As expected, my re-posting (I’m not sure where it was originally published) of Kayden Kross’s “An Open Letter to Modern Day Pirates” created a lot of comments, almost all of which struck me as either accurate, funny, inaccurate, or just blatantly stupid.

So, imagine you and I are sitting next to each other, at our favorite bar, having a few cold ones. Lately I’ve been all about wheat beers with a slice of orange floating on top. I’ll buy (as long as you’re not ordering Jäger shots), and while we drink, I’m gonna argue my case…cause, with 22 comments (thus far) on Ms. Kross’s entry, I’ve pretty much heard your side.

So listen up: this might get long, but it’s a serious matter; your behavior is effecting peoples’ incomes directly. And this isn’t about going from driving a Mercedes to a Chevy. In fact, a dude who used to work as a PA for Penthouse just stopped by my studio, and I quit writing blogging this as we talked. One topic we covered? His unemployment check.

Since you can’t hear the tone of my voice, just know I’m in a good mood, and since you’re a reader of I Shoot Porn, we’re pals! Which is to say, we’re having a beer, and we’re debating in an adult, friendly manner. Your dialogue comes directly from the comments on Kayden’s blog entry…so I guess I’m having beers with more than one person: there’s “10th & O”, “Luis”, “Shenanigins”, “Good Samaritan”, “angry white dog”, “Ramses II”, and “Booty Baron” — among others.

So pull up a chair and have a drink! Just don’t pull your dick out and start a Circle Jerk, cause No Way Am I Gay:

10th&o: I recall reading an article about Brazzers owning a bunch of tube sites but I don’t see any girls refusing to work for them. I think your industry is eating itself from the inside out and nobody knows who to point the finger at. It will be a sad day when Brazzers, bangbros, naughty america and the like are the only ones putting out scenes.

Brazzers does, in fact, own lots of hugely successful tube sites. I equate “traffic” to “success”, and their success comes from pirated content. They haven’t licensed a single video on any of the tube sites they own. And I’ve had long talks with some of my friends who are agents. Since I’m a “web guy” (as opposed to a “DVD guy”) I knew about Brazzer’s fucked up plan to own adult traffic on the net, and guess what? Agents don’t give a shit, cause Brazzer’s is money and the agents are bigger whores than the whores they represent. And don’t think The Talent Pool is gonna turn down a scene cause Brazzer’s owns Tube sites. They gotta make the rent.

Brazzer’s pretty much controls all the adult traffic on the net, for the most part. And, if you ask me, they’re almost at their goal: using silly copyright laws (Google “DMCA”) and a while lotta money to effectively take over and control most of the porn biz.

Luis: i am sure you are aware of this and know that is what is bringing you guys down, not getting together as an industry.

Amen Luis. The “industry” never really bands together over anything. Example: a long time ago (in internet time) there was a thing called DRM, and while it wasn’t perfect, it certainly would help our current situation. Essentially, once a file was “DRM’d” it was tough to share. Not impossible — but tough. And guess what? Consumers bitched, and when they did, the sites that employed this technology backed down and removed it. Soon, DRM-less content was used as a marketing tool. Even the “Review Sites” would dock porn sites if DRM technology was employed on content.

Broadstreet Bully: Now watch Billy, as soon as [Kayden Kross’s] contract with Adam & Eve is up who do you think one of the first sites that she shoots for is going to be? That’s fucking right, Brazzers. You think this spoiled bitch is going to turn down a paycheck out of principle?

Nope. I don’t. But that doesn’t mean she’s “spoiled” as much as she’d just gonna need the work.

Booty Baron: Men don’t give a shit that the porn at Brazzers is vanilla and boring and awful or whatever. It’s essential FREE porn, which Brazzers capitalizes on. Brazzers could focus on quality all day long and probably end up alienating the average viewer since the site would not supplying him with as much cheap, anonymous, one-size-fits-all porn.

