Wednesday, Jan 7, 2009    Text size: 

No statistic demonstrates this more dramatically than the membership figures of ThePirateBay.org, a BitTorrent tracker that saw its membership jump from 6 million to more than 20 million over the last year.

This jump happened despite the shuttering of at least four torrent-tracking services last year, including TorrentSpy, which got hit with a $111 million penalty last year for its role as a middleman in the supply of free content. By definition, torrent trackers only catalogue so-called "torrent" files — small packets of data that users plug into separate applications that use the data to find and download actual content.

The Pirate Bay's success in the face of such setbacks means that free content will continue to flow to users with the technical know-how to exploit the website, which operates beyond the scope of U.S. copyright law in Sweden.

The adult industry has watched the advent of torrent sites happen alongside an explosion in video-sharing "tube" sites, which all replicate the functionality of YouTube and offer loads of free content — including entire scenes — to casual surfers.

There may not be a causal link between these two phenomena, but it's enough to make All Media Play President Jeff Mullen see red. Mullen has consistently decried the practice of offering free content, and he hopes to one day see torrent sites called "fencers of stolen property."

"Free content is the death of creativity," Mullen told XBIZ, later criticizing adult companies that have used the tube-site model to make money.

One such company that has received criticism for its association with tube sites is leading adult paysite network Brazzers. Preview scenes for Brazzers content appear on RedTube, typically with a link to one of the company's many promotional pages.

Without going into specifics, a representative for Brazzers told XBIZ that some aspect of the company's policy will soon change.

"In 2009, we will be committed to changing market conditions and making a stand against content piracy that has hurt us significantly in 2008," the representative said.

But over the hill in Hollywood, things look brighter. In 2008, North American box office results totaled $9.78 billion — a new record. Torrent sites traffic in free mainstream movies just as much — if not more — than adult movies, so why isn't tinseltown hurting?

Mullen said they will. He explained that adult movies make much more of their money through online sales, which leaves them susceptible to content pirates. Mainstream movies, by contrast, are not. At least, not yet.

"As soon as 'High School Musical 5' comes out, and they find out they only made $3 million on opening weekend because all the kids watched it on a torrent site, you'll see changes coming down from Hollywood," he said, adding that these "changes" would likely include increased pressure from Hollywood studios on Congress to stop pirating.

On the other hand, there may be no stopping content piracy. Mainstream video-sharing site Hulu.com has found great success by licensing high-quality content and peppering it with a reasonable amount of advertising. Such a model might have a future in adult, though TopBucks' Q Boyer sees a different future for adult entertainment.

Boyer told XBIZ that content piracy isn't going anywhere, and that it's been around as long as content has been around. He added that he hopes content piracy can be slowed to a manageable level. In addition, Boyer predicted that adult producers will adapt to the changing landscape and simply offer content that's un-pirate-able.

"I think the future is in content that is time-sensitive and contextual, so to speak," he said. "Not necessarily that it will all be live or real-time content, but content that is interactive in a way that pirates cannot simply replicate through copying."

What kind of content is that? Naturally, live chat content falls into that "time-sensitive" category. Boyer also said that behind-the-scenes and on-location videos carry a certain timely appeal, along with topical titles like Hustler's Sarah Palin-themed movies.

"I'm not sure what the replay value on [the Sarah Palin titles] will be," he said. "It probably depends on how good the porn is, but you've got to believe they had more appeal in October 2008 than they will in october 2010 — unless she's in the news again then."

Despite these potential changes, though, The Pirate Bay seems to be here to stay. Tech blogger Ernesto, who writes for TorrentFreak.com, predicted that ThePirateBay.org will continue to grow by the millions in spite of the scrutiny it receives, and they're not alone.

"The Pirate Bay encourages others to start their own tracker," he said. "The more heads the Hydra has, the better."