LONDON – Porn is coming to the video iPod – and the video iPod is ready. That’s the opinion of subscription-only Guba, an online search engine preparing to open the floodgates of adult and mainstream video content specially created for the Apple iPod.“We can kid ourselves,” Guba CEO Thomas McInerey says. “But in the end, it’s probably porn that people want.”
Guba’s catalogue is an enormous storehouse of video files, including a goodly portion of pirated content, both sexual and otherwise, collected from Usenet, converted to standard formats, and sorted by type. Although it plans to convert these files to the new video iPod H.264 format, and make them available for download, the company insists that it will abide by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which states that content will be removed if copyright holders request it. To further reassure copyright aware content creators and providers, Guba blocks all music files and any video longer than 70 minutes.
The company employees 15 people and charges $14.95 for its services, which include content not listed in many, more traditional search engines. Guba anticipates that its erotica section will be its biggest traffic draw and has installed a “safe mode” filter to keep minors from accessing adult content.
McInerey hopes to see the rise of adult content produce a companion rise in his company’s value. “What we’d really like to do, and what we’ll need to do,” he explains, “is partner with a large content company. They’re getting wise to the Internet and they’re understanding that they can’t litigate it away.”
