The Copyright & Intellectual Property Podcast Episode 024

Learn about the past to understand how internet piracy exists on the internet. If piracy is a constant, the distribution of adult content is a crystal ball. For almost 20 years I’ve been on the front lines watching, influencing, managing, & solving piracy. The purpose of this episode is to share & allow you to learn from the mistakes of large companies who didn’t embrace new technology, what was possible, or look to adapt. Learn what is possible and what you can do when piracy affects you.

“First we put up content, then we sold the right to see it. We made buckets of cash. Then pirates came. When the buckets of cash slowed, the pirates mattered.” – Jason Tucker

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My job is to focus on anti-piracy issues on a global scale. My job is also relationship management and brokering of deals. Because of what I do I can tell you the extent of internet piracy in a particular location and more often than not the top pirates in those countries. I can track internet piracy and find piracy because of a primmer and patterns.

For almost 20 years I have worked in the online business. I also work in the tech, music and mainstream entertainment business. I jump worlds. I have been a content producer, a website owner, a magazine publisher, distributor, a gateway for tech companies, an innovator, and as a result of co-owning what at the time was one of the world’s largest libraries of content, a pirate hunter.

The world wide web grew because of adult entertainment. The business models we use today came from the adult business. Streaming video and its predecessor JPEG Push, pay per click, banner ads, transaction systems, the need for large data delivery, all started with the online adult business. Most of these systems came from the need to serve a few people; Ron, J.B., Dave, Yishai, Russ, Joe, Joel, Jonathan these names mean nothing to those who were not there but there should be statues dedicated to them. If you made a dollar today from the internet you should be thanking them for helping to grow an amazing field which we get to play on.

You may not like the subject matter of adult but the subject matter filled the pipes and fueled the growth that has resulted in the online landscape we exist in.

In the beginning there were no rules. To say it was a magical time is an understatement. To say movies like Middle Men which Chris made in 2008 gives you a view – I would suggest it was more like a peek in to how wild, interesting, and educational it really was. It was a tight group. Still is. When you are in a small pool and nothing is out of reach and its fueled by money, drugs, celebrity, and world travel, a real bond is formed.

People nowadays talk about the early days of bitcoin in a slightly similar fashion. The 2010 story of Laszlo the programmer who bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins. That’s about $4.5M per pizza pie. People say who would do that today, well, Laszlo the programmer who wanted pizza.

Some of my favorite stories involve playing Xbox in a two-story Vegas hotel suite for traffic and site joins while bribing workers at Nathans in increments of $100 to deliver junk food while also stopping for donuts and smokes. For those that tuned in for stories of nudity and drugs there was that too. If coke was snow, people I know sped up the accusations of climate change in Vegas and Miami at least twice a year. Many a major business deal was done in hotel suite bathroom. The nudity, the excess, was also seen at work so that was just part of the deal. We were tech geeks who jumped on to a thing. Nerds who had means. Not many knew where that thing was going but man, we were well paid for the ride.

At first, we put up content, then we sold the right to see it. Then we made buckets of cash. Then the pirates came. When the buckets of cash slowed, the pirates mattered.

This awareness of piracy will happen in every industry. It happened in adult; it still happens in adult.

The first round of pirates scanned magazines for the pictures. Pirates quickly got their hands-on digital images and the internet did what it does, duplicates content at lightning speed.

Back then the world wide web wasn’t that big. You could really reach the end of the internet or at the very least feel as though you had.

For us, initially at that time piracy was an afterthought. We didn’t know the size and scope or how to tackle it; no one really did. We were making, we were licensing, we were counting. Then the problem got huge. A search would result in thousands of pages of our images. They were on free sites, in members areas, on banner ads, and if I had to guess only about 20-30% of what we found were licensed. Others were selling and licensing CD’s and tapes with our content. Some of those pirate operations were even providing fake licenses to those who purchased from them.

That can seem overwhelming. It did. But today there are laws, and case history, and a road map of what to do and how to get almost anywhere. There are flaws in the law and we will touch upon what changes I would like to see in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in a future episode. The DMCA is the law that governs copyright infringement liability in the digital world.

The systems we use today are modified versions of the systems and tools I put into play over a decade ago. They work. Today I am more effective at ending a particular stress point for a content producer. Our clients also don’t wait until their numbers are sliding to address the issues.

The unlawful proliferation of adult content is a good lesson in consumer habits and how to address piracy.

Let’s discuss an example of this same song playing out in the music business.

In about 2002 a stable version of Napster hit the scene. It took no time for the music industry to freak out because they were quickly losing their traditional distribution models. People wanted to consume content differently than ever before. The music industry was slow to move on that idea. Steve Jobs’ Apple, one of the original Pirates of Silicon Valley, later solved that problem with an iPod and iTunes.

Napster was based on a peer to peer technology. Napster was awesome for dropping toolbars and adware on to people’s computers. Napster was also awesome for finding and downloading music. Napster was a money machine for adult content. What was missed by too many during that entire period because the word piracy drowned the noise was that peer to peer technology is an awesome delivery tool. Napster at its core operated like edge delivery on the world wide web.

While adult was busy making money from this new technology the music industries solution was to have Madonna record the statement, “what the fuck do you think you’re doing?“ If you downloaded certain music, instead of playing the music, you got Madonna asking you what you were up to. It was like getting Rick Rolled. Today that same model is repeated when the music industry takes down a pirate site and sends out a press release only to see five more pop up from the same pirate. It’s almost like pirates are asking the music industry what its thinking.

