Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

November 2009

There has been a lot of buzz (or lack of it) coming out of Washington these days regarding ACTA – Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. If you have not heard of it, you should Google it and get in the loop. If passed, how we handle online content might be greatly restricted – from an adult producer and retailers perspective, this may not be such a bad thing…depending on who decides on what is copyright infringement and who does the monitoring.

Some of the treaty’s most critical elements are:

• ISP’s (Internet service providers) will be required to actively police copyrights on user-generated material, and will be held responsible for copyrighted material found on their servers.
• If an ISP discovers a copyright infringement by a customer, they’ll be required to cut off that user’s Internet access. This provision currently includes no way for the customer to dispute the decision. Currently it appears ISPs alone will determine what constitutes a copyright offender.
• According to the ACTA, the whole world will have to follow the United States’ lead in how to enforce copyright laws. Meaning that users will be able to tell someone they’re violating their copyright, and that person will have to take down the material in question.
• The new treaty also includes stronger language banning the practice of breaking digital-rights management (DRM) software.

There are a lot more stipulations and provisions in the ACTA, but that is beyond the scope of this post and it is not what I am trying to focus on here. The strange part about the treaty is the lack of information available.

If done correctly, this treaty could be the best thing to ever happen to the adult industry, adult affiliates and adult retailers. Think about it, if all the free tube sites were to come down, file sharing sites and numerous other sites giving away free content, will all but disappeared (or have to pay for content).

I have to ask – how much do you think your affiliate sales would go up? I would estimate at least 1000% to 2000%! If a guy wants his porn, and there is very little free content to look at – he will pay for it….and us affiliates will be right there, offering lots of choices and promoting with material that we are allowed to use from the content providers and producers of adult content.

I have no problem with this law, I am only concerned as to how it will be implemented and monitored, and by whom. I don’t feel anyone has the right to use content created by another person or company, without permission or paying for it. Yes it cost more, but then you have more people earning money, and more people that can afford to purchase usage rights.

Lets say you produce an adult movie, production costs run you $100,000. You estimate maximum sales will be 200,000 downloads at a price of $2 a download (although this may be calculated as part of a subscription fee) – gross profit is $300,000. Looking good so far, but right after the film is released a pirated version hits the Internet and is being offered free, or at a fraction of the price, maybe the equivalent of %0.50 a download. If you even try to compete with this, you will be lucky to break even – which is highly unlikely if it is also out there for free!

The above is a hypothetical scenario but it illustrates what is happening in any industry that sells digital products, not just the adult industry. If you spend money to create something, no one should have the right to take it and resell it without you getting your share, or post it to their website for free viewing to increase traffic and charge more for advertising spots.

Sure, this may have an impact on YouPorn, RedTube and numerous sites similar in concept, but really, new ideas and new opportunities will come out of the ashes. One thing is for sure, if something is “NOT” done about this issue, many producers of digital products, especially in the adult industry, will go out of business – and that is just not right!

Anyone who thinks it is okay to view stolen video content,  use pirated software, or any digital product without paying for it, needs to refer back to the Ten Commandments for a refresher course. I believe there is a line that says “Thou Shalt Not Steal”.

Digital freedom advocates may protest this treaty, maybe they are just broke, maybe they forgot their morals, but really, there is no gray area here, if you didn’t pay for it, and you are required to pay for it, you stole it – period!