from www.newteevee.com – Vudu’s decision to shut down its adult movie section as a result of being acquired by Wal-Mart has adult entertainment companies and fans of X-rated content alike wondering where to turn next.
The answer could be Boxee; the video platform already has a number of adult apps, and Boxee’s vice president of marketing Andrew Kippen confirmed today that the company’s upcoming payment platform will be open to the adult industry as well.
Porn has always been a touchy subject for video platforms and hardware vendors alike. Triple-X content can get you an instant audience, but it could also hamper your ability to strike business relationships and get distribution deals, which is why Roku users can only access porn through an undocumented backdoor. Boxee, on the other hand, has always been pretty open towards adult content — and it even invited Suicide Girls founder Missy Suicide on stage during December’s Boxee Beta event in Brooklyn.
Vudu informed its adult content partners this week that it is shutting down its “After Dark” section, which has been offering adult VOD content in cooperation with adult industry trade magazine AVN.
Techcrunch is reporting that Wal-Mart confirmed booting smut off the service, with a spokesperson saying that users will be completely refunded for previous purchases of adult movies. This step was widely anticipated ever since Wal-Mart announced its acquisition of Vudu earlier this week. The retailer, which has always been a bit prudish, also makes it a point to not sell CDs with explicit lyrics in its stores.
Kippen told me that his company doesn’t want to be a gatekeeper for content on its platform. “We let our users decide whether or not they’d like to… install adult applications on Boxee,” he said, adding that parents can always control access through an adult content lock.
And while Boxee’s beta version prominently features the Suicide Girls application, it doesn’t list any hardcore apps by default. Users have to enable access to this type of content in the software’s viewing options, where they’re asked to confirm whether they are 18 or older.
Users going through these steps will notice that adult content seems to be quite popular on Boxee: The app library lists three triple-X rated apps within the 25 most popular applications. Most of these applications reuse free content from sites like YouPorn or Pornhub, but there are also at least two applications available on Boxee that offer premium adult content to paying subscribers.
In fact, Boxee wants to make it even easier to bring VOD porn to its platform. “Adult companies will be able to use our payments platform to charge for content on Boxee,” Kippen told me. Boxee announced in January that it will launch a payment platform this summer to enable subscription and pay-per-view transactions with one remote control click.