip. Bands and porn stars and artists (and I’m not saying these groups are necessarily inclusive of each other) gain followings because of their very talents (as it were). And you’re kidding yourself if you think just any 18 year old off the bus could’ve been a Jenna Jameson or Belladonna or the like. Just as you’d be nuts to think that any random band playing Whiskey a-go-go this week is the next Metallica. The primary difference is that the desire (often literal) towards these porn stars burns hotter and shorter. And until Average Janes are ready to star in a homemade tape en masse just for, you know, positive commentary and constructive criticism, the clamor of porn enthusiasts (i.e, your Average Joe) will never be sated; the reason it’s all so “disposable” is that the fans want it that way; they want, hell, they crave fresh meat to feed the beast. It’s absolute human nature and why divorce lawyers exist. Why else the appeal of “new faces” porn? Why else the appeal of these amateurs? The porn industry fits that bill if nothing else, but they’re not gonna be churning it out for mere positive commentary and certainly they don’t get the majority of performers to do so for that either.
Secondly, yeah, I know plenty of people who had purchased maybe 75 CDs in their lifetime prior to 1999 who know keep on average 750 GBs of music on their drives: I call these people (friends, some) assholes and thieves. But as per, your very first point is correct: a copy does not necessarily equate a lost sale. Regardless: sales are being lost at rates that do not correspond at all with your postulate that it’s unrealistic to think that “ANY” porn filesharers are “moneybags” (not the word I’d use since you clearly do not need to be wealthy to purchase porn–just check out a porn shop off an interstate sometime, yikes) of lost “potential revenue.” The numbers bear it out.
Look, regardless of file-sharing, porn and music and movies are going nowhere as human endeavors, although of course, it’s highly likely the volume and scope of it will quite likely be adapted out of current recognition. That’s the way things go, for better or for worse. They call it “progress,” right or wrong. You’re absolutely clueless or fucking lying to yourself however if you think that the industries themselves and all levels of workers within them aren’t being negatively affected by it.
“You’re absolutely clueless or fucking lying to yourself however if you think that the industries themselves and all levels of workers within them aren’t being negatively affected by it.”
The thing is, it still will not be the filesharing technologies’ fault alone, or much more so than actual competing supply.
If you have spent everything you can for the month, you can still download an infinity of free stuff. You can not spend more than your last dime. (Putting the credit card debt bubble aside for a second and speaking in terms of ‘actually’ disposable income)
So if the same amount of money is being spent in total yet industries are impacted, then others are getting the benefit of it.
For every sale disappearing “here”, another is made “there”.
If that were not so, the savings rate would be through the roof in all countries with internet.
The money goes out and is spent regardless.
Whether “theft” (which only applies to an actual REMOVAL of a good, and not copying, which in turn is at most IP / copyright infringement, but never theft) takes place or not, it effectively just means a certain marketplace is under fire and succumbing to better or more attractive alternatives.
You cannot “oversteal” a market. What money has been spent, has been spent. Any “injustice” past that may be legally or morally crucial, but you will no longer be able to economically damage in terms of the whole economic ecosystem in which the money is spent, simply because it _IS_ spent.
Your 75 CDs vs 750gb digital music example obviously never spent exceedingly much on music before, and it is doubtful that he would now, even if you took away his internet or music collection. In turn, he cannot be the arch nemesis of the music industry, even though they perceive and make him out as so.
Despite “saving money” by downloading, he most likely spends what money he does have and does not have an exploding piggy bank.
Before the internet, people borrowed, lent, rented, xeroxed, taped, etc.
Oh, since I mention it, a brief interlude:
At this juncture I would love to know: Does me borrowing a book from a friend make me a thief?
If not, why not? I still read it without paying.
What about a video game that I borrow, beat and return?
A DVD that I lend and gets watched and returned to me?
How deep does the anti-social sharing vein go within the logic of “a sale must be made or a fee collected for every access to the product”?
What about book sharing circles where people post/snail-mail each other books for free? Antisocial thieving criminals?
What about teenagers driving around in other people’s cars many years into adulthood? Or car-pooling? And speaking of pooling, what about three friends buying a game/movie/book/porn and then just rotating use until everyone has seen/played/read it?
What about me borrowing my neighbours tools and returning them after I finished all work I needed to do with them?
Etc pp to infinity.
People always pretend there is only the internet and filesharing, and that sharing and minimizing expenses is a new and irrational behavior.
The pressure to compete with free has always been around, it has just tremendously intensified and gotten competition by innovation and various other means of toys and entertainment. Broader spectrum of tempting supply means more easily spent money.
Maybe it is in truth silly cell phone jingles that are losing a consumer the cash that would have went towards Butt Benders #513 for the month. Or the purchase of a Nintendo DS. Or an iPhone app. Or a DLC for the current game. Who knows.
—
As for the music vs porn analogy, I am well aware of the bio of both JJ and Metallica. JJ is simply mentioned because she is the classic “it” name and yet could not be less represented on the evil thieving sites right now. Also me knowing vs “people” knowing is a major difference.