Was Napster all bad? No. If Napster was the beta model, iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, and like streaming services are the release model. The closest at that time was CinemaNow a Microsoft sponsored company that streamed content through Windows Media Player. CinemaNow was hard to market and the model was hard to sell. At least they tried.

Not all music or media companies rejected the Napster model. I was contracted to see if we could sell music on Napster. We did and we did so well the music label shut us down. The excuse, they didn’t want to provide artists the ability to have real time data on dollars.

I don’t share this to gloat or just walk down memory lane for the sake of walking. I share this because no matter your industry, when business slows or competition starts nipping at your bottom line, or a disruptive new technology shows up, take a look at what’s possible before you work to shut it down.

Piracy is where people tend to look to place blame. They don’t always place the blame in its correct place. They don’t always see the opportunity.

Internet piracy does chip into bottom lines. Piracy has wiped out businesses. But piracy like a virus must be respected and properly addressed. If overwhelming force was always the answer, then the music industries anti-piracy efforts should have wiped out music piracy. Hollywood’s torrent attacks should have ended torrent sites. My early no holds barred action in adult should have wiped out piracy. It didn’t. What we all did was change how pirates operate. Its why I changed our model. Its why we systematically target problem sites and networks.

We look at the whole picture. We figure out where piracy really is an issue. Then we solve those issues.

The music industry saw Napster as attack on their antiquated distribution model. Their control was at stake. The market was telling them about a new way to serve content, they basically ignored it. I used Napster to drive traffic and sell products.

What do all of these stories and moments have in common?

There will be opportunity, big money, in selling, using, and trading content. Advertising models work, membership sites work, selling and licensing photographs, courses, music, film, video, cam content, all of it, it’s of value.

Don’t Let Pirates Spook You.

Create content and sell it. Just don’t forget that pirates exist. Don’t forget that internet piracy is existing right now in your market.  You may not be paying attention because you may be making buckets of money.

Anti-Piracy efforts do not need to consume you or be costly. Just keep an eye on piracy. If for no other reason know that you can learn a lot from a pirate.

What have Learned from Pirates?

• You can give content away and still make a nice living from ad sales and upsales.
• You can get a piracy network to comply with requests and stay away from your content.
• You can turn a pirate into a marketing agent meaning an affiliate.
• You can learn smart SEO tricks.
• You can learn what an audience wants and how they want it.
• You can see trends before most in your field will get wind.
• Pirates are also great at avoiding liability.
• The US Laws that were created to purportedly protect a content owner’s rights can be used to avoid liability. Its why the law need to be updated.
• The US is not the leader in anti-piracy efforts we think we are. When it comes to anti-piracy, the US laws are behind the UK, Germany, France and other counties including Russia.

Why?

In all of those other countries there is a fairly quick and easy road map to show that a site has liability and that the URL should lose the right, I mean block any access to traffic from those countries.

Since the US is some of, if not the most valuable traffic in the world the ability to cut a sites ability to access US traffic would be a massive deterrent and a highly effective tool.

If a DMCA Subpoena allowed us access to the WHOIS records from a registrar, again, effective tool.

I would suggest that more than 1 in 3 tube pirate sites provide fake information to their service providers. Service providers such as the host, the content delivery network provider, the SSL Certificate issuer, and other services.

If service providers could be held liable or fined by ICANN for not maintaining accurate information, the face of the internet piracy would change.

To play on a Prince tune, I would find you like it was 1999.

Ok enough about what the law should look like.

Here Is What I Think You May Want to Do?

If you do nothing else, simply register your copyrights and keep track of your content. Don’t wait. This way if and when you decide to address the internet piracy of your content, you are ready to go. Then, however piracy hits you, it can be dealt with. The sooner and earlier you address internet piracy the easier it is to manage.

When we take on new clients who have had market penetration for an extended period of time, it will us 16-18 months before we can step back and see a huge shift. There will be noticeable differences but I mean a big shift. Once we reach that point, then its much easier to make deals, shift the tables, and fully leverage opportunities. The message in that is the sooner you do something, the easier it is. I mean opportunities abound.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. the author of Life’s Little Instruction Book said, “Opportunity dances with those who are ready on the dance floor.”

You can be ready with your organized spreadsheet, a few Google alerts to monitor your work, and registrations. If you need support organizing, listen to episode 20 of this podcast. It’s called Organizing Intellectual Property Library – Step by Step Plan.

When your Google alerts go off, get in the habit of sending a DMCA Takedown Notice. It takes a few minutes. If you go to IPHQS.com and click on Free Tools, we have a DMCA Notice Generator and a Takedown Template you can use for free.

Watch how your content or better yet, your competitors’ content is being exploited by pirates. Then use that as a template for ad targeting.

With internet piracy the end result is always the same, it’s about money for the pirate. It’s about getting eyeballs and moving them to a location. The difference between you and a pirate is that you have the cost of creation.

Internet piracy at its core is still the same as it was 20 years ago. The good news is now you have some tools and maybe a new way to see opportunity.

I hope that this helps you as you continue to create and publish your work. Listen to our other podcast episodes for additional tips and tools to support you.

If you have questions or want to share experiences, you can join and post inside of our FREE Facebook group at Intellectual Property HQ Community.

You can follow me on Twitter @IntelPropHQ

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Happy Hunting!

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