Has Copyright owners actions affected your choice?

[muswell]

Not trying to justify anything. Just thinking that porn has always been "shared" and has survived. My guess is it will continue to do so.

[one eyed jack]

Hickster: That is the problem though, they DO NOT have the right of appeal.

That doesnt even make sense to me but ok if they have to go to court then maybe thats the course of action they should take. This si what you do to help people right? You dont help the ones who are guilty right? Or are you just doing it to oppose the action whether the accused is right or wrong because you are opposed to GEILS methods?


Hickster:"This load on the family is unacceptable"

Are we just talking about porn or downloading more acceptable things like music, software and mainstream films? Again if guilty its a fair cop but seriously, how high are we looking at for innocent casualties in this? If that was really the case I'm sure it would be illegal so maybe the courts and o2 should be brought to task. If the adult industry are allowed to do this then it has obviously explitid a legal loophole to do this


Hickster:...all I can see is the Public launching a massive backlash against your industry for attempting to exploit and extract money from people

Nothing new there then.

The porn industry has always been seen as a pariah and blight on society. In fact the adult industry is the whipping post of peoples moral compass and probably the best platform to try this on so the mainstream companies can come up smelling of roses which is why its being practised at this level I suspect.

Aside from this the adult industry is constantly under attack with things like ATVOD and the anti porn crusaders and people trying to demonise it with child porn and human trafficking. These are really exciting times to be in porn right now. Never a dull moment this business !laugh!

Bpaw: May I ask OEJ what you would have thought of Julian Becker if he said a year ago that they have say 2,000 IP addresses found downloading your films, and a year later they have 600 names?


No different at all. I have no confidence in any financial outcome arising from this. I believed a stand was a first course of action for better or worse because inactivity lets people think you are complacent and encourages the trend to continue. It still does because everyone thinks downloading is acceptable. Hey its there for free why pay for it?

The only positive thing I have seen arising from this is the debates it has started. Fierce. Heated and passionate. Thats priceless. Thing is all this is designed to draw attention to this. Its not about money for me. I do not expect I will earn a penny from it and thats not the reason why I signed up. I got into porn to make money and indeed I've done well but Ive taken up a variety of causes as a result of being in the business. Ill admit this one hasnt been clear cut because I can see the points on both sidesbut what other options are there?


Muswell: porn has always been "shared" and has survived

Yes indeed it has but not to the epic proportions it has now. Im not just tlaking porn here. Im talking everything and the trend is set to get worse as more an dmore people get on board and do it and allow a whole new subculture of business to come out and do what GEIL is doing. Thats the way it looks like its going. I predict its going to get a lot worse and the lines of right and wrong will be a lot more blurred. If its O2 today whose to say it wont be BT, T Mobile or Orange next year? If not? Then why O2?

[one eyed jack]

Just for the record I'm not the official spokesperson for the industry on this topic. Just a guy who when spoken to does the polite thing in answering back.

My opinions do not represent the industry at large nor should it be seen as a record of representing it. Im a mid level producer somewhere between amateur and professional and by no means an authority figure on this topic.

Just to make that clear

[Hickster]

LOL to late for that OEJ, we KNOW you are the industry spokesperson LMAO

But seriously, no I don't believe you are, but this is the state of the situation. The NPO is granted on a low threshold of evidence, just really a desire that a person is being done out of their trade and needs to know the true identity of the person who is doing it. Of course the NPO law was created in 1974, and so has no real basis for using on the internet, what I mean by that is the process of the NPO is to expose a persons true identity, HOWEVER an IP address does NOT do that, as has been evidenced in the High Court.

Say for instance you have a family with teenage kids, and they are quite savvy with the internet. A letter comes through the door in Dads name accusing him of downloading some lame film, game, software, now he asks his kids what is going on, as he knows HE didn't download this file, they say "WTF, dad, like would do that" so he asks his wife, his wife denies it also, so now he is stuck, noone knows or will admit to downloading this file.

(Of course it is not actually downloading that is the issue here it is uploading, but that is bullshit anyway)

So dad has a prob, who could it be, maybe it was his neighbor? or someone on the street all able to do so on his router. Even if he has it properly encrypted, someone can crack it.

Now of course, it may well be that one of the kids did it, but as they have not admitted to it, they are all innocent, thing is they don't KNOW this, so they worry, they panic, letters come asking them for money, their debts are high, they can afford to pay anything really but what do they do?

Of course this is the BEST scenario, IP tracking can sometimes only get down to a wider area than a single house, sometimes it misses completely and if the timing of the ISP is out or the Data monitor then you could be at either end of the Country.

But please take a look here http://xhamster.com/

Now please be my guest, see if any of yours or Ben Dover Productions material is on there, then ask yourself, why it is STILL on there? Lindsay Honey could easily have it removed, he has the money and the intent, so why wont he? Well there is NO MONEY in it, but is this just about the money? Everyone knows that an individuals wealth is different to that of his company?

