Most all porn stars agree that the tube sites are "taking money away from all different areas of porn." Vivid founder Steve Hirsch disagrees. Hirsch believes production companies benefit from tube sites and need them to survive. He thinks porn consumers will view the free "preview" on the tube sites and then go to the video company site to view the full movie. Tube sites are good for the porn industry? He's lost his mind. Performers have seen a significant reduction in work. Many are now camming and escorting. The tube sites could be good for us hobbyists.  

 
VICE: How has Vivid changed as the porn industry has changed?  

Steven Hirsch: When we started our business [30 years ago], we had some different ideas of things that hadn't been used before, such as signing girls to exclusive contracts. It was right when VHS tapes were going into video stores, so video stores were starting to open up as opposed to adult bookstores. We were one of the first adult entertainment companies that really used the internet to its advantage, so we're used to always pushing the boundaries of technology.

How has Vivid’s business evolved with the evolution of technology?  

Several ways. You take, for example, our celebrity sex tapes. No one else has them, and people can't knock them off, meaning they can't do another celebrity sex tape unless they have another celebrity—and they are very unique. People are willing to pay for them. We do superhero parodies that are parodies of Batman, Superman, all of them. And again, that's unique content. We have authentic swinger movies, which nobody else has. For us it's been important to find niches and content that people are willing to pay for and then use the tube sites as a way to help promote those movies.

How do they help you promote content?  

It's sort of like launching a trailer for a Hollywood movie. We'll take a three-to-five minutes clip of, say, a celebrity sex tape, and we will put it on the tube sites, and in return the tube sites will help to promote the movie, and they'll send traffic back to us for people who want to see the entire movie.

Should the industry be working with the tube sites rather than fighting against them?

The industry continues to evolve, and there are two ways you can look at it: You can either complain and whine about why things aren't the way they were two years ago, or you can continue to evolve and produce content that people want to see. Most companies don't make it 30 years—certainly not in the adult industry. You have to be flexible, and you have to be willing to take chances and not be set in your ways if you want to survive for a long period of time. The tube sites are only the most recent incarnation of what is the big threat to the business. At one point it was piracy, and we saw VHS tapes being pirated and DVDs being pirated. You've got to work through that stuff.

Performers have told me that tube sites have decreased their amount of work.

I think it's interesting because I understand that as a result of the tube sites, there are fewer movies being produced, because if you're going to produce just run-of-the-mill porn that's not really different, there's no real reason for anyone to pay for it because they could get something similar for free. So there are fewer companies producing, and therefore fewer jobs for the performers.

But what I see, talking to some of the performers, is that they really use this as a way to take control of their career. The tube sites may in some ways be bad for the industry, but it's also spawned a whole new market, which is camming. The girls out there who are camming—and do it right and make it a priority—are making a bunch of money. Also, what I've found is that a lot of the girls are shooting their own content. They're shooting their own unique content, and they do content trade from other girls. They have their own website, and they make money being entrepreneurs in their own businesses.

What are some of the biggest misconceptions about the tube sites?

I think one of the [misconceptions] that people have about the tube sites is that they just steal all of this content and put it up on the sites. That is not the case. People work with the tube sites, and you can take down whatever you want. What I've certainly seen with these celebrity sex tapes is that we've been able to [take] movies down from the tube sites, and that's because we're working closely with them, and when we see [piracy], we let them know that there's something on there illegally, and they remove it immediately. The point is they’re not going anywhere.

That is a load of crap. Anyone without an agenda or an objective person that follows the porn industry will agree that piracy(tube sites, torrent, files sharing, or just too many free pictures, etc.) is killing the porn industry and making it less profitable for the talent and owners. I don't really watch porn anymore(I'm 31) so I don't buy any now. But when I was in my 20s I bought a shit load of porn. Then when torrent and file sharing files exploded I didn't need to buy dvds or join websites anymore. Why? because why buy something when that very same day, some guy, will just upload it on the internet and it will be free. I just wasted $30 on something when my neighbor down the street got the same DVD or scene for free.  

