We’ve seen the music industry almost decimated by it, DVD and game manufactures try to block it, and networks try to find a way to profit from it.  Online sharing has affected many and outraged more, but now we are seeing an unsuspecting candidate come up to the block for battle; the pornography industry.

With the success of internet file share site YouTube, there has been numerous copycat sites emulating the famous "Tube".  According to MSNBC, one of the largest adult entertainment companies, Vivid Video, is now copying Viacom’s case against Google’s YouTube.

PornoTube, the site that Vivid Videos is placing the claim against, is being accused of building its user base and advertising up using Vivid’s material.  Since PornoTube is a user based service depending on submissions, law states that Vivid must ask for the material to be taken down in a timely manner which they are stating is not happening.

Usually news like this isn’t that new or a big deal.  A lot of companies are jumping on this bandwagon of trying to recoup losses by attacking various internet entities.  The only exception to this case is a little law that was put into effect back in 2005.  To help protect against child pornography the United States of America passed legislation requiring adult companies within the USA to keep records of proof of age of all "actors" in its films.  This law makes this entire mess sticky as both the films producing company and each company that publishes, reproduces, or reissues the videos after that have to keep these records on file. 

The biggest question is, as YouTube and successive products such as PornoTube and Xtube are based upon user submissions, which is responsible for keeping in compliance with Federal law?  Even more importantly, how are user sites like these keeping in compliance with this law?

I feel that if anything does happen from Vivid Video’s finger pointing at PornoTube, it won’t be compensation of losses or anything of the like.  The US government more than likely will go back and review all sites of the like within its boundaries and rewrite the act to cover them.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 10:15 am under Adult content, Opinion, Piracy.

Read more entries by Emilie Branstetter.
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