From www.usatoday.com – For CNBC’s Melissa Lee, working on the one-hour documentary Porn: Business of Pleasure was just like covering any other industry.

“It truly is a business like any other business out there,” Lee said. “Yes, the product is different and the employees are probably much more colorful, but at the end of the day, this is an industry trying to make money.”

There’s a lot of money at stake: $100 billion globally, Lee’s show estimates, with $3,075 spent every second on adult content.

Problem is, as one industry executive tells Lee without a trace of irony, technology has eliminated all barriers to entry. With so much free content available online, another executive says, why would someone want to pay for it?

Reduced DVD sales have the industry scrambling to figure out how to monetize an Internet and mobile-phone strategy, Lee says.

“And so it’s interesting to see what this industry, which has been at the forefront of technology for so long, is now doing to cope with those problems as sort of a guide to what other companies may do.”