Brazzers porn isn’t free, my friend. Just try going to one of their tubes and finding a full-length scene. Wanna know what cracks me up? Brazzer’s says all the porn that winds up on their illegal tube sites was “user uploaded”. Ain’t it funny how there’s not one, single, full-length Brazzer’s scene on any of their Tubes? Oh, sure…you can get tons of 3 minute trailers from a Brazzer’s scene. I guess all the “users” only upload Brazzer trailers, while good, hard-working smut peddlers are the target of the “users”, and as a result, they get to see their entire DVD catalog on the Tubes. You can send a DMCA Take Down Notice to Brazzers, and for a while it’s gone…until another “user” uploads it again, which means time to send out another DMCA! Ever wonder what a hamster feels like running on a Habitrail wheel?

Ramses II: The world moves on. It doesn’t stop just because you used to make more money for less work. You guys can’t look at the record industry and see that? You think Ma and Pa farmer circa 1955 didn’t want to avoid the Monsanto mess we’re in now? Of course they did, but that shit just fucking works. It’s more efficient. Low rent, ugly, trashy, free (stolen) porn works for about 95% of your customers and if you can’t make enough off the remaining 5%…

Hmmm. Interesting. But I’m confused, Ramses. If your reference to Monsanto means the corporate take-over of US Farms, at least Ma & Pa Farmer got paid something. Might not be like the good old days, but there weren’t a bunch of Monsanto tractors pulling their crop out while they’re sleeping. And I have no problem with working hard…but that’s kinda off topic, don’t ya think? Cause right now we’re talking about all the porn on your hard drive…and how much you paid for it.

Angry White Dog: Honestly, I don’t know how the porn industry has survived this long with the rampant tube and torrent sites out there. I haven’t paid for porn since the pre-internet. The music and main stream movie biz figured out a price point/business model that kept them alive. Porn needs to do the same. Business is always changing: Look at Borders Book Store for example they didn’t adapt to digital media and now they’re done. I think porn has a different dynamic just cause guys will always look at porn but it’s just really hard to pay for something that is given away for free everywhere.

I’m a book geek, and Border’s issue wasn’t their inability to “adapt to digital media”. Once upon a time the word “independent book seller” didn’t exist, cause all book sellers were independent. The first big chain I remember was Walden Books, then Bookstar, and soon Barnes & Nobel and Border’s. Like almost all mom-and-pop businesses, Corporate buying power put the Mom-and-Pop out of biz. While Borders lack of a digital portable reader played a part in their demise, the very act of reading is dying, and I can’t really blame kids. Shit, I’d rather blow away a bunch of Zombies on XBox — as opposed to reading about it. But I digress.

Good Samritan: People don’t feel like paying to watch other people fuck. They’ll gladly watch it for free. Disappointing to hear, I know, but that’s the consequence of putting a video camera in everyone’s hand. Now they can do the shit themselves. Adapt or die. A Darwinian concept anyone should be able to grasp.

Hmm. I disagree. People LOVE to pay to watch other people fuck, and the last thing they wanna see is themselves doing the fucking. Of course they’ll gladly watch it for free. In fact, people don’t feel like paying for anything, really. So let’s re-word your statement: “People don’t feel like paying for anything unless they absolutely have to”. And it’s not a “consequence of putting a video camera in everyone’s hand.” To begin, it’s way more involved that just putting a camera in your hand. And they might get a kick out of watching their homemade porno, but that gets old quick. You want to watch people you don’t know fuck.

To me, this really gets down to tangibles and intangibles. If you had to stuff a porno DVD under your shirt and walk out of the Porno Shoppe, you wouldn’t. But since a computer file is an intangible, and you didn’t leave your house to get the computer file, you really aren’t stealing…are you?

How much did that file you didn’t steal cost me to produce? A Manojob scene is $750, give or take. Taking Darwinian principles into consideration, until I can figure out how to produce a Manojob scene for free (let’s forget about what my time is worth) how can I adapt? Cause that’s what you wanna pay for it: nothing. And, as of now, that’s what you’re getting it for. Files are replicated over and over in seconds and distributed over and over to millions of people in hours…all for free. Try and figure out how to beat that. Which means I die. I am, by the way. Slowly, too. And the next time some dude tells me to “adapt or die” I’m gonna sock them in the nose and say the same thing while they bleed all over the fucking place.

