YNOT – In an attempt to open an industry-wide dialogue about preventing content piracy, adult studio Pink Visual has outlined its strategy for 2011. Initiatives include the establishment of best practices for the display and distribution of content, a revised and clarified acceptable-use policy regarding promotional materials, the development of a new billing model “better suited to the online porn consumer mindset,” and increases in DMCA take-down notices and litigation.

“After a successful Content Protection Retreat, we really became fully educated on piracy and the viable options for combating it,” said Pink Visual President Allison Vivas. “The information that was shared by all the retreat’s attendees helped us craft a well-rounded approach, and it was very encouraging to see how many other studios are ready and willing to take action.”

As part of its new best practices doctrine, Pink Visual has published a clear anti-piracy notice to its subscription site customers, reminding them of the potential consequences for illegally sharing copyrighted content. The company also is restricting downloadable content such that only its long-term members will have that capability, and blocking the use of mass-download managers.

To bolster its efforts in removing infringing content from from third-party websites and networks, Pink Visual has retained Degban, a service that scans more than 100,000 sites hourly, collects evidence of infringement and issues removal requests. This is in addition to being part of the Free Speech Coalition’s Anti-Piracy Action Program, which tracks members’ content over 20 major tube sites and automatically removes or truncates the material using digital fingerprint technology.

While Pink Visual has declined to take part in end-user litigation, Vivas said the company is “actively preparing litigation against several tube and torrent site operators.” She expects the first cases to be filed within weeks.

“After the Content Protection Retreat, I think most companies left understanding how legally strong copyright infringement cases against tube and torrent operators in our industry can be,” Vivas said. “In addition to taking legal action against some site operators on our own, there are several other companies preparing to file multiple-plaintiff lawsuits against such site operators in the coming months. We anticipate that these lawsuits will be officially announced within the first quarter of 2011.”

Vivas also said that while Pink Visual intends to collect damages in its lawsuits, a major component of the actions will be to seek injunctive relief against the defendants. In a best-case scenario, injunctions will require tube and torrent site operators to use digital fingerprint filtering technology provided by the Free Speech Coalition’s Anti-Piracy Action Program as an ongoing means of preventing infringement. Voluntary implementation of such filtering software by user-generated-content site operators could help “minimize their exposure” and reduce the risk of being targeted for legal action, she added.

Vivas emphasized that litigation will continue to be an essential facet of Pink Visual’s anti-piracy strategy, but the introduction of new distribution methods and billing models is equally important, if not more so.

“We’ve all heard it said again and again that if adult entertainment companies are going to survive the changes that take place in the dynamic digital marketplace, we have to be willing and able to adapt to the realities of that marketplace,” she said. “Along those lines, we are planning to roll out a new content-delivery method and a new price structure that we feel will appeal more to end-users who place a high premium on affordability, accessibility, convenience and privacy.”

The new structure is slated to begin beta-testing in January. The company plans to solicit direct feedback from end-users, similar to the discussion Vivas initiated in the user forum at PlanetSuzy.org.
To help maintain the momentum established at the Content Protection Retreat in October, Vivas reminded industry members that Pink Visual has coordinated a second CPR to provide the same information and opportunities to a new set of studios. The CPR2 event will take place Feb. 6-7 in Los Angeles.

While the company has great expectations for its ongoing anti-piracy campaign, Pink Visual also understands “things aren’t going to get better overnight,” Vivas noted.

“The mere crafting of an effective anti-piracy strategy takes time, effort and money, and fully implementing that strategy requires more of each of those things,” Vivas said. “But we feel that establishing a comprehensive anti-piracy campaign constitutes an investment in the value of our product, and that the benefits are something that will have a significant ‘long-tail’ return for us and for the industry as a whole.

“We also plan to constantly tweak and modify our strategy to improve it, and we encourage other studios to take a look at their own anti-piracy strategy and determine if it’s working for them,” she added. “If it isn’t, then these studios need to expend the effort and make the investment in implementing a new approach.”