We’ve been writing about Digital Rights Management for porn as the supreme court considers the MGM v. Grokster copyright infringement case. At stake is the liability facilitators of file sharing for illegal files shared on their service. There is no question these services were built to support this illegal activity, and that this represents the vast majority (at least 95%, according to the Times) despite the real possibility that the service could be used legally. Reasonable people agree it is one thing to share a CD of your favorite songs with your friends, quite another to make this collection available to everyone on the web for free. This practice needs to be stopped in order for the marketplace for intellectual property to reach a proper equilibrium. Apple seems to be getting this one right with iTunes, despite the free competition.

Anyone who has used Kazaa for music, and especially for porn, knows that even with the best anti-virus protection, downloading movies, especially porn movies, on this services is a game of roulette. The prize is free media, the but price could be eventually come directly out of your computer. Only worth it if you are using someone else’s computer. Preferably, someone you hate
Sir Rodney’s guide is not outdated. File sharing services for porn are much more dicey than those for music. Stay away. For all practical purposes, the less savory elements in Internet porn has built a virtual DRM system for porn copyright owners. One wonders in fact if they are not one and the same (but this gives them way too much credit). Most of the porn downloaded and burned is by collectors like Sir Rodney, not furtive teens who trade pirated songs.

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