Welcome to the party, Sean Cody:
Gay filmmaker Sean Cody’s company has filed two porn BitTorrent lawsuits, charging that several collectives shared “Brandon & Pierce Unwrapped” online. [..] With the alleged trading of “Brandon & Pierce Unwrapped,” Cody’s parent company, 808 Holdings LLC, says that two swarms republished and duplicated pirated content on two occasions — Dec. 28 and Dec. 29 — on BitTorrent networks. The two suits finger 122 alleged traders. […] “Brandon & Pierce Unwrapped,” distributed last year, is Cody’s first bareback movie. It is the first time his company has waged federal copyright claims. […] Each of the suits ask federal judges to order ISPs to disclose user identities of the unnamed John Doe defendants and claim infringement damages of up to the statutory maximum of $150,000 per Doe.
So, $150,000 from each of the 122 defendants means that Sean Cody would like $18,300,000, please.
They’ll never get $18 million, obviously. And filing lawsuits won’t do anything to squash the online chatter that, after basically turning into a more revenue-friendly bareback site, Sean Cody is struggling financially. But, that doesn’t mean they aren’t doing the right thing, which of course they are.
That being said…”Brandon & Pierce Unwrapped“? Why not sue the people who stole the three-way, creampie, bareback double penetration movie with Dennis, Calvin, and Jordan, aptly titled “Dennis, Calvin, And Jordan: Bareback“? That one is the better movie, in my opinion, and much more worth protecting.
What I don’t understand is how come the Porn Industry can’t set up its sites like itunes?
Often times I want just specific scenes with one particular model…but I don’t want to waste 30+ bucks a month for a subscription that I’m probably to busy to fully use anyway…let alone for multiple sites???
I mean, that’s a lot of money…particularly to those young porn viewers who probably don’t have that to throw around… I mean, no wonder they pirate so much.
Why isn’t there some sort of pay per scene setup like itunes…hell, it changed the music industry when people didn’t want to waste money on buying whole albums full of filler just to get the song or two they wanted? Why can’t the porn industry do something similar? And if not in 1 major central hub (store) like itunes…each site could sell scene by scene for a decent price, and then have incentives for getting more full subscriptions.
It often feels like they simply don’t want to change their MO, and thus, it just encourages more pirating. I understand protecting your content…but I think the way they are going about it by attacking the little guy is all wrong…and in the end, is not going to fix the problem. Ever.
Maybe the Naked Sword should do a piece on the question whether there is too much gay porn being produced. I would answer that question in the affirmative and that this is the reason (together with piracy) why some gay porn companies are having a difficult time. The number of sites and production companies has exploded in the last 5 years but do many of these have a long time future?
(And yes, I pay for my porn).
Excellent question…the list of sites are out of control…
And the scenes are ALL THE SAME :-(
If they think they can sue for downloading their movies, then they should be sued for producing bareback porn.
LOL
well another easy solution is to get your gay friends together and each of you subscribe to a variety of sites…have a common user name and password and start downloading…I am SHOCKED at the prices of these month to month subscriptions seriously over a few months I feel that is TOO MUCH money to spend to watch guys fuck…
I sincerely hope more gay men are putting money into their 401k plans, IRAs and other forms of savings than shelling out to watch porn…the internet is LITTERED with FREE porn that YES you can still get off to…common sense needs to prevail…
The truth is, while memberships to these sites are a luxury expense and would be more wisely invested for the future. Without them, the companies would not be able to produce as much and the quality would seriously deteriorate. And while some think the quality is poor, compared to many of the shoestring budget amature sites, it isn’t.
BTW, sharing is another form of theft.
p.s. One thing I do like about the low budget vids, is they seem more “real” usually. And there isn’t as many edits, making most of the scenes have much longer segments between them. I think the top studios should emulate that somewhat. The shorter segments are distracting to me. Also they reinforce the knowledge that the action is NOT continous.
sorry but as long as the circle is TIGHT and you have NOT uploaded them to a sharing website…there is NOTHING Sean Cody, Corbin Fisher or others can do…I have a good friend and once a year he buys a subscription for a month shares the long/password with me and I do the same…I am sorry but it may considered a luxury but let me break it down this way…$72.95 for three months times 4 (12 months)= $291.80 for a year to Sean Cody; I can NOT even begin to figure out the cost at Corbin Fisher with their pay per view but a rough estimate is $79.95 for three months times 4 (12 months)= $319.80 for the American College Men that showcases Aiden and others with condoms….that is a LOT of money…just keep that in perspective…sure the Stock Market may not be doing that great but with this you are surely throwing your money away and with NO return…
Just a thought!!
I realize the first sentence in my comment wasn’t clear. But since there isn’t an edit button, I couldn’t change it.
I meant instead of buying memberships, it would be more wise to use the money to invest for the future. Stocks/bonds/cd’s/savings account, anything really that keeps it in your pocket, as you suggested. Not that buying a membership was an investment in the future.
My other point was that without enough memberships the studios could not keep producing as they are now. The quality and quantity would seriously suffer. Already some are simply recycling videos from one site to another(ASG and AD for example) and some have stopped producing(straight college men for example). And with the proliferation of free porn and pirated porn all segments of the industry are suffering.
And regardless if anything can be done or not if memberships are shared, it is still a form of theft. I would think the IP address would be one way to trace. But I really don’t know, as I am not a techie.
Sorry for the confusing way I worded my initial comment.