One might argue I may simply be old.
I would also still say that average Jane learning to convincingly lie to the camera, go “Oh yea baby” (hurrow Sasha) a lot and open herself up to the sexual side is a wee bit easier and common nowadays than learning a Joe Petrucci guitar or Mike Portnoy drum solo(replace with any “Betcha can’t play this” artist as needed).
If you are seriously arguing that the industry is mainlyconsisting of a feed-the-beast, fresh off the bus, just make ’em young and that will do “artist” pool on the one hand, yet on the other suggesting that it takes vast amounts of talent and whatever other qualities, then it is either mixing apples and oranges(standout stars != run of the mill mainstream churn) or not seeing how having a bus ticket and recent HIV test as qualifying features vs years of vocal/instrument training differs in levels of individual challenge and weeding out potential.
Though, admittedly, it is starting to feel like a producer with an autotuner is the modern day equivalent for the ticket&test, making just about any kid off the street good enough to become this seasons music badboy.
Just “press”/manipulate hard enough and you get sales. But let’s not stray.
Ironically it is both industries themselves that offer this self-image upon the masses(casting shows in both cases which imply just about anyone can apply and star in the biz e.g.).
Coming back to homemade: These Amateurs DO all supply on popular demand, freely, willingly, and in rather huge numbers. It might not be on par with porn valley, but I do suspect this is rather underestimated in both scope and effect.
Though I have seen signs that people on the porn side of things have become increasingly aware of this.
And finally, the amount of nonpublished private porn is just as staggering. Ever since every other cell phone, digital camera or even the actually meant for it DV have become so cheap and ever-present, anyone who can press record is now making them, if only due to wanting to have tried it(also as opposed to everyone with a cell phone making music..butt snapshots really are a lot easier to do than ACGE).
Not too few also get off on it.
In the digital age, quite literally: “We make our own porn.”
Wanting to forcefully time-travel back to pre-innovation times(before affordable home cinema, digital recording, broadband, the shift in sexual self-perception and standards, etc etc) by suing people back into the stoneage financially, is likely not the most sound business strategy, both in terms of PR and in terms of achieving the ideal aim(maximizing profit / achieving long term sustainability).
It is imho rather the opposite, a risk of self-ruination in the eyes of the consumer.
If someone does not like you enough to appreciate you for who you(your products) are, you sure as heck are not going to make it happen by stalking and hurting them.
I am sure anyone can relate to that on a very simple human level.
Yet this psycho stalker-girlfriend/boyfriend mindset is exactly what the industries are currently pursuing.
It is madness.
I’ve gotta get out and start my day so I don’t have the time to respond (or even read your post, to be frank) in total at the moment, but I’m impressed with your dedication towards rationalizing theft. And that’s what it is, I hope you can at least admit to yourself. Regardless of the popularity of truly amateur content (which I still will argue will never reach the supply to fill the demand). And definitely regardless of whether one would’ve purchased it or not (an absolute red herring; if someone steals a car for a joyride from a lot it’s not taken into account that they could’ve never afforded it and were maybe just gonna give it back anyway). Before I go: you seem to be ascribing music industry tactics of suing individuals caught downloading (which I would agree is not the most helpful towards industry PR nor the issue at hand) with what Glass does, which is send DMCAs. You are not the victim here.
Long story short….
(RIU) waaa waaa waaaa…I want shit for free, I don’t want to have to pay for it, I wouldn’t have paid for it anyway thus that entitles me to it, actually I’m entitled to everything I want and if I don’t have enough money for it then I don’t have to work harder or make more money because it should be provided for me for free. Amateur porn is better, and I’ll make up some information like “the most in demand stuff is amateur content” when any cursory look at any porn piracy site shows that to be absolute bullshit but I love my cognitive dissonance so I’m going to convince myself that what I want to believe is actually true so there!
RIU, I know it bums you out that the cashwhore thieves that distribute your favorite Jenna Jame…errr “amateur” porn via Hotfile are being upset that folks like me have their files taken down. Maybe I reported some cashwhore links that you posted of that professional porn you hate so much, too bad. Grow the fuck up and quit throwing around your sense of entitlement and telling others how to create a business and actually create something yourself. I’ll be glad to come along and steal from you and stake my claim of entitlement to whatever it is you’ve created.
RandomInternetUser, I tole’ you, git back under that thar bridge! Them goats ain’t gonna scare themselves!
In depth argument vs direct ad hominens and simplification.
I never knew that borrowing a book equalled entitlement, nor that a copy removed the original.
Not much much points solely towards “deserving” or entitlement, but I actually argued some fairly common and simple human behaviors that we had since long before the internet(some people actually are told from childhood on to share their stuff/candy/toys/whatnot with their friends/brothers/others etc pp, in your eyes I guess that means they are being raised to be criminals/pirates/entitlement maniacs).
