I love porn. It’s a fantastic medium ripe with creativity and talent.

Today I read this article on digital medium theft and how it’s killing the porn industry.

It both upset me and got me thinking. I think the porn industry is trapped in the 90s, holding firm to the DVD mentality and hasn’t caught up to the 2000s.

Let me explain a little bit. Porn is almost wholly sold under DVD and internet subscription models, ranging anywhere from $20-$50 per month/dvd. Both are hidden behind aggressive pay walls or adult book stores. Both come laden with copyright warnings and lawsuits. It used to work well for the industry, but as of late it hasn’t been, as it’s experiencing a huge drop in sales. Consumers are watching porn on the free sites, downloading torrents and actively playing the system to receive their content for free. It’s seen as an act of aggression on the porn industry, something that has to be stopped!

But I think think there is another way to look at it. It’s the consumer’s way of saying that they want their content delivered to them in a different way. They’re used to their $1-per-phone-app prices for immediacy and variability. They, as consumers, have changed the way they want to consume pornography and the industry’s done nothing to try and meet this change.

Now I’m not trying to say that porn should be priced at $1 or free or anything like that. But I do know there are alternatives to credit card walls, DVDs and legal lawsuits, and all it takes is for a gutsy company to try something new.

Here’s an example.
Long ago, amid huge music rights violations and dwindling CD sales, Radio Head allowed free DMR-free downloads of their new album, under a pay-what-you-want scheme, users could opt to pay nothing and get the album for free. It was a huge success, both in PR and in sales: people WANTED to pay for the content.

But what I think is especially suitable for the porn industry is the Humble Bundle. A varied collection of games or books or anything digital is made. Users then pay what they want, if they pay above the average they also get access to more things, they can even opt for a percentage of the payment to go to charity. It pays well and users get what they want: to be able to pay for their content, to help a cause, and variability in media all in one go.

It might not be perfect, but I could easily see a DRM-free Humble Bundle of porn doing incredibly well. Keep it loosely based on one subject or theme, throw in a sex worker charity fund as an option to pay and it’s even better. Consumers could pay what they think is appropriate, but at least they will be paying. Consumers love their porn and I believe they are not ALL evil pirates, given the option I think they would want to be able to support their fav porn studios’ works.

These examples might not be wholly right for the porn industry. But they are developments in the entertainment realm to combat the same piracy problem that the porn industry is facing now. Their efforts to meet the changing way consumers want their media delivered, they’re efforts we’ve not seen the porn industry attempt yet.

It’s incredibly easy to see why the industry is failing and hard to understand why it’s not evolving. Pornography used to be at the forefront of media progression, but at some point in the last 15 years failed to develop. The music, games and even comics industries have all sought to develop ways to meet the new way consumers want their entertainment, why can’t pornography do the same?