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Chicago- from www.wbez.org- We adults have all heard the adage “sex sells.” But for the pornography industry right now – it’s more like “sex gets stolen.”
Jesse Phelps, with hotmovies.com, was one of several porn industry pros at the traveling Exxxotica expo that stopped in Rosemont over the weekend.
And when you got away from the throbbing music, the women dancing in cages, the vendors selling unmentionables, a lot of the talk was about piracy.
That’s due to the recent proliferation of so-called “tube sites,” websites that rip down copyrighted skin flicks, then post them online free of charge. About the same time tubes were sprouting up, the recession was cutting into porn sales.
Jesse Phelps: When we’re trying to charge money for a product, if somebody’s giving it away for free – because they stole it – that kills everybody.
The combination has caused big headaches for porn production houses like Evil Angel, where Justin Rich is a sales manager.
RICH: Our company has hired an agency, and all they do all day is go online and they send cease and desist letters to the tube sites and make them take everything down.
Nevertheless, the porn industry’s trade group says, in the last few years, revenue declines of 40 to 50 percent have been commonplace.
Porn starlet Joanna Angel – she goes by her stage name – is taking another tack: make people want to pay.
ANGEL: When you steal music, it’s a pain in the ass. When you steal porn, it is so easy.
ANGEL: It’s like the answer to the problem for not making as much money is to spend three times as much money to hope to not lose what we have.
While other companies fight piracy, she says hers is investing in high-definition video, social networking, and live chat rooms.
And she says it’s working.
ANGEL: I am a business woman. I just like to take my clothes off and, like, have sex with people on camera sometimes. (laughs)