I also tried to argue that a spent dollar cannot be spent elsewhere.
That went towards the “actual damage” argument rather than entitlement, but as with anything, spin it however you like.
—
Anyhow.
It’s fairly clear why the debate is not moving.
The people debating are not even in the same reality.
With any and all things in life: As long as it is more important to be emotional and “right”, likelyhood of new insight will be low.
—
The stone, once pushed up the hill, turned to roll back down. Every time.
Do you ever just wander into your local Apple Store and make off with an iPad because, you know: sharing is caring. And no matter about that price-tag attached to it: they’ve got others and it’s not like you were ever actually going to buy one anyway, right?
Let’s say there’s a movie theater that seats 200 people.
On opening night of “Cop Movie 12”, 125 people pay for their ticket and show up to watch the movie.
75 people then show up and state that they should be allowed to watch the movie for no charge because they weren’t going to pay for it anyway so the theater isn’t losing any money by letting them watch the movie for free.
So the theater lets those 75 people watch the movie for free.
Now the other 125 people are wondering why they paid for the movie in the first place since the other 75 get to see it for free. They decide, next movie that comes out, they’ll just claim they weren’t going to pay to see it and thus should be entitled to see it for free.
We’re told a lot of things as children, not all of which I think should be matters of public policy and legislation. I’m sure you wouldn’t want the government forcing you to brush your teeth every night would you? We’re also told to train, say our prayers and eat our vitamins…wait maybe that was Hulk Hogan. Regardless, there’s a lot of vague, folksy things we’re told as kids that when you grow up, don’t exactly hold water. If you are really serious about sharing then don’t restrict yourself, own that stance and be serious about it.
And by that I mean give me your address because I know of some homeless people you SHOULD share your home with. There’s also some hungry people that would like to see what’s in your fridge. Oh and when you get your paycheck this week, I’d like $100 of it. Sharing is caring after all!
Basically, “RandomInternetUser”, you’re arguing for a system of economics that does not yet exist and may never exist. Like it or not, our world still operates on MONEY. Some don’t like it, and it’s not a 100% “fair” system — but we have no perfect alternative.
So, within the framework of reality (a framework which, ironically, you claim to understand) we have products and services that we offer for compensation and that compensation is determined by the fluctuating market of VALUE.
The mere *idea* of sex has a perceived value. Speaking of age-old adages, why do you think mothers tell their daughters “they won’t buy the cow when you give away the milk for free”? It means — you, dear darling, shouldn’t be having meaningless sex with random men because you lower your perceived “value” to a potential suitor. Yeah, that may be a sucky way to view the world, but it’s TRUE, like it or not. Men don’t like to pay for sex, but whaddayaknow, our biology makes it so that we WILL pay if we need to because we see value in sexual things that appeal to our fundamental nature.
When porn is freely available and UBIQUITOUSLY SO for quick and easy (and did I mention FREE?) download from the Internet — the perceived value of the product is lowered. So, no, you’re not “stealing” a physical object and denying another potential buyer of that object to buy — instead, you’re lowering the value of the product/service by making the potential buyer equate spending money on the product/service a BAD DEAL because EVERYONE-ELSE-AND-THEIR-DOG is getting the very same thing for….. you guessed it… FREE.
So, what happens? The market for that product/service (in this case, porn) plummets. The effects of that ripple throughout that market from the bottom up: Producers aren’t making profit, they cannot pay for the good directors, good-looking talent, the permits needed to shoot, the venues, the basic insurance premiums, the dues for STD testing, the legal defense, the website upkeep… and, well, just about anything that any other normal business needs to pay for to keep a modicum of workplace standards. Yeah, believe it or not, PORN IS A BUSINESS AND A JOB FOR MANY.
Your downloading of porn for your free self-gratification and indulgence is putting people out of work and driving porn productions into the fringe where the only people who will eventually be willing to have sex on camera for you are those who understand that they have a low perceived value and regularly give away the “milk” for free — AKA the not-so-attractive people. It’s a harsh reality — but you do like to deal in reality, don’t you?
So, keep up the “sharing” philosophy and shit all over the value of these fun things you love to electronically freeload on: music, movies, porn, books, etc. Just don’t bitch when it all turns to crap — because no matter how much cognitive dissonance justification you conjure up, merchandising and concerts and appearances will not make up for the massive losses in revenue we continue to see. Yeah, it’s really that bad.
I’ll just leave this here: http://www.iwasaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/oh-snap-flowchart.jpg
Nate, you definitely have your work cut out for you.
I found this site trying to find contact information about pornhub.com. I know I am probably out of context after reading the article above, but I hope you will tolerate my request.
I have the domain name beef.ca for sale on Flippa.com, and I am trying to let people in the adult industry know it is out there.
I thought maybe it would be good for a site about guys or something? Anyway, I am sorry if this is so far out to lunch, but I am just trying to raise awareness.
Thanks for putting up with me.
Ron