It will only get worst because the new generation of porn consumers, the 18+ crowd, are more tech savvy than the previous generation and they will know where to look to steal pirated free porn on the Internet. Because there is such a big stigma in porn, the government doesn't protect porn content, like they do the mainstream movie and music industries.

I agree that it's more likely that tube sites are killing the profit margin of the formal porn industry.  

I also believe that if the performers are smart, have some genuine support in their corner it could be a leveling of the playing field and give the stars more control rather than the big production studios. Much like the music industry where many artist see little in actual revenue percentage from album sales, they are able to make more money through live performances etc.  

The same can be said for porn performers. Use the video medium as a platform to market themselves, tube sites and discussion boards like this one help to spread the word about new hot performers. They can then maximize that exposure into live shows and/or private meet ups as well as developing their own pay sites for web cam shows etc. The web can make it possible to redistribute and decentralize the profits of the industry more towards the performers rather than the studios and that would be a great thing.  

Now the issue that may ultimately hurt the performers opportunities to make use of the decentralized web. The FCC's back sliding on net neutrality protections creates a scenario whereby, individual performers who want to produce their own web work are charged a premium for access to the web, leaving again only the big studios able to pay those prices, as in what happened between Comcast and Netflix.

I think until that issue is solved, the piracy issue won't matter much.

What good is it to watch porn if you need to pay $100 to a techie to get your laptop working again?

I got back from another LA trip about 10 days ago, and i cannot remember the last time i saw an adult DVD sale/rental store....There;s still the Hustler Hollywood store, but they're not a video store per se, as they have clothing, toys, books, and a cafe so its not your classic dvd sale/rental store (they don't rent DVDs btw, only sell)...Anyway, i can remember a time in LA when they were the 20/20 stores, Tower Video, and a whole host of the ma & pa video stores....Now, even in the country's 2nd largest city, the video store business has gone the way of the dinosaur...

He's correct on some points. The market is larger because of the internet. Niche providers can their audience. I view tube sites as trailers and reference. I pay for content and avoid BitTorrent sites. Too many girls who shoot 1 or 2 scenes are hyped as porn stars. Gonzo porn lowered the bar because story was sacrificed in favor of extremism.  

I'll step off soapbox.

Hi-

I remember women Vivid girls like Christy Canyon, Kira Kener, Janine, Jenna Jameson were treated like movie stars when you went to see them feature.  It was hard to even talk to them for a minute know matter who you were, what you looked like, how much you would spend.  

I personally like the ways things are now, the death of DVD and adult stores, and Vivid does not seem to be that huge on the internet, and you can actually meet most of the girls.  Its much better for the fan than back 10 or 15 years ago.

Agreed 100%!

I used to attend AVN show during CES years ago and met most of the women you listed. Jenna and her attitude were the biggest turn-off. The others knew how to work a crowd and were very pleasant.

Forgive my ignorance as I am by no means an 'industry' insider or expert.  However, I always thought the performers got paid a flat rate per scene or per feature with no royalty or distribution bennies.  If that is the case, isn't it the studios who end up having to suck up the losses due to tube sites and free dissemination?  Granted, these losses likely roll downhill and result in lesser payouts to the talent, but that is a choice the studios/producers make, right?  I mean a hot girl who is popular is going to command the same amount regardless of the atmospherics of piracy in the industry.  So, my question is, how is this REALLY affecting the industry?  Besides it 'not being cool' and all the other rhetoric, how is it really making a difference.  And no, I'm not a pirate, I pay for all the sites I'm a member of...5, at last count!

None of us can see the future but the fact is that the music industry found a way to make peace with the Internet and to use it to their advantage.  As for porn, the free sites have been around for years now.  Has there really been a significant drop in the production of content overall?  Has the number of performers substantially declined?  I guess I'm not as sure as you that this is the end of the world.

