Creators, Piracy, and the Internet.. Oooooh my...

[JerryBoBerry]

First, thanks for your point of view. I realize that piracy is a nuanced topic with several angles. I would ask that we keep the focus of this thread to piracy prevention techniques and awareness. Perhaps there is another thread, or one could be created, where the philosophical, ethical, and hypothetical discussions would be more appropriate?

You made the thread topic about 'Creators' and 'Piracy.' I don't believe you can have a discussion about those subjects with the creators themselves, and potentially the pirates as well, without discussing the philosophical, ethical, and hypothetical parts of it all. Those things are all pretty well integrated.

For starters, piracy prevention. One of the main prevention techniques the film industry employs IS appealing to the ethical side of people. They put in those end credits now stating how many people that film employed, and to please support their continued welfare. There's short previews the theaters themselves show before the movie stating "You wouldn't steal from a cop, you wouldn't steal from your neighbor, you wouldn't... Well, piracy is stealing too."

My advice is to adjust your comfort level with the subject of piracy because it has been around long before you came into the industry and it will be here long after you've quit and NOTHING short of a world-wide E.M.P.(Electromagnetic Pulse) will stop it from happening!

In your first post you took a philosophical viewpoint that models should just adjust their comfort level with it, since it's the fundamental nature of the current reality. Others don't agree with that view by your very own statement of having seen all the threats on your twitter feed about it, and judging by the replies in this thread.

Ethics, philosophy, piracy prevention. They go hand in hand. It's kind of difficult to make any post without acknowledging some aspect of those things.

Plus, Thread Drift, It happens in every thread that goes over 20 replies. Forum Law #24. Not much anyone can do to stop it other than admins closing the thread.

 

[Moros1138]

My first post is riddled with poorly chosen words which didn't reflect my intention for both the post itself and this thread. I've expressed this earlier in the thread and I've apologized. I have since established the intended focus for this thread.


@JerryBoBerry, I understand, fully, that I don't control this thread or the participants of this forum. That's why I asked, politely. Call me naive. I do my best to be respectful, even though my expression fails me badly sometimes, and to a degree I hope others are as respectful of me.


Thanks for your point of view, even if I disagree with it.

 

[Sevrin]

Thanks for your opinion! I'm afraid we do not agree. I believe promoting awareness of the subject of piracy will help some models, especially models who may be new to the industry, to avoid certain pitfalls and help minimize their risks.

My point wasn't that piracy isn't a subject that's important to models, but rather that there have been countless public threads about it here, and, I'd imagine that there are tremendously detailed discussions of strategies on how to deal with the problem modelside. These God's-gift-to-models threads are what's funny.

 

[zippypinhead]

These God's-gift-to-models threads are what's funny.

No man, you got it all wrong! It's not condescending rationalization of shitlord behavior -- it's helping.

 

[Moros1138]

I'd imagine that there are tremendously detailed discussions of strategies on how to deal with the problem modelside

I can't see the model's only so I can't possibly know what they have or have not discussed. What solutions they've found? What strategies work best? It may have been discussed previously. That doesn't mean that the subject couldn't benefit from a fresh perspective.

These God's-gift-to-models threads are what's funny.

That is the second time you have insulted my intentions. The first I forgive because of my poorly chosen words early on. But this time I have done nothing to you and nothing to warrant this kind of response. If you feel, as I do, that discussing piracy to boost awareness and sharing strategies to help minimize the effect piracy has on their business would be beneficial then I fail to understand why we should be at odds!

 

[Mila_]

Devil's Advocate: Could it not be argued that members/fans/what have you who would download your clips for free rather than pay for them, were never going to pay for them to begin with? Paying for porn is a choice. Everybody knows they have a choice when it comes to paying for porn because everybody knows that all the free porn in the world is only ever a Google search away. So the people who do pay for your clips, do so, not because they need to, but because they prefer to. Not that you shouldn't be annoyed when someone pirates your videos, but if one person buys and uploads your latest video, and a further 999 people then watch it for free, I don't know that many of those 999 people would have paid for that video if it hadn't been made available to them for free. I could well be wrong though.

Like most people I, too, download pirated content sometimes. When I do it is usually because I am being offered something I hadn't even considered getting in the first place, so yeah, it could be argued that me downloading that content doesn't hurt the producer's sales. But most of the time I download pirated content because of convenience: sometimes it is easier to find a pirated album, for example, than scout the internet to find the artist's website, register, enter your payment info, download it, etc. A torrent is just 2 clicks away. And this does hurt the artist because if I had no other option I would pay.

And this is the reason I think Netflix and Spotify were such a huge success, because they let people have an easy way to listen or watch the stuff they want without having to go through 30 hoops. It is also incredibly cheap, so there is that, but the artists don't make much out of these platforms which is why people like Taylor Swift refused to have her music on Spotify or any other service alike until she was offered what she deemed was reasonable.

Now consider cams or clipsites. Suppose you want to get a model's videos. You have 2 options: (a) go to her camsite/clipsite, create an account, add your credit card information, choose the clips you want, pay for them and finally receive them. If it is a camsite the model might take a couple of days to send you the goods. That's 6 steps and perhaps a couple of days. OR you can (b) go to Porntube and find the shit already uploaded by other users: 1 step and immediate satisfaction. Many people who watch these videos go to tubes specifically looking for my content and once they find it, why would they ever pay for anything I sell ever again when there is hope it will crop up there for free at some point?

The way I see it the only people for whom it is more convenient is those who are already members with tokens bought waiting to find something to spend them on. This way I can compete against Pornhub since it takes them only 1 step which is tipping for the content. But this is a really reduced pool of customers we are talking about.

Some models do what OP said and stop making videos to avoid piracy. Other girls (who are confused in my opinion) do what someone else said and try to benefit from this exposure by creating a shitload of cheap content and charging stupid prices like 50 tokens per video. This forces them to keep making fresh content though because everything they make will be shared almost instantly.

Other girls, like me, take the other route which is to affix an overly inflated price tag to each video I make and maybe make the members jump through some hoops to get the content. This way they will perceive the videos as something special and very hard to get. You are appealing to exclusivity. A member who spends $100 on a video is unlikely to post it everywhere. Plus, having only a handful of people get the videos reduces the risk immensely. There is always the risk that shit will get posted too which is why you want to combine this strategy with stronk DMCA skills.

 

[Moros1138]

Other girls, like me, take the other route which is to affix an overly inflated price tag to each video I make and maybe make the members jump through some hoops to get the content. This way they will perceive the videos as something special and very hard to get. You are appealing to exclusivity. A member who spends $100 on a video is unlikely to post it everywhere. Plus, having only a handful of people get the videos reduces the risk immensely. There is always the risk that shit will get posted too which is why you want to combine this strategy with stronk DMCA skills.

Building on what you already said here, this strategy allows for a slower release schedule which gives you the opportunity to slowly build up hype about an upcoming release. I like it.

Piracy can still happen. Would you say that you find your self exercising your DMCA skills more, or less, while using this strategy compared to other strategies you've tried?

 

[MFCGod]

Now consider cams or clipsites. Suppose you want to get a model's videos. You have 2 options: (a) go to her camsite/clipsite, create an account, add your credit card information, choose the clips you want, pay for them and finally receive them. If it is a camsite the model might take a couple of days to send you the goods. That's 6 steps and perhaps a couple of days.

On MFC most models mail you a link straight away and you can download the video without signing up to anything.

Some models may wait to send the videos till after they log off, usually that's a couple of hours max.

I personally don't think models should make you wait 2 hours to send a video though, if you're buying a video you're hoping to enjoy it asap