I have been reading about the the lack of new talent and work for the existing talent and I have always reasoned it away saying that its a cyclical industry. @ my age I have seen ebbs and flows before in porn. So I started to wonder why? My thought recently is this: Porn took off when VHS came out. Lets just say that created a wave of porn that lasted 10 years. Then there was a downturn. Then the DVD wave starts, while not as big as the VHS wave, DVD's start a new run. But in the middle of that the Internet grows by leaps and bounds. That makes for all kinds of new formats: Shopping for DVDs on line, Web based porn, Forums like ADT, and Stars having there own websites. Each wave gets the fans closer to the stars. So are we @ the end of this HUGE wave, treading water, looking for the next one? Whats the next wave going to be? Am I way off base?
The next wave is going to be a complete absence of new porn because everyone who produces it for profit will have been put out of business by pirates and tube sites.
Im sure you seen this coming when xtube and not too mention others started going live a few years ago! especially now when you can get streaming clips up to 30 minutes for free! along with a huge list of other sites offering free stuff just to get a new customer interested. In my opinion porn on the internet has greatly devalued as far as membership sites and other form of media is concerned and will keep dropping each and every month like we are seeing at the present. What we have is WAY TOO MUCH AVAILABLE PORN for next to nothing! Then there is the issue of every studio selling off there product to anyone offering them a buck, which is making there own product soft aswell! but at the same time studios are in a catch 22 situation because if they hold on to their content, they will not get paid from different rev. streams to continue to keep their business afloat. Its funny because alot of studios keep trying to push the envelope or shoot the same stuff and give it a fresh title right? well what else are you supposed to do? The best advice right now is to negotiate everything and keep the overhead low because a tsunami is about to hit and will wash away most who are asleep at the wheel.
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NewRomancer Deactivated User
under THEIR avatar 738 Posts 7/08
Posted - Dec 3 2008 : 3:49PM
There isn't a single shred of evidence that torrents and tube sites have negatively impacted the porn industry. It's just as likely that the current GLUT of porn is spreading the 'profits' around more, that people are being more specific with their porn spending now that's it's much easier to do. Format driven? I donno about that... The fact that porn is more acceptable, more 'mainstream' as it were has probably impacted the industry in as many negative as positive ways... What's the next wave? Interactive sex-robots! (I hope... Hehehehe)
The same problem the music industry has. No one will invest $$$ for a label to produce recordings that can be pirated and traded. And anyone w/ a PC can post music and make it available without any backing or promotion. The days of the next Led Zeppelin are over. Artists that can make multitudes of cash and just rely on the big machine promote product. I for one am too afraid to download from the pirate sites. Who knows what is on that file once its on my hard drive.
You're kidding right? And I guess there isn't a shred of evidence that file sharing made record stores extinct. The shred of evidence you're looking for can be found on the books of every company that produces commercial porn. They make less money than they did before tube sites and torrent sites. TCB has it right. The rapid erosion of the bottom line will wipe out whoever is still looking the other way with their fingers in their ears saying "la la la la. I am not listening to you. Everything is fine" Edited by - mike quasar on 12/3/2008 4:58:09 PM
^^ tube sites may affect the bottom line, but I think it's an exaggeration to say they will totally wipe out the porn industry. some people occasionally consume pirated stuff, while paying for porn as well. not every porn fan is going to be a complete free-rider. It would be more accurate to say that the dvd market may be headed towards extinction, but that won't kill the porn industry- it will just become web-based.
Perhaps the right word for it is not format but technology. And the next popular technology for porn probably will be some kind of virtual reality where people will be able to explore, interact, and participate in some way. The technology for this already exists. But it needs to be commercialized and popularized. And that might take a few years. Perhaps eventually real people will be able to have sex with each other over the internet through this virtual reality. And without the risks of real sex, such interaction between people might become quite popular, just like various discussion forums and social websites are popular now.
I agree about the Internet, but did the DVD really start a new wave? Sure, lots of companies re-released their old stuff on DVD, just as they do now with Blu-Ray, but other than that... what did it change?
DVD'S I think allowed a total overall better viewing experience. Chapter's, photo galleries, easier storage @ home. And for a while the average owner couldn't copy it... not for long though. I know I was excited when DVD porn was introduced. It sent me on a buying spree.
^ The quality got better -- that's true, but I really doubt it boosted production, distribution or consumption of porn like video technology did, like handheld video camcorders did, like Internet did. There were already SVCD and other laser discs before DVD, if you remember, and nobody was using them on mass scale. DVD was introduced in 97 (IIRC), became the norm in 2000 or something, but it only gained the upper hand over VHS in 2003-04. And just as with BR now, discs and hardware were initially expensive. In 2000, only 8% of American households had a DVD player (compared to 96% having a VCR). So, no, I don't think DVD caused any waves. IMHO, it was just an evolutionary migration from one medium to the other. Edited by - Zoid on 12/4/2008 11:49:48 AM
Especially when companies like AVN....the self proclaimed "Industry Standard".....is doing business with the piracy sites and putting money into their pockets. Here's the story.