Shenanigans: I’ll tell you what’s also terribly unfair. When I was a horny adolescent, the internets were completely different. To get off we’d go online and download pictures (imagine that!) from websites like pichunter.com and elephantlist and what have you. They had pictures of random girls, but those of Silvia Saint, Jenna Jameson, or Asia Carrera were the ones I’d go after. These pictures would take an agonizingly long time to download, especially with a 25K or 56K connection – if you were lucky to have one. Not to mention the fact that you had to do it at 2am so you don wake everyone in the house with the modem screaming bloody murder (only later did we learn about the mute option.) Anyhoo, some enterprising souls (such as your truly) would download these pictures and compile a floppy disk of categories to sell to friends. You want to guess which ones sold at a premium? I made quite the killing. The pictures were up for free, and lo and behold, Playboy, Hustler, Club, and all that other jazz is still around and kicking. I could talk about the medium of porn, and the paradigm shift the industry is now facing, vis-a-vis the integral role mobile porn is going to play for survival, but I won’t delve into that. It would be un-Twainlike of me. Anyway, my point is I can’t sell those floppies any more.

Shenanigans, you are buying the next round, motherfucker. And while you’re at it, what exactly do you do for a living now? Cause whatever it is, I’m gonna steal from you. Not that you make anything worth stealing, but if you do, I’m taking two, so I can sell one and still have one for my pathetic, greedy, slob self.

And people think pornographers are shitty.

Sir Spunk A Lot: Anyone tech savvy enough to have been around the internet for the last 10 years or so, should know the dispicable character Shaun Fanning said: “Information wants to be free”.

Mr. Fanning wasn’t really despicable — but the way people abused Napster was. I know, I was one of them. But before I get to that, I’ll spare defining “information”…but can we agree that music and movies are entertainment and not information? Oh, man! Remember when Napster was good?!? Right before I’d leave my house to go work, I’d scan Napster users to see who was on, and what they were “sharing”, and I’d highlight EVERYTHING…even the shit I didn’t really want. Cause it was free. And it was intangible. No effort to get it! Not like I had to walk into a record store and roam the aisles, stuffing CD after CD into my back pack. I wasn’t in a record store! I didn’t have to touch anything! Which means I wasn’t stealing. So when I got home from work there was a gig or so of new music! Since I wasn’t stealing, I didn’t feel bad! Besides, Metallica has LOTS of money, so it’s OK if I rip them off, right?

Of course I was stealing, and it wasn’t “information” I was stuffing it down my shirt. I was stealing music, and it took getting ripped off a whole bunch before I quit doing it.

Z: I’ve worked in the music industry for ten years as a producer, a DJ, an engineer and as a musician. Every single musician I know pirates music. Every single one. They download it from the internet, they pass around CD-Rs (or back in the old days tapes and then MDs) to each other, they buy bootlegged records and DVDs.

So it’s OK to pirate music cause musicians do it?

Don’t get me wrong — I’m all about turning people on to new music. There’s nothing wrong with making a CD comp as a gift. Wanna come over and borrow some records so you can tape them? Of course! Wanna borrow some of my DVD’s? Yep. Burn a couple, too, if you like the movie enough! I’d even lend you porno DVD’s, but the only ones I have are director copies I get, and in the past whenever I’ve lent porn out I don’t ever see it again…so none of my porn for you! But you can borrow some of my bootlegged vinyl and tape that, too! Or burn some of the bootlegged shows I have on CD, especially since they’re not commercially available. What’s my defense now? I guess I can argue the musician got paid for the gig, and I’m not uploading it to a torrent site for a zillion people to copy. It’s one thing to share; what’s going on now ain’t even in the same ballpark.

Sir Spunk A Lot: Akin to the forest fire that sweeps through the forest, it is killing off many things, making way for new things. Sure many innocents lose their lives, and homes, and whatever in such a fire….but thats life! It provides OPPORTUNITY for NEW growth.

Um…how many beers have you had, bro?

Sir Spunk A Lot: I mean should we blame Facebook for ruining MySpace?

