Sunday, April 02, 2006
Current mood: giggly

[This entry includes all the comments that were added at MySpace]

Rich Reynolds wrote this in another forum and it totally cracked me up:

” I’d still love to see somebody, running a[n unauthorized] photo-sharing site, either buy some material, or shoot their own, and share the photos for free– and allow others to post those photos wherever they want. It would be nice seeing them sharing content they paid for instead of content somebody else paid for. For some odd reason, when it’s their money on the line, they’re not so willing to share. All their justifications about a free internet and valuable promotion go out the window. “

Rich put that so well. I’ve had quite a few image-thieves tell me I should either be grateful to them because they ‘advertised’ me, or they say that everything on the internet should be free. Yet Rich has a point — have any of those people ever paid a model by the hour and then given away the results… and rights?

If anyone knows of someone who did, please let me know. It would be cool to know of an exception