[lfjokes] Smut outstrips tune swaps

[simondo]

What I want to know is, what's the career path for porn industry
watcher?

simondo

Source: Wired

Smut Trading Outstrips Tune Swaps  
By Noah Shachtman

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,58665,00.html

02:00 AM Apr. 30, 2003 PT

By most accounts, Apple's new iTunes music download service is pretty
cool -- the first legitimate alternative to the song swapping on Kazaa,
Morpheus and other file-trading services. 

But Apple's move won't slow down the manic expansion of these trading
networks. Why not?

Here's a one-word answer: porn.

Kazaa and company are increasingly trafficking in dirty video clips. And
until Apple starts offering up Christy Canyon downloads, the swapping
services can sleep easy. 

"There is absolutely no way Apple is going to make a dent in file
sharing," said Aram Sinnreich, a former Jupiter Communications music
analyst who is now affiliated with the University of Southern
California. 

Smut was the most sought-after content on the Gnutella file-trading
system, according to a February survey, with 42 percent of all users
hunting for blue pictures and movies. 

Greg Bildson -- chief operating officer of LimeWire, a leading maker of
Gnutella software -- said delicately, "We're about all different kinds
of content sharing."

Wayne Rosso, president of the Grokster file-sharing software firm, was
more blunt. "Porn -- there's a ton of it being traded around," he said. 

The file-sharing networks have more than a triple-X advantage going for
them, however. Their customer base is enormous and active. They are in a
newly strengthened legal position, thanks to last week's victory in
court that ruled peer-to-peer networks were not liable for copyright
infringement committed by users. And Apple's service has an uncertain
future on Windows machines. 

Apple CEO Steve Jobs says the iTunes Music Store will be ready for
Gates-controlled computers by year's end. But such adaptations are
notoriously tricky. And the rights-management issues -- key to any
download service -- are bound to get much more complex in Microsoft's
world, since the company has invested a great deal into a
rights-management system of its own. 

What's more, so-called "a la carte" downloads of singles are only a
small segment of the online music market, Sinnreich noted. 

"The future of music is not 99 cent downloads, no matter how bad certain
people want it to be true," he said.

Then there's the importance of free. While Apple is offering downloads
for 99 cents a pop, file traders don't have to pay for the songs at all.

"It's not free, but it's 99 cents a song, pretty doggone close,'' Jobs
said yesterday. 

"What they (Apple executives) don't understand is that 99 cents ain't
free. It's a lot more than free. It's 100 percent more than free," Rosso
said. 

But even this crucial consideration pales before the big hush-hush
factor in the file-swapping market: the almost insatiable appetite for
free, high-quality online smut. 

Some Internet smut-peddlers are considering RIAA-type moves against the
Gnutellas and Kazaas of the world. Like the music executives, they blame
the free services for their fading financial fortunes. 

"The explosion of free pornography, fueled by file sharing, has
diminished interest in pay sites," said veteran porn industry watcher
Luke Ford.

Others are taking a more collaborative approach. 

"We love file trading," said Kevin Blatt, sales director for the Triple
X Cash, which operates the Collegefuckfest.com and Rectalrooter.com
websites. "Why? It's called greed. We've found a way to monetize that
sharing." 

Blatt's company embeds hidden links in video clips and sends the short
movies out on the sharing networks. Then, when a file-swapper downloads
a clip and clicks somewhere in the video's frame, he's taken to one of
Triple X Cash's sites. The company gets 25 to 40 "joins" -- $30 monthly
subscriptions -- per day from this technique, according to Blatt. 

"The record industry should've taken a cue from the pornographers,"
Grokster's Rosso said.

"ITunes looks great -- I especially like the chance to preview so many
songs before I listen to them," added one Mac owner. "But for my porn,
I'll stick with Kazaa."