News Lawyer

It had to happen sooner or later, but the ease of content distribution has impacted the pornography industry.

Pornographic movies are presumably easy to produce and write, so the porno industry is now being hit from both ends – battling a growing army of free content providers while simultaneously fending off the standard piracy threat so pervasive with other forms of online content.  Presumably, consumers of smut will want to pay for “quality” branding as a means of wading through unappealing amateur content.  If porn actors are like rock stars, the branding could include live appearances or, more likely, increased emphasis on endorsements for the stars.  In this case (as is the case in music labels and newspapers), it is the middle-man in the content production chain who faces the most pressure from internet market forces.

(Hat Tip: Drudge)

Interesting quotes compiled by 10 Zen Monkeys. Good job.

There is an interesting parallel to law here. Commercial attorneys and those whose coin of the realm were intellectual property licenses and other commercial papers are getting killed by the internet, where their hard work gets posted and pasted by a multitude of companies who would prefer to pilfer something on the cheap rather than pay an attorney to draft the language. It doesn’t even matter that such language might be inapplicable or worse. And it doesn’t matter that using such language could get the thief in trouble for practicing law without a license – the pilfering continues unabated.

Regarding writing more specifically, it seems now that writing is merely the platform for something more lucrative – a means to an end, rather than an end in and of itself. Writers write books but earn better money speaking (or even more lucratively, consulting). Musicians make little from albums but earn great amounts of box office booty. Published lawyers become the safe pick for a multitude of high-paying gigs, whether public speaking, consulting, or straight practice of law.

In short, we’re entering a brave new world where intellectual property laws are routinely broken by common citizens. There is no stopping it. There are no easy answers, except by finding indirect ways to make money off of our writings.