Hey I just reread this thread and noticed you asked me a question. I'm not saying piracy is going to make the adult porno industry instinct, far from it. Porno will always exist in some form or another, but its no where near profitable like it once was. If the studios are making less money they are going to pay the talent less and also hire less talent. The women will less likely stick around the industry long term for work because of pay or seeing how little the pay is hotter chicks will be less inclined to do porn to begin with. Or the standards will become much lowered and they will have ugly chicks doing porn(I know this comes off  mean but for example, I do not find Belle Knox hot at all and to me she is not porn material, nothing sexy about her, yet she is sort of the current 'it' girl. I know it has more to do with the whole Duke U. connection, but still, it comes off and makes the adult industry look desperate for any attention because of its sorry state. I think what will happen is that you will see a bunch 'shot once and done' chicks. They will maybe shoot like 5 scenes and never be heard from again. No one will make an effort to be a 'star' just because its not worth it with the state of the industry.  

I have a sneaky suspicion that if you could privately ask, off the record, moderately successful porn chicks who entered the industry between the mid 90s and mid 2000s if they would want to rejoin and do porn now as there younger self? I believe many would not do it because of the lack of pay, less stable work, and more extreme sex acts expected compared to before when they started.    

most of there floor space is sex toys, various enhancers, clothes, and a much reduced area of DVD'S.  Who in their right mind is gonna spend 40-50 bucks for a DVD, regardless of who is in it, when there is so much free stuff available????  I have seen many posts about what the girls who used to claim very high dollar amounts for scenes and are now hoping for a few hundred bucks for a scene.  There are so many girls out there doing scenes for dirt cheap money, IMO, the days of high-priced pornstars are over, guys just won't pay the price anymore.  If I buy any DVD'S, it's because I can buy them for under 10 bucks, and they have someone I want to watch., for whatever reason.

Swim

Porn Industry will never die but definitely become less profitable. In 90s porn-star were treated like Hollywood star but even that time money was not that much. The highest level of hype who has ever achieved in porn is Jenna Jameson but recently I hear she can't even pay for her own hotel room.  

So what's current status of Porn Industry?

Production companies have either partnered for few % from profit or created their own tube sites and started directly producing and uploading content to tubesites. The equation is simple: provide a certain amount of free content to draw in traffic, then convert that traffic into sales by sending it over to various adult sites, where hopefully maybe 1 in 100,000 visitors will actually make a purchase.

In fact, tube8/pornhub/ YouPorn, Xtube and ExtremeTube are actually owned (and therefore funded by, and profits paid to) the largest company (or monopoly, I should say) in the adult entertainment industry, a corporation called Manwin.  

Manwin owns Brazzers, Reality Kings, Digital Playground, Mofos, and Twistys, manages the websites of Wicked pictures, and manages a portion of Playboy, their TV/web presence brand named Playboy Plus.

Now what's for porn star?
Today's Porn-Star has become smart and diversified her income using her Popularity.
Porn for popular porn-stars are only way to keep their popularity UP for flat payment plus right to upload her porn videos on her website.
They opened their own websites with membership, Cam shows through their websites; selling their panties/ lingerie. Creating wishlist on Amazon.
Fly around USA or multiple Countries for Strip Clubs shows - Yes people really pay good money to get lap dance from their favorite porn-stars who visit once or twice in a year to their city.
If need quick big money - be Arm Candy at Rich parties/Bachelor parties or escort themselves (shhhh....trust me all porn-stars have sex for money with rich guys either as FWB or SugarDaddy or Regular Clients who keeps their mouth shut)

To summarize : Production companies are making more than before, only ones who decided to adapt and survive. WHY? Smartphones and Internet increased traffic to websites where now you expect 1 in 100000 to make purchase.  
Example : Pornhub.com receives a Daily page views of 14.1 Million hits and generate an estimated Daily Advertisement Revenue of $42,308 USD and Monthly Advertisement Revenue of $1.3 Million USD.

Only Category who is sufferings is Male Performer although there are some exceptions like James Deen.