January 14, 2008
Porn barons face up to net threat
After years of booming sales supported by videotapes, DVDs and the internet, the adult film industry is being challenged by easy video-sharing websites offering explicit content for free. The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
"We're dealing with rampant piracy, tons of free content," said Steven Hirsch, co-founder of privately held Vivid, the best-known studio making sex films.
Vivid once earned 80 per cent of its roughly $US100 million a year from DVD sales, but last year that fell to 30 per cent, Hirsch said in an interview.
The internet challenge, a topic of discussion at the biggest adult film expo of the year in Las Vegas this week, has already presented itself to the music industry and other mainstream entertainment.
Much of the internet competition for the U.S. porn world, largely based in southern California, comes from websites like Toronto, Canada-based XTube.com, whose format is modeled after Google's YouTube."
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