“Theft” is a weasel-word when it comes to file sharing. Theft requires that someone takes something from the person who owns it in such a way that it deprives the rightful owner of that something’s use. Filesharing doesn’t deprive the rightful owner of the ability to use the original file, as the owner is still in possession of the source materil. The copyright holder is deprived of revenue associated with the licensing of the material (which is to say that a CD you buy you aren’t actually “buying,” you’re simply obtaining a theoretically revokable license to listen to the music).
Copyright violation is what filesharers are guilty of, particularly those who use filesharing services that pay uploaders on download volume (since financial gain through unlicensed use of copyrighted material is the major no-no).
http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/7735-new-tennessee-law-criminalizes-password-sharing-for-entertainment
Thought this might be an interesting read for some.
File-sharing IS theft, the courts have upheld over and over again.
SOPA may be D.O.A., but the law is still clearly against file-sharing thieves. Download at your own risk.
The producers won’t get $18 million from you, but they’ll get whatever you can afford and mark your permanent record and credit rating.
To be honest I just never cared that much for “paying” for porn…when I need it I get off in 15-30 minutes and then revisit it in another week or so…I am not a daily consumer of it and therefore find no need for it to a high degree…I do realize that others (gay, straight, bi, etc) have a different tolerance for it. Hell I don’t even drink coffee and I live in Seattle, just to add a little more continuity to my self-assessment.
Just remember guys that condoms are VITAL to a healthy and productive sex life and the correct term is “SAFER SEX”. while mistakes (to err is human) happen we should ALL accept that nothing is 100%….yet wearing NO condom greatly increases the chances of a STI (HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, warts, hepatitis, etc.)…no amount of testing, word of mouth, etc can give you the level of personal assurance as a condom when having anal sex with someone.
The more you know…Woodsy the Sex Owl
“Download at your own risk”.
A keyword is used in that sentence, that a lot of people are clearly ignorant about and why the idea of targeting downloaders is complete bullshit. Here’s a little nugget of information for you. ANYTIME something loads into your browser – visual or auditory, you have by DEFINITION *downloaded* it. Thus, if by chance I go to a website that is “streaming” a copyrighted porn video, I have IMMEDIATELY done something illegal by the logic of the asshats who are out to get illegal “downloaders” because they are too incompetent to get the uploaders. And it always has boggled my mind how a society that champions capitalism would ever legitimize such a weak concept as “intellectual property”.
“Just remember guys that condoms are VITAL to a healthy and productive sex life and the correct term is “SAFER SEX”.”
Well since we’re going off topic…
This is what we’d call an oversimplification resulting in an objectively false statement. In fact, the idea of condoms as VITAL presupposes that sex must sometimes, even always involve people who are, or potentially are one or all of the three: (1)ignorant about std’s, (2)ignorant about each other’s status, and (3)untrustworthy. Does it happen? Yes, but of course it’s not HEALTHY, which is the topic at hand. Such an idea may have no immediately obvious ramification for the individual, but it’s insidious for the community as a whole, as evinced by the state of the gay community in terms of sexual health. In the long term, even the “safer” suffer for lack of real principles. Clearly bad seeds have been sewn..no pun. No, a TRULY healthy and productive sex as well as spiritual life is one where sexual partners care for and take responsibility for EACH OTHER (afterall it’s no a solo act), whether it means they must use condoms, or if it means they are able to forgo them.
The truth of the matter is this much like a subscription to Men’s Fitness once you buy a year’s worth you DO NOT ever need to buy anymore…Sean Cody, Corbin Fisher and the other companies like them just RECYCLE the same actors, props, positions and NOW with the addition of bareback it is even more so. Guys do yourself a favor buy a month subscription, cancel it immediately after buying it so you are not charged for another month, download as many movies as you like, save it to a zip drive say 1.5 TB and call it OVER!!!
Best blog yet :)))
Good for Mr. Cody. Have enjoyed his work for years.
That said, re: SOPA, the internet big-guys did a great job at fear-mongering and getting people to jump on a wagon to an unsympathetic public that is used to instant access (stealing) for free. We artists weren’t just fighting this from NAPSTER’s days, but even before the internet, when dial-up Bulletin Board Systems (think “War Games”) would have 14-year olds upload a pirated copy of my friend’s $9.99 software he slaved over 18 months writing code for. 1400 downloads and he sold less than 30 legitimate copies. All of those great indie code writers then abandoned writing great games and application for the Atari ST, Commodore 64, and the newly amazing first video PC, the AMIGA. So those expensive hardwares became heavy doorstops – everyone loses.
No one was gonna shut down “YouTube” if a user uploaded pirated clips (people do it now, and YouTube will take it down themselves). Your 1st Amendment right to swing your arms around violently stops before you come near me and hit my face. The Supreme Court ruled long ago that your right to yell “fire” in a crowded theatre does NOT protect you from moral, criminal, financial and civil responsibility for the harm that could result from a stampeding crowd.
I wonder how Google, Wikipedia and YouTube (owned by Google) would feel if I set-up off-shore web sites called “Gaggle,” “Wokipedia” and “UTube” – had my servers grab all their content every 15 minutes and just re-post it with a re-branded bug (corner logo), then sell my own ads to advertisers and keep 100% of the profit? To get people away from the original “copyrighted” sites, I would give away free porn or iPod credits. Further, without something strong and immediate like SOPA, as Google and Wikipedia would certainly take me to court, the present system would make them wait about 18 months before any real effect, which by then, I would have moved on to start a new limited partnership and new domain name.
I’m all for a free internet, but one that is responsible and not a back alley to be mugged in.
– Marcus Logan
Hollywood, California, U.S.A.
Why would they care if you set up ridiculously named websites?
Exactly!
No matter how hard they try, they aren’t Corbin Fisher.
I agree. They aren’t nearly as despicable.
…yet.