Should I call you a cab? Cause I don’t think you’re sober enough to drive.

Sir Spunk A Lot: Porn is not dead, in fact it’s more alive than ever. Lets face it though MOST PORN content stinks….it’s poorly made by people with little concern for their customers. I would say that 80% of all content is worthless.

While porn isn’t dead, it’s certainly not “more alive than ever”. Just ask the adult actors and actresses, the PA’s and make-up artists, the photographers and videographers, how much they work now…and how much they worked in 2005. I know our economy is in the shitter, but one thing has always proven true: vices always do OK during economic slumps. Booze, cigs, and gambling fare much better than most every other business during a recession or depression.

And I’m so sick and tired with the defense about how crappy porn is. Last time I checked, if something’s a piece of shit, you don’t have the right to just take it. If that was the case, we’d all be driving Hyundais…for free, of course.

Sir Spunk A Lot: There is a healthy market for QUALITY porn. I am a good example of that, I routinely PURCHASE porn. I routinely RENT DVDs. I have and do subscribe to Internet porn sites. The tube sites DO NOT satisfy the demand for quality.

Not to call you a liar, but I’m willing to bet you only subscribe to sites and/or rent porn only after a fruitless bit torrent search. You probably use the discounted “trial” rate, grab the scene you want, then quit. If I’m wrong here, I’ll buy another round.

Sir Spunk A Lot: So it’s up to all of you in the industry to figure what people want, and how to deliver it to them in such a way as to make a profit. Yeah its HARDER NOW, Boo Hoo Kayden Kross! now you actually have to work, and think and be creative…OH NO…not that! Ask Steve Jobs what he thinks about the DEMISE of the music business. How many BILLION music downloads has Apple sold? Apparently Mr. Jobs was able to THINK, and be creative and MAKE A PROFIT.

I’m not too sure I like the comparison between porn and music…for a couple reasons. When you spend your dough over at iTunes for your favorite new music, what’s your wife/GF say? I mean she might bitch…but probably not. In fact, you two Love Birds might listen to the same music, which means she fully supports your purchase. A few nights ago, one of the girls I used to date a while back called me. She was in tears. Why? Hubby has all sorts of CCBill charges on their credit card statement, and when she used The Google Machine, she figured out what was up. “Am I not good enough for him anymore, Billy?! Why does he like barely-legals? These girls look ridiculous in pigtails!! OMG I HATE HIM! Does this mean he’s not attracted to me anymore?! Should I get botox? Fake boobies maybe?!”

So what’s easier? Defending your jack material as your wife sobs? Or hitting the Tube sites after she falls asleep? With Tubes, there’s no more crazy codecs to figure out! No viruses (for the most part)! Just click on the play button and watch a full scene for free!! It might not be want you really want to see, but Wifey’s never gonna know.

Oh yea…I agree about price points, too. If we could completely eliminate piracy, I’d have no problem charging 99 cents per scene. Same price as iTunes just charged you for a song.

In the end, all you guys seem to want is free porn. And I’m being sincere when I say that…and this: one way to provide free porn is through advertising. I’m not even sure how the business model works, as far as ad revenue paying for bandwidth. I am certain ad revenue would NEVER pay for the cost of all that content — as well as the bandwidth.

Another problem: most of the companies actually willing to use pornography to advertise their stuff are fraudulent — penis pills and dating sites are two quick examples that immediately come to mind (no, there are no girls in your area who want to fuck you right now). I don’t see this changing until mainstream corporate entities are willing to pay for the immense amounts of traffic free porn generates.

But that won’t happen in our life. I don’t think it ever will. Porn is the filthy vice no one wants to talk about — or defend. Porn gets what it deserves. Same can’t be said for cigs, booze, or gambling. I’ve always maintained it’s gonna take the two companies who own the operating systems — Apple and Microsoft — to make it difficult to pirate content (of course Apple and Microsoft would be defending music and mainstream movies from pirates, not porn) or the major ISP’s who would do it.

And it looks like help might be here.

So let’s finish this round and head get out of here. I’m exhausted.