Let's hear it for Porn!

First published here.

The first photograph ever was taken by Nicéphore Niépce. He'd been mucking around trying to invent a working camera and one day he got a decent shot of the view from his workroom window. It was pretty boring but encouraged by his success, Niépce dropped his pants, pointed the camera downwards and took the world's second photograph.*

God I love the adult industry. They're so with it!

If you ever needed proof that some people would never, ever buy the content they download from the p2p networks, just look at porn (as an example, although you can take that literally if you want - blame it all on me if someone catches you). Porn producers have always been at the forefront of advances in technology, often infulencing the technology itself and it's adoption by the general public.

Want to know how we ended up with VHS instead of Betamax VCRs?

The equipment for manufacturing stuff on Betamax was expensive. The VHS gear was cheap. Adult film producers didn't have the cash to spend on Sony's Betamax, so they put all their blue movies out on VHS. Guess what people did? They bought VHS players because there was more content available for that format...

...and VCRs were fantastic! It was no longer necessary to sit in a big dark room with dozens of other people wearing a raincoat with the inner pockets cut out - you could watch people getting it on in the privacy of your own home! All you had to do was make a quick dash into an adult video store, grab the video with the sexiest cover, pay your money while avoiding the checkout guy's gaze and run out onto the street again. Then someone decided you could skip that all together and get your porn posted to you, no face to face contact required!

"Woohoo!" said all the people embarrassed about being seen buying racy movies. "Woohoo!" said the pornographers as they pocketed enormous amounts of cash, (quickly followed by "hey, maybe we could spend a few extra bucks on the set next time...") Then the internet came along and helloooo new marketplace!

Sex is such a great analogy for recorded media: you can enjoy it by yourself, or with other people. Some people will pay for it, some people won't. For those that do pay, you can watch it live or watch it on a screen. You can get it free if you know where to go. You can buy lots of gadgets to make it more interesting.

And there's something out there for everyone.

The adult industry understood this all a long time ago, which is why you'll never see them jumping up and down about losing revenue from p2p. Can you imagine for a minute what would happen if the Free Speech Coalition (how's that for a cool sounding trade organization?) went around suing people for downloading? We's be seeing court cases like Fuck Me Films vs. Does 1-25.

If you thought being sued by a record company was bad, imagine having your name stuck on that public document! It would be bloody effective of course - millions of people really would stop downloading then, but at the same time none of them would be going out and buying their smut instead of downloading it - the only reason people are downloading Leather & Chains Lovin' Volume 9 is because they wouldn't be seen dead buying it in public.

Even in some parts of the western world, being caught with that kind of film would be cause for losing your job, moving house and perhaps changing your name as well.

People selling bootleg porn DVDs (ie, real pirates) actually do get busted for it, which is all right an proper but in general the adult film industry is pretty chilled about people copying for "private home viewing". Sure it would be nice for them if all the internet pornoholics started handing over their credit cards for some hot and horny hardcore action but they figure that if it ain't gonna happen, why try and force people? After all, there's way too much rootin', tootin' fun to be had just going to work every day to waste time complaining about some spotty teenager ripping them off.

Perhaps one day Hollywood will wake up and realize the porno makers are actually pulling in more money than they are, even with all their content flying freely across the net (Yes, sales and rentals of adult movies brought in more cash than the mainstream movie business did last year).

People didn't suddenly stop buying porn when the internet started getting popular - overall they bought more.

People also didn't stop buying regular content - overall, they bought more and they'll keep buying it too, provided it can be delivered to them in new and creative ways like the adult entertainment industry has been providing over the last few years.

As much as a lot of people hate to admit it, the adult entertainment industry has been a consistent leader in recorded media and has a huge impact on the shape of the world.

So, if you're wondering who'll win the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD battle, find out what type of next-gen player Jenna Jamison is buying.

* I have absolutely no proof of this whatsoever.