As XBiz has reported in the past, Wicked are one of several U.S. adult companies whose products are being rampantly pirated overseas. In February, defendants in an Australian film piracy case pleaded guilty to breaching copyrights owned by Wicked, CalVista and Adultshop.com.
“Piracy is a major problem in the Australian adult film industry and we are being flooded with pirated DVDs and videos,” said Graeme Dunne, executive officer of Australia’s Adult Industry Copyright Organization, the group that filed suit on behalf of Wicked and the other companies involved. “We estimate that they account for over 80 percent of the adult films sold in Australia.”
Because AICO is funded by Australian distributors rather than studios, the distributors won damages the court awarded in the case, meaning the U.S. companies involved received no compensation for lost revenues. The specially colored, logo-specific DVD cases are intended to help Wicked avoid such loses in the future.
While piracy isn’t nearly as prevalent in the U.S., some within the industry estimate that illegal copying is sapping as much as 30 percent of annual profits from larger studios such as Wicked and Vivid. In addition to lost income, piracy can also seriously damage a company’s reputation due to faulty motion menus and poor image quality.
Wicked said the new, imprinted gray cases will replace the company’s traditional black DVD cases over the next several months.