Grooby Legal Action against Piracy ...

[Tobe]

l wish porn producers would concentrate on finding ways to make buying porn easy & affordable like itunes.
I could pirate songs almost as easily as buying them from itunes but l still choose to buy 'most' of my tracks from itunes.Why ? Because the price is reasonable and the purchasing mechanism is easy.And I don't have to buy an whole CD,just the songs l want.
An itunes type Grooby site would be great,where you could buy a single scene for £5.99 & £1.99 for the photo set.I'm sure there's plenty of good reasons way it's not possible to do.But that would be great.

You have a good point... in effect, in these cases, the competition is a free pirated version. The music industry had to deal with this and Apple came out with a great idea:
* Make the service convenient and inexpensive enough that it is worth more to the average consumer than the less convenient but free pirated version.

I suspect that requiring a monthly price of $36 really limits impulse purchases; and with what is available online, people can always find alternatives.

I agree that it is someone's right to protect their copyright via legal means, but I do not necessarily agree that it is a wise route. It is potentially costly and may alienate users. Business models need to evolve to change with the times; but eventually, the market is the final arbiter (those companies with good model/products survive and those with poor ones fail).

[centipete]

No is going to rejoin a site to watch one video again. One video is NOT worth $30 to view every few months when you are in the mood to watch it.

...especially if it's a crappy low-res streaming quality.

[centipete]

An itunes type Grooby site would be great,where you could buy a single scene for £5.99 & £1.99 for the photo set.I'm sure there's plenty of good reasons way it's not possible to do.But that would be great.

Nice idea. I think a generic iPorn site - one featuring content from other producers as well as Grooby - might be an even better system.

[GroobySteven]

l wish porn producers would concentrate on finding ways to make buying porn easy & affordable like itunes.
I could pirate songs almost as easily as buying them from itunes but l still choose to buy 'most' of my tracks from itunes.Why ? Because the price is reasonable and the purchasing mechanism is easy.And I don't have to buy an whole CD,just the songs l want.
An itunes type Grooby site would be great,where you could buy a single scene for £5.99 & £1.99 for the photo set.I'm sure there's plenty of good reasons way it's not possible to do.But that would be great.

That's EXACTLY how it should be done Tim and I know two or three companies (mainly billing companies) who have been working on this, for far too long without any light.
We have our VOD system in which you can buy tokens at :
http://www.buddywood.com/vod/ for example and then spend them at our other VOD sites like http://www.pkvegasvod.com etc.

People don't like the idea of having to outlay for tokens all at one time - and in the current billing systems, we're not allowed to charge your card unless you enter all the information again (I'm going to reinvestigate this though) which seems to be the big sticking point on why we can't build a model that looks like Itunes but charge in micro-payments of $1.99-$4.99

Your message has reminded me to once again prompt companies we work with to see how they are doing with this as I think it's the ideal way forward.

[Paladin]

I just cant believe how dumb people are. Have you ever heard of a library? They give you a book, CD, DVD, newspaper whatever type of media you want and all you have to do is return it when they say. Now the time I have it in my possession I can do whatever I want with it. If I destroy the item I pay for it. If I want to copy a book via writing it out or photocopy then I can, and that goes for the DVD’s and CD's or audio books. Here is the thing, if I paint an exact copy of the Mona Lisa and say that I came up with it when I sell it... well that is wrong and that’s why there are copyright laws. However If I give it to someone then there is nothing wrong. Cause if everyone is so worried about stealing and losing money then let’s all just close every library in the world. After all they are sharing copyrighted material.

That's all well and good, except for the fact that most of the activities you describe are specific violations of copyright law no matter how you obtained the source item.

[Paladin]

Not specific to grooby, but megaupload.com.'s been raided, and it's all over the press. the owner is in a NZ jail. they are charged with distributing movies, music and "other copyrighted content", aka porn!

and BTW itunes sucks. Can't even move something to a different computer you own or to something you can use in your car, like a CD.

[Stavros]

O2 is the latest company to be forced to reveal the identity of broadband customers accessing porn they haven't paid for:

O2 forced to expose 'porn downloaders'

Thousands of O2 broadband customers will have their personal details handed to a pornographer who claims they unlawfully downloaded his films.


