LOS ANGELES — Industry vet Mike Kulich, who owns Stunner PR, Monarchy Distribution and SkweezMe.com, has fired up a grassroots pay-for-your-porn campaign dubbed the Porn Piracy Challenge.
According to Kulich, over the last five years the adult industry has seen a significant drop in sales due to tube sites, torrent sites and overall piracy. “DVD sales have dropped significantly and once prominent companies have closed their doors. As the talent pool grows, bigger production continues to decrease,” he wrote in a statement detailing the campaign.
His tangential riff on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge also involves a physical directive — he asks that adult figureheads go out and purchase adult DVDs at retail value. Kulich initiated the challenge by purchasing competing studio Burning Angel Productions’ “Kung Fu Pussy” from a local porn shop. “I’m not a fan of Kung Fu,” Kulich says in the YouTube video. “But I’m definitely a fan of pussy
He challenges four other industry vets — Take Down Piracy owner Nate Glass, XBIZ Owner Alec Helmy, AVN Owner Theo Sapoutzis and Exile Distribution President Howard Levine — to do the same.
"Piracy is a major problem that people just don't think about. Even in the mainstream, a copy of the ‘Expendables 3’ was leaked and illegally downloaded over 5,000,000 times before it even hit theaters," Kulich said. "This is a business and hundreds of thousands of people both in mainstream and adult work [who work] very hard, from lighting to acting to post production, to be able to make their living and piracy has put thousands out of jobs. I am hoping that this will bring some sort of light to this major epidemic that is killing off an entire industry.”
Kulich's YouTube video can be seen here.