Seems strange to me that GEIL/BDP although targeting torrents aren't actually having them removed Hmmm I wonder why that might be!

[ScottMcGowan]

Hi, folks. Glad to see this conversation happening in a largely civilised way. Well done!

bpaw, when we at Your Choice were asked to take part in Golden Eye's initiative against those who torrent our files, we declined.

This is partly because in our research, we found similar studies and statistics to the one you posted that showed that those who use torrents and file locker sites were often very good paying customers.

We've chosen not to risk alienating those customers.

Another concern we had on a similar front is that there is something of a shaming aspect to the operation (e.g. pay the penalty quietly now and this will not become a matter of public record) that we feel could ultimately have chilling affect on all porn, especially British porn.

Since 1987 (that's 25 years), Your Choice has always maintained the position that adults should not be ashamed of watching porn created and performed by other consenting adults- full stop.

Don't get me wrong, we're not necessarily happy to find the content we own floating around out there. We just felt this particular method stood to cause a lot of collateral damage and was not for us.

[ScottMcGowan]

Hickster wrote:

> What I am concerned with is the high level of innocent people
> who were caught up in the Davenport Lyons, ACS:LAW, Tilly Baily
> Irvine, Gallant Macmillan. legal action.
>
> ACS:LAW and Davenport Lyons it has been proven KNEW they were
> targeting innocent people, and just continued, those people
> were identified at least for ACS:LAW by NG3 Systems headed by
> Alireza Torabi, the SAME person who is now identifying alleged
> infringers for Golden Eye International/Ben Dover Productions.

Hickster, this was among the other problems we identified that made the operation unsuitable for our involvement.

[Hickster]

@ScottMcGowan

I truly appreciate your comments and your candor, I and the others who have come on here to post about this Speculative Invoicing scheme that Golden Eye International are now running mean to conduct ourselves well and I apology already if any of my posts have been anything less than honest and polite.

I realise that this forum is not necessarily for us, yet we thank all of you for allowing us to post.

I would like to chat to you about certain aspects of this and as you have state you are a producer, I would welcome you to email me. My email is acs.bore@googlemail.com I would like to ask you some questions on the subject if that is ok with you.

I am merely a person who was targeted by ACS:LAW and got angry at the invasion of what I felt was my life at the time. That was 3 and a half years ago now, I am more up to knowing what I was actually being accused of now. I run a blog which I am not sure if you have read, but a simple google search will find it. It is titled ACS:BORE

If you do not feel comfortable emailing me then that is fine, I thank you for your consideration in advance.

[one eyed jack]

In answer to your post Hickster (sorry for late reply. Ive got an eye infection right now. Yeah booo LOL)

Producers are a jaded cynical bunch who wouldmnt put the time and effort to chasing pirates after going the route of isuing dmcas they realised they were swimming against the tide on this

Enter stage left, the man with the plan who understood the situation and took seized the opportunity to handle it pro bono (free) there were questions of its legality and scepticicim whether it is an effective fight against piracy per se but with a lot of things in the adult industry, its a case of try it for size and see what the outcome is.

Taking down pirated material is so endemic now its a full time job in itself that most producers cant do while trying to produce.

If the results so far is media atention and debate leading to changing this trend then thats fine but Im a realist that believes the business model has changed.

GEIL is the least of the problems. Ive heard companies ate buying your content now so it will get pirated and they will go after those people. You shouldve sen the siz of the guy I met in Berlin last year and they told me they will send him anywhere in the world to collect. You can bet your arse I will have nothing to do with that!!! They seemed real friendly too

In short I reckon this anti piracy and earning from it stuff is going to get a lot worse than GEIL who seem to be doing it with supervision with the`courts and O2 how they word and issue those letters.

If it was illegal what they were doing I could see your point totally. Right now its hard to not see it as a justification to lie down and do nothing because it is wrong against those who want to share files with all and sundry for free

[one eyed jack]

I swear that bald headed german guy was about 7 foot tall. Im sure if he comes knocking at your door and you answer the first words will "Ill go get my chequebook"

Not so sure he will be as polite if you cancel it before he gets on the plane. Even scarier than that was how nice the blokes were.

I noticed the anti piracy contingent werent around approaching stands this year so maybe it has lost its legs...So to speak

[one eyed jack]

With all due respect Scott

but is the fight against piracy detrimental to your business where you are largely into retail?

This is like FACT The federation against copyright theft only work for the big companies that finance the films not the shops that sell it.

Inother words, your investment in licencing the rights for a movie is negligible when offset against the actual cost of a production.

This is the difference in opinon between producers and re sellers. I know YC has produced stuff but its not your prime source of income. Again, just illustrating why our views will differ