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NewRomancer Deactivated User
under THEIR avatar 738 Posts 7/08
Posted - Dec 4 2008 : 11:53AM
I'm not kidding in the least.... The fact that some porn companies CLAIM they are making less money (If it's not a total fabrication) is just as attributable to the ease at which people are able to access the GLUT of porn these days... They are more easily able to get exactly what they want from exactly who they want so major companies feel the pinch. There is NO evidence that fewer dollars are being spent on porn. Nor did file sharing make record stores extinct.... Not remotely. I still see plenty of them.
Can I ask what makes you an expert on anything? Every major record label has reported an almost 50% decrease in the sale of CD's in recent years and the difference has not been recouped through sales on Itunes or other pay-for-music models. Tower records, once the largest chain of records stores in the country, is gone. Also gone are the Wherehouse and just about every mom and pop store that ever existed. In my hometown of Toronto, two staples of the city were Sam the Record Man and A&A records; both gone. HMV and Virgin are both struggling. You must live in some strange cluster of thriving and profitable record stores. Would you like evidence that less money is being spent on porn? ASK ANYONE IN THE PORN BUSINESS instead of making your ridiculous assertions based on zero facts. Some are doing better than others but EVERYONE is feeling the effects of online piracy.
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NewRomancer Deactivated User
under THEIR avatar 738 Posts 7/08
Posted - Dec 4 2008 : 12:37PM
I never claimed to be an expert, but I certainly know baseless accusations when I see them...
Good point on the piracy issue! It has been around for many years in our business, first and foremost before the internet took place our VHS tapes were being ripped and dupped by other people within our country and others around us and would be repackaged and sold as the real deal! Until we started getting returns and realized, HEY this isnt our stuff! and was more appearant with dvd's! OK , so now we get into cyberspace and it has taken on a whole new formatt of piracy! How can you control it people ask? Well if you had the answere you would be king! To start trailing or to attempt to shut the piraters down is a daunting task! because once your movies are released and uploaded to the internet (which I refer to as an ABYSS) you can hardly ever find the end of the rope! (I know where kinda off the formatt issue)So as far as porn being formatt driven , sure its has many facets once the movie is produced, edited, and finally formatted for many types of media outlets for profit! What I also feel is that the mystique of porn has lost its luster, meaning when something is made available at every corner there really isnt that urge to view porn as much as it used to be. I will use myself as an example, I grew up 20 minutes out of manhattan NYC in the 60s and when I reached my teens (70s) I could not wait till the weekend came around to get to 42nd and 8th ave to get my fix of whore chasing whether it was in a peepshow, rub and tug, Platos Retreat etc. the city was full of free love! it was fucking awesome and available 24/7 , and once the VCR or beta came into play it wasnt that interested in going to the city as often ( I know Ill get to the point just follow me) because now all I had to do was pop in a tape, even though a personal touch was needed from time to time, but by then I had some girlfriends to take its place and besides I didnt have to pay for it any longer. So we have come this far now and I think there has been so much ingestion and availability of porn over the last decade how much of it is still interesting? Well maybe now that Im 44 I look at things slightly different but im still human and when something is to available the want, need and desire is not as strong! follow that, which comes to the conclusion of the lull in this business, people are just not that interested anymore. So the internet gives alot of porn away for absolutely nothing out of pocket, or scenes are uploaded from piraters, etc. etc. etc. also back in the day production cost we not as high in comparison to todays prices and ironicly the wholesale end was much higher! where now production costs are at an all time high! and wholesale prices are down, go figure! so put all those ingredients into a mixing bowl and see what the end result is! SORRY for dragging this on and I apologize for any misspelling, but I am in a hurry this morning and felt the need to write this!
