Adult Film Industry Is First Movie Category To Get Buggered By Web

Despite all the lessons that the content and entertainment sectors could have learned about the recent history of the music industry, very little action seems to have been taken. The movie industry appears to be re-enacting the great fight the music industry had with that invisible giant - the web. An article in the Financial Times suggests that the adult film category seems to be the first sector to be devastated by the internet as it tries to work the tired ‘we-own-the-copyright’ angle:

Vivid Video, one of the largest adult entertainment companies, on Tuesday filed suit against the Adult Entertainment Broadcast Network, accusing the company of allowing users to post Vivid’s copyrighted materials on its PornoTube website.

The suit, which requests an immediate injunction against AEBN and at least $4.5m in damages, echoes a landmark, $1bn claim that Viacom, owner of the MTV and Nickelodeon cable networks, filed this year against Google and its YouTube internet video site.

…The suit comes at a time of turmoil for the adult industry. After a decade of steady double-digit growth, sales of DVDs – the industry’s biggest money-maker – fell 15 per cent in 2006 to $3.6bn, according to trade publication Adult Video News, leading to dramatic layoffs. Vivid and other companies have blamed the collapse on the widespread availability of free clips on the internet.

FT.com / Companies / Media & internet - Adult film industry enters copyright fight