Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Pornographers Have Turned On the Pirates

Axel Braun, pornographic auteur, has filed a federal copyright suit against nearly 7,100 individuals. The offense? Sharing his Batman XXX: A Porn Parody via torrents. It's basically a NSFW version of the summer's Hurt Locker case.
The script is expected to play out the same in this case as it did then: lawyers will gather the IP addresses of those who shared the movie, subpoena those people's ISPs for identifying information, then offer an out-of-court settlement that the majority will take. In fact, the only real difference may end up being the quality of the soundbites:
"F—- 'em all," Braun told Xbiz. "People don't realize that when you pirate a movie it hurts all of the people who work very hard to get it produced—from the cast to the production assistants to the makeup artists... So we are going after every one of them who pirates our content."
And honestly, it's not surprising that pornographers would seek out the same protections as Academy Award winners. Content is content, regardless of the nipple count.
This also isn't the first time an adult entertainment company has gone after the torrents; Lucas Entertainment filed suits against about 100 people in August. But this is the first legal action of this scope.
What's disappointing is that the often filmmakers turn to these sweeping shakedowns, the more legitimized it becomes as a controlling method. It didn't work for the music industry in the previous decade, and it hasn't done anything to stem movie torrenting yet in this one. Maybe it's time to find a better way.

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