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Len801 Deactivated User
754 Posts 9/07
Posted - Dec 4 2008 : 2:40PM
I am not an expert on anything Mike. But the cost of music CD's in its heyday was just as costly as new adult DVD releases (and porn DVD's are just as much if not more expensive, just look what they are selling in Europe). $30 for a new music CD was pretty much the norm. On top of that you had to add sales tax. And what did you find in the CD? A couple of songs that may have been worthwhile while the other 10 songs were just crap. So you were spending +$30 for a couple of songs and you really had little idea what the other songs were, unless you may have caught a few selections on the radio or some friend may have loaned you the CD. The internet has faciliated more knowledge of these tunes and you can hear 20-30 seconds of an album's songs before making a decision. Sure they are cheaper now but the industry has already poisoned the water. On top of that why do I have to spend $20-$30 on an unknown music performer and probably a crappy album, if it costs me the same amount to buy a Rolling Stones album? Why does every music CD or DVD cost just about the same, whether it is a known or unknown artist, whether released by Sony or some other company? Why does (or should) it cost me the same amount of money to buy a DVD that is 72 minutes long, black and white, and made in 1949, when the studio has made its money back on that movie ages and ages ago? VHS releases whether we are talking for hard core content or mainstream content was just 90% crap. I am speaking in particular for the audio and video quality, let alone the actual "artistic" content. They were using defective VHS casings, inferior video tape, and of course cheap cameras and editing equipment. How many studios were spending some/lots of money to put out a good movie print whether shot on film or videotape? I only saw some good stuff (visually anyway) from VCA, Vidco in the 19080's, the early Video Marc Dorcels of the early 1990's, the early Private movies to give you some expample. The others were just churning out and duplicating junk. Tanner used to ruin a lost of the stuff shot in the late 1980's with that asinine "tannervision" process, distoring what appeareed at least nicely shot scenes by distorting the visuals. The DVD was a welcome arrival for hc as well as mainstream cinema, but the prices were kept artificially high, considering the content. The big selling point at first (at least for mainstream cinema) for the DVD was the "extras" they were adding (trailers, making of, brief interviews or voice overs by some of the partipants). But do I need 2-3 hours of additional "bonus" material" on top of a 2 1/2 hour movie?With regards to hc DVD, the "bonus" scene they usually add is not a scene that was shot specifically for the movie, but taken from another movie (made by the same company). In the early days of DVD's the bonus scene was something that was absent from the VHS release, so you felt you were getting something that was not available on VHS, and so it compelled you to buy DVD equipment and the DVD disc. Mainstream cinema and hardcore cinema just churns out TOO much product and much of it is inferior. Just go to your local video store and check out their new releases and tell me whether you feel like plunking down $5 to rent the latest mainstream movie or hardcore movie. Sure I may pick up "The Dark Night" or "The Chronicles of Narnia", but will I bother with "The House Bunny", "Longshots", "American Teen", "Men in Red Suits"? If they want to make that stuff, I am not going to support it in any way. Piracy? How many Hollywood movies and american hc movies do you know that are no longer available and were never transferred to DVD? How many movies has Hollywood released on DVD overseas, but can't seem to take the time to release it in its own country?
Signal control? solve piracy by having each studio's servers actively linked to each viewing, being the only thing keeping the outgoing stream from having all kinds of resolution problems, so that as soon as it's copied or removed from your control the signal bomb goes off and the image devolves into a distorted mess unusable by the jerker. Like Bill Clinton in a room full of feminists, I'm saying that I feel your pain, while keeping my eyes peeled for any new free porn I can exploit after making this post. Every job sector is suffering in its own way from this decline of the American empire. Quality of life will be going down like Inari Vachs used to, I fear, for non-pornographers and pornographers alike. So when it is said porn has become more legitimate and mainstream and respectable, what that means is the thug culture we love to cultivate in our youth has grown less respectable than you and now views you not as compatriots but as targets to pull down so they can feel taller. So, with a tear in my eye for us all, congratulations on becoming pillars of the community. I would love to ask China's brain trust what their plan is once our culture and economy totally implode from our trade imbalances, as the East continues to clone and pirate everything it wants while we dig further into our debt (debt which they then buy up). When China stands alone, sure there will be an era of great economic expansion like there was for us, but then there's going to be a huge "uh-oh" when they realize the model of piracy they used will take them no further. Then they too will be faced with our current problem as their culture's pirates turn cannibal and start to pirate their own culture out of existence. I'd like to ask China what they'd do at that point, and I'd write down everything they say, because it would likely be far more effective than what we're doing to stop the problem. So effective that it would be "un-American" to use their suggestions, probably. Yep, we're screwed.
DVD made the netflix-style of renting movies through the mail possible. That's something. It may not be a big deal to those in cities with large, well-stocked brick-and-mortar adult stores. But before I joined adult rental services based on the netflix model, my choices for porn videos were the limited selections available for rent from the back room of a mainstream video rental place or from a sex toy and lingerie boutique, or I could buy videos to own from online retailers. Being able to rent discs through the mail has greatly increased the selection available to me, without me having to buy movies to keep that I probably won't watch more than once, anyway.
Given that you need the internet to access the rental websites, yes, the internet is essential for that. But internet access was becoming pretty widespread by the late '90s, while by the chronology you posted DVD didn't take off until early this decade. So why didn't anyone think to start websites to rent movies (either mainstream or adult) by mail in the late '90s? Probably because VHS is so bulky that the postage would be prohibitive. When I'm buying something from an online retailer like Amazon, I need a minimum order size or else I have to pay for shipping myself. If a company was paying the postage to mail VHS tapes, one or two at a time, both ways, it just wouldn't be economical. At least not compared with the systems we have today with DVD. I don't think HD video sent straight over the internet will replace physical media anytime soon, either. Not in America, anyway. There are too many parts of the country where broadband simply isn't broad enough for that to feasible, or even if that fat pipe is available, it's still more expensive than physical media.
Are you absolutely certain that nobody did? Personally, I don't know, but there is a difference between thinking something up and turning it into successful online business, especially if we're talking about the late 90s. You undoubtfully heard about dot-com bubble and its collapse. The size of a DVD compared to a tape is of course relevant cost-wise, but I am not buying for a second that it was somehow the key factor. Besides, while NetFlix launched its website in 1998, they only started making profit in 2002 (from what I read). So, by the time video rental mechanisms (on-line) were worked out, VHS was already on its way out in general.
Chloe Temple Interview
Posted - Dec 3 2008 : 2:50PM
