September 12th 2007 | Posted by:
Adam Martin
Great article over at Torrentfreak about the porn industries attempts to thwart pirates ripping their material and uploading it to bittorrent.
Seems like the pornorati over at the GoFuckYourself forum are up in arms about 4% of their nefarious profits being taken by file sharers.
(xylophone… )
The post finishes with this note by ButterBuddah:
“The fight for that 4% will ruin the industry…”
Go knock yourselves out guys…
p2p content distribution is a much maligned and much misunderstood medium. Hollywood bemoans the loss of billions of $ annually to file sharers, lawsuits fly about, the little guy gets taken down and 10 more replace him.
Rather than work against the community, content owners would do well to embrace it and understand it. The most popular rips on bittorrent are often blockbuster action flicks and comedy, the same target audience you’re trying to fill your multiplexes with. With an estimated audience of 80 million file sharers worldwide you’ve got to view this as an opportunity. What if the same day the film is released, a legitimate copy is released using bittorrent? except this pristine, non dv-cam in the cinema version features an ad or three, maybe some extras - the ads could be targeted to the region. Once you’ve done that, the bootleggers don’t offer any unique value with their cheap copies, you wipe out the blackmarket. Sure this approach won’t work for porn because no brand wants to be associated with porn and what looks better, a scared 16 year kid who has been caught downloading the latest Harry Potter getting labeled a thief? or porn barons losing money? Go figure.
Will those people who download it cut into the multiplex profits? No, they wouldn’t have gone anyway, or maybe they might be inclined to go now and see the big screen spectacle - I’m thinking here of the Bourne Ultimatum, I’ve watched it ripped and in the cinema and there’s no comparison, it warrants being seen on the big screen.
Secondly you get legitimate mavens, people going around telling others about how good Bourne Penultimatum is, word spreads, buzz spreads, the multiplexes fill out, more vulcanized cheese tacos get sold…
Is anyone doing this? No, a flat no, it’s too risky, it involves too many laywers, it’s… an excuse - most marketeers aren’t even aware the opportunity exists, and the only people offering such a service are the same people who target the file sharers on behalf of the copyright holders and as such are loathed by the community.
For 5 years, whilst Creative Manager of PFD, I was responsible to researching technologies effect upon the existent entertainment industry and investigating ways it might adapt and lead and so I realise suggesting a studio use the very channels it’s seeking to shut down as a new means of distribution is going to take some getting used to. But they better wake up to the possibilities because bittorrent isn’t going away and so called Generation Y have only ever known the internet and mobile technology and are deaf to the protestations of the copyright holders. p2p distribution represents the single biggest opportunity to film makers to find and monetise a captive audience. You can’t simply herd people into the multiplexes or down to the dvd store by shutting of all other means of access - it’s an impossible and as we are increasingly seeing, thankless task.
Posted in Bittorrent, New Business Model, Viral Marketing | 
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Marketing is about identifying your target audience, building a profile of them and then crawling inside their focus group created heads and thinking ‘what would make me buy FaceRash shaving foam?’… for the most part the answer is humour and a scantily clad lady. Ricky Gervais with breasts.