O2 will be forced to share some of its customers' identities








By Christopher Williams, Technology Correspondent

7:00AM BST 27 Mar 2012




The High Court ordered O2 to hand over the personal details of more than 9,000 O2 broadband subscribers to Golden Eye International and the pornography firm Ben Dover Productions.

Ben Dover is a pseudonym of Lindsay Honey, a British performer, director and producer of pornography, who set up Golden Eye International in 2009.

The judge however said his intention to demand £700 from each of the O2 customers he accuses of unlawful filesharing was “unsupportable”.

The judge also said the letter Golden Eye International intended to send demanding payment was “capable of causing unnecessary distress because it could be read as an implicit threat of publicity once proceedings have been commenced”. It intended to threaten those who did not pay the damages with court action.

O2 had fought the bid to access its customers' details, which Golden Eye international made with a total of 13 pornography firms.



The court rejected 12 of the applications but found in favour Ben Dover Productions, saying that “the claimants' interests in enforcing their copyrights outweigh the intended defendants' interest in protecting their privacy and data protection rights”.
O2 will now be forced to match 9,124 IP addresses that have been observed infringing Ben Dover Productions' copyright with its customer database and hand over personal details. A spokesman for telecoms firm said: “Clearly we respect the court order and will therefore be co-operating fully.”
The judge rejected the other applications for O2 customers’ personal details because Golden Eye International would pursue alleged unlawful downloaders on its own and take 75 per cent of any damages paid.
“That would be tantamount to the court sanctioning the sale of the intended defendants' privacy and data protection rights to the highest bidder,” said Mr Justice Arnold.
Ben Dover Productions will meanwhile jointly pursue its copyright infringement claims with Golden Eye International .
Consumer Focus, which was allowed to intervene in the case on behalf of the O2 customers, said that although personal details will be released it had set an “important precedent” to protect internet users from so-called speculative invoicing by putting a greater burden of proof on the claimant.
“This case sets an important precedent for the rights of consumers, particularly those who are innocent, and the responsibilities of companies seeking redress on behalf of copyright owners,” said chief executive Mike O’Connor.
“It is very welcome that the court has recognised the bill-payer should not be automatically assumed to be guilty when a copyright owner believes they have detected copyright infringement on that internet connection.”
The issue of speculative invoicing by copyright holders came to the fore because of the activities of ACS:Law, a London firm of solicitors that sent out thousands of letters demanding payment from alleged unlawful filesharers, having done deals with film and video games copyright holders.
In January, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found the firm’s founder Andrew Crossley guilty of guilty on seven charges of unbefitting a solicitor, suspended him for two years and ordered him to pay more than £76,000 in costs. ACS:Law had already ceased trading following an attack on its systems by hackers operating under the Anonymous banner, who published its internal emails online. Andrew Crossley also told a court he had received death threats and bomb threats


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...wnloaders.html

[Jericho]

Nice idea. I think a generic iPorn site - one featuring content from other producers as well as Grooby - might be an even better system.

xhamsters next move, maybe?

[juggernaut77]

me-> i'm just a man who likes shemale porn. If someone puts it out there, then i will download it - if i turns me on. If i like the pornstar/model i will visit there site (might join) or view galleries that they are in. Facebook don't charge - but last i heard zuckerberg has a bit of coin. Maybe those websites can put banners, etc to increase income, such as this website. Maybe i'm over my head and wrong, but if it wasn't for porn there would be no internet. Am i right, probably not.

[RallyCola]

me-> i'm just a man who likes shemale porn. If someone puts it out there, then i will download it - if i turns me on. If i like the pornstar/model i will visit there site (might join) or view galleries that they are in. Facebook don't charge - but last i heard zuckerberg has a bit of coin. Maybe those websites can put banners, etc to increase income, such as this website. Maybe i'm over my head and wrong, but if it wasn't for porn there would be no internet. Am i right, probably not.

#1. this site uses banners from PAY PORN sites.
#2. porn, in general, but also niche sites, would have to find advertising dollars from a very small pool because I don't see Dr. Pepper or Sears lining up to advertise on a porn site.

It's ridiculous to think that advertising dollars can replace some sort of membership or VOD system.