[IP] more on pornography as a consequence of p2p?
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 23:01:16 -0400
From:
Subject: Re: [IP] pornography as a consequence of p2p?
you certainly can delete my name out of this one!
On Sunday, September 7, 2003, at 05:22 PM, Dave Farber wrote:
Today's NY Times
(<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/07/technology/07PORN.html>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/07/technology/07PORN.html)
has an article on the latest scheme by the content industry to combat
peer-to-peer file-sharing: they're asserting that it promotes the
spread of pornography. The article does note the hypocrisy involved
in such a claim; it does not note that the fundamental end-to-end
nature of the Internet makes blocking such things very, very difficult.
Hi Dave,
I did a big research project on Scour's traffic around 1997-98. (I left the
firm prior to completion, so it was never published). Recall that Scour was
a centralized, Napster-like media search program/site. Scour was to Video
what Napster was to Audio.
>From what I determined (anecdotally at least -- the company imploded
under a hail of litigation before I received formal answers to my queries)
the vast majority of Scour's traffic -- something like 80%+ -- was hard
core, triple-X porn.
Ironically, the MPAA was one of the staunchest opponent's of Scour; At the
time, our working title of the research was "MPAA: Defender of the Porn."
While we can argue how much of a threat to full length feature films P2P is
(Do ya really wanna watch a film on your PC?), the peering phenomena was
and continues to be a very real threat to the Adult film business (although
osme are trying to use P2P as an XXX advertising medium.
Scour searches allowed for a very specific search (not just files types QT,
MWV, ASF, MPG), but specific sex acts and specific Adult stars. Once the
P2P database of adult film clips reached critical mass (which it did very
quickly) you could custom tailor your search for whoever you wanted doing
whatever you want to whomever else you wanted. It was the ultimate in
customizable searches (use your imagination).
Ironically, the lower cost "amateur" film sites have very effectively
hijacked much of the XXX P2P action as a method of advertising. They have
flooded the web with partial, lower quality clips, each branded with their
websites URL on it. It was a very smart response to the threat, one which
the music industry completely overlooked. Meanwhile, the mainstream porn
producers (i.e., Vivid Video) have been complaining that sales are growing
less robustly.
Regards,
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