“After a successful Content Protection Retreat, we really became fully educated on piracy and the viable options for combating it,” said Allison Vivas, president of Pink Visual.
“The information that was shared by all the retreat’s attendees helped us craft a well-rounded approach and it was very encouraging to see how many other studios are ready and willing to take action.”
Vivas said that Pink Visual’s anti-piracy strategy will combine the establishment of ‘best practices’ for the display and distribution of content on its own sites, a revised and clarified acceptable-use policy regarding the promotional content the company provides to affiliates, an increased number of DMCA take-down notices the company issues, filing additional litigation and the development of a new billing model that is “better suited to the modern online porn consumer mindset.”
As part of its new best practices doctrine, Pink Visual has published a clear anti-piracy notice to its subscription site customers, reminding them of the potential consequences for illegally sharing copyrighted content.
The company is also restricting downloadable content such that only its long-term members will have that capability and blocking the use of mass download managers.
To bolster its efforts to have infringing content removed from third-party websites and networks, Pink Visual has retained Degban, which scans more than 100,000 sites hourly to collect evidence of infringement and issue removal requests.
This is in addition to being part of the FSC’s Anti-Piracy Action Program through which Pink Visual’s content is tracked across more than 20 major tube sites and automatically removed or truncated on the tube sites that are actively filtering content using digital finger print technology.
While Pink Visual has declined to take part in end-user litigation, Vivas said that the company is “actively preparing litigation against several tube and torrent site operators,” cases that will be filed in the weeks ahead.
“After the Content Protection Retreat, I think most companies left understanding how legally strong copyright infringement cases against tube and torrent operators in our industry can be,” Vivas said.
“In addition to taking legal action against some site operators on our own, there are several other companies preparing to file multiple-plaintiff lawsuits against such site operators in the coming months. We anticipate that these lawsuits will be officially announced within the first quarter of 2011.”
Vivas said that while Pink Visual intends to collect damages in its lawsuits, a major component of the actions will be to seek injunctive relief against the defendants that will require the site operators to use digital fingerprint filtering technology via FSC's Anti-Piracy Action Program as an ongoing means to prevent future infringement by the defendants.
Vivas also noted that voluntary implementation of such filtering software by tube site operators could help “minimize their exposure” and reduce the risk of being targeted for legal action.
Vivas emphasized that while litigation will continue to be an essential facet of Pink Visual’s anti-piracy strategy, the introduction of new distribution methods and billing models is equally important, if not more so.
“We’ve all heard it said, again and again, that if adult entertainment companies are going to survive the changes that take place in the dynamic digital marketplace, we have to be willing and able to adapt to the realities of that marketplace,” Vivas said.
“Along those lines, we are planning to roll out a new content delivery method and new price structure that we feel will appeal more to end-users who place a high premium on affordability, accessibility, convenience and privacy.”
Vivas said that the new structure is slated to begin beta testing in January and noted that the company will continue to solicit direct feedback from end-users, similar to the discussion Vivas has initiated on the user forum at PlanetSuzy.org.
To help maintain the momentum established at the Content Protection Retreat in October, Vivas noted that Pink Visual has announced a second CPR to provide the same information and opportunity to join forces to a new set of studios. The CPR2 event will be Feb. 6-7 in Los Angeles, in conjunction with the XBIZ LA event and making attendance more affordable and feasible for studios, Vivas said.
Vivas said that while the company has great expectations for its ongoing anti-piracy campaign, Pink Visual also understands that “things aren’t going to get better overnight.”
“The mere crafting of an effective anti-piracy strategy takes time, effort and money, and fully implementing that strategy requires more of each of those things,” Vivas said.
“But we feel that establishing a comprehensive anti-piracy campaign constitutes an investment in the value of our product, and that the benefits are something that will have a significant ‘long-tail’ return for us, and for the industry as a whole. We also plan to constantly tweak and modify our strategy to improve it, and we encourage other studios to take a look at their own anti-piracy strategy and determine if it’s working for them; if it isn’t, then these studios need to expend the effort and make the investment in implementing a new approach.”
For more information on Pink Visual’s anti-piracy campaign or the Content Protection Retreat 2, contact Lea Busick at leeb@pinkvisual.com. For more information on Degban’s services, contact ella@degban.com.