28 Oct Five Ways Piracy Hurts Adult Models
Posted
in Industry Knowledge
As I explained in a previous piece, pornography is the most pirated content item on the internet, with recent stats showing that 35.8% of all pirated content is from the adult industry. Although you may not realise it, this has a major impact on adult models and creators. Here are five ways that piracy hurts those who work in the adult industry.
1 – LOSS OF INCOME
I hope that it is a no-brainer that pirating and sharing content directly impacts a model’s income. Although it might only be a few dollars attached to the sale of one piece of content, think about the times you have seen a certain image or video over and over again on a public site. If that piece of content was for sale in the first place, each viewing of that content has a dollar amount attached. When content is pirated and shared, the model loses on each piece of content over and over again.
Digital media has created huge headaches in making sure people get monetary rewards for their work (see my piece on DMCA to read the history about this). In the first instance, major filmmakers, musicians, and recording artists were concerned about this, which made people roll their eyes at multi-million dollar companies making a fuss about the loss of money, which would be a drop in the ocean to them. People forget about the small and mid-size creators and companies who are just trying to make a living and that piracy has the biggest impact on them.
2 – de-identifies the creator
As content creators, whenever we share something, we ensure it is clearly marked as our work. Whether that be in the content itself (e.g. watermarks) or through meta-data (e.g. embedded in the content or connected through alt text and descriptions), the best practice is to make sure it is known that this is our work. We are aware of the rates at which our content is stolen, so we will do what we can at the release end to protect it. When content is pirated, we are removed from the work and the process of releasing content. For example, I have seen so many pirated images, videos and gifs that do not credit the people in the content in any way. They have chopped and changed the work in such a way that de-identifies its origin. If you have seen the forums sharing dozens of “Do you know the name of this model?” posts, then you will know exactly what I am talking about.
3 – violation of consent
Sharing stolen content or saving it yourself is also a violation of the consent of the person appearing in it. For safety, models will only put their content on certain controlled sites or will employ geo-blocking to stop their content from being shared in certain regions. Pirating content violates the model’s consent and can put them in significant danger. Pirated content can end up anywhere, and there is no shortage of sites that will host pirated content with zero regard for the people who made it. Just imagine the piece of content featured you; wouldn’t you want to have a say in where it is posted and who can see it?
4 – BEING UNABLE TO TRACK CONTENT
An issue related to the violation of consent is the lost ability to track where content has been shared. As I have talked about in a previous post, keeping track of where our content has been uploaded is important for several reasons. In this instance, being unable to track where content has been uploaded becomes a security and safety concern. If it is a site that can be accessed in compromising locations for the model, it is more serious than just loss of potential income. It can have real-world impacts on the models involved.
5 – LEAVING CONTENT OPEN TO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENTS
Finally, when content is pirated and shared, it makes it susceptible to copyright infringements. With the rise of AI in content creation, pirated material is making its way into content generators via uploads by users. It then gets embedded into the material used by the generator to produce future material for anyone, anywhere, who uses the generator. Currently, educating people about the threat AI poses to protecting the work of original creators is a priority for creators of all types. As legislation and operating practices for the developers of these tools struggle to keep up, it is important that individual users of these tools understand their role in protecting copyright-protected content from misuse.
Rem Sequence is an Australian adult content creator, blogger, and internationally published alt model. She has a background in psychology, philosophy and political science and worked in health and sex education, youth work and trauma counselling for almost two decades. Now, she works full time in the adult industry, as well as indulging her passion for arts, writing and music in numerous side projects.
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As I explained in a previous piece, pornography is the most pirated content item on the internet, with recent stats showing that 35.8% of all pirated content is from the adult industry. Although you may not realise it, this has a major impact on adult models and creators. Here are five ways that piracy hurts those who work in the adult industry.
1 – LOSS OF INCOME
I hope that it is a no-brainer that pirating and sharing content directly impacts a model’s income. Although it might only be a few dollars attached to the sale of one piece of content, think about the times you have seen a certain image or video over and over again on a public site. If that piece of content was for sale in the first place, each viewing of that content has a dollar amount attached. When content is pirated and shared, the model loses on each piece of content over and over again.
Digital media has created huge headaches in making sure people get monetary rewards for their work (see my piece on DMCA to read the history about this). In the first instance, major filmmakers, musicians, and recording artists were concerned about this, which made people roll their eyes at multi-million dollar companies making a fuss about the loss of money, which would be a drop in the ocean to them. People forget about the small and mid-size creators and companies who are just trying to make a living and that piracy has the biggest impact on them.
2 – de-identifies the creator
As content creators, whenever we share something, we ensure it is clearly marked as our work. Whether that be in the content itself (e.g. watermarks) or through meta-data (e.g. embedded in the content or connected through alt text and descriptions), the best practice is to make sure it is known that this is our work. We are aware of the rates at which our content is stolen, so we will do what we can at the release end to protect it. When content is pirated, we are removed from the work and the process of releasing content. For example, I have seen so many pirated images, videos and gifs that do not credit the people in the content in any way. They have chopped and changed the work in such a way that de-identifies its origin. If you have seen the forums sharing dozens of “Do you know the name of this model?” posts, then you will know exactly what I am talking about.
3 – violation of consent
Sharing stolen content or saving it yourself is also a violation of the consent of the person appearing in it. For safety, models will only put their content on certain controlled sites or will employ geo-blocking to stop their content from being shared in certain regions. Pirating content violates the model’s consent and can put them in significant danger. Pirated content can end up anywhere, and there is no shortage of sites that will host pirated content with zero regard for the people who made it. Just imagine the piece of content featured you; wouldn’t you want to have a say in where it is posted and who can see it?
4 – BEING UNABLE TO TRACK CONTENT
An issue related to the violation of consent is the lost ability to track where content has been shared. As I have talked about in a previous post, keeping track of where our content has been uploaded is important for several reasons. In this instance, being unable to track where content has been uploaded becomes a security and safety concern. If it is a site that can be accessed in compromising locations for the model, it is more serious than just loss of potential income. It can have real-world impacts on the models involved.
5 – LEAVING CONTENT OPEN TO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENTS
Finally, when content is pirated and shared, it makes it susceptible to copyright infringements. With the rise of AI in content creation, pirated material is making its way into content generators via uploads by users. It then gets embedded into the material used by the generator to produce future material for anyone, anywhere, who uses the generator. Currently, educating people about the threat AI poses to protecting the work of original creators is a priority for creators of all types. As legislation and operating practices for the developers of these tools struggle to keep up, it is important that individual users of these tools understand their role in protecting copyright-protected content from misuse.
Rem Sequence is an Australian adult content creator, blogger, and internationally published alt model. She has a background in psychology, philosophy and political science and worked in health and sex education, youth work and trauma counselling for almost two decades. Now, she works full time in the adult industry, as well as indulging her passion for arts, writing and music in numerous side projects.
