The Ethics of Piracy - Stoya

[AmberCutie]

Touching on what @JerryBoBerry posted, without 100% agreeing with all of his comments, I will say I generally agree that models are probably not as affected by it as they assume. And yes, it can help.

Being capped and posted to various sites when I first started camming helped my popularity, for sure, during my first year or so. I was posted to 4chan probably daily, and got hordes of new visitors on MFC from it. Sure some of the folks from there weren't the most ideal members to have, but a lot were, and they increased my success and exposure. It gave me a really good start to my cam career.

I mean, I found MFC myself on 4chan, so... thank goodness for that!

If a model depends mostly on recorded video sales, it may have a bit of an impact on her, moreso than if she was just focused on live cam shows. I make a small % of my monthly MFC tokens by selling recorded vids, but the base of my income is focused on being live on cam. I have folks stumble across my videos and recorded cam shows and come to MFC to find me and tip me. It happens.

I agree with Jerry that the target market a cam girl looks for is not the same as the market that goes directly to tube/torrent sites for their porn, which means we aren't at a complete loss by being posted. And there are a number of people who are on tube/torrent sites that are still likely to look us up if they come across a clip of us and want to see us live on cam, or have the opportunity to chat with us instead of just wank into a sock over our recorded clips...

 

[SaffronBurke]

I do agree piracy can help in some ways, though - again, anecdotally, I've torrented things and then later purchased them because I like them. It's definitely complicated!

I once downloaded an album, but the songs were listed under the wrong titles, so I deleted it and just bought it, because that was super annoying. I will sometimes download a song or two, then buy it come payday and delete the pirated version. I'm working on replacing all of my pirated music with purchased versions, because if I like it enough to transfer it from phone to phone, I should give the artist some money for it.




I sometimes see people justify pirating with "well, I listen to really obscure artists, and it's hard to find places to buy their stuff". I have the opposite problem. For example - the band Clan Na Gael. Lovely Celtic band, later changed their name to Seven Nations. I heard a few of their songs on Pandora, and damn if I can't find them (as Clan Na Gael) anywhere on the Internet except for Amazon. I can't even find them on YouTube. They don't do the same songs as Seven Nations as they did as Clan Na Gael, so I can't even find those songs that way. So, I bought the CD off Amazon, because, dammit, I want THOSE songs!

There's a few other folk singers who I have the same problem with. I simply can't find them for free anywhere, and they're not on YouTube, but I can find places to buy them. Maybe Celtic/folk fans just don't upload their favorite artist's music as much as other genres, or maybe it's just because there's a smaller pool of people listening and thus less demand for their music for free.

 

[Sevrin]

I'll go on the record as saying they aren't hit hard by piracy. In fact I don't think they are hit at all by it.

The people who go to tube sites exclusively for their porn, or download it from torrents or even go to those sites that cap models rooms all day long...they were not models paying customer base in the first place. They were never going to be customers, never going to pay them for it. So they aren't out money due to piracy. It's not a loss if there was never going to be a sale.

So taking that to its conclusion, you are saying that if it was impossible to obtain pornography without paying for it, these people would do without?

 

[AmberCutie]

So taking that to its conclusion, you are saying that if it was impossible to obtain pornography without paying for it, these people would do without?

Touché!

I see you respond to him speaking in absolutes, so your point makes sense. But I don't believe most are speaking as if a world where 0 free porn existed was possible. My post, for example, speaks of a world where free porn and paid porn exist and thrive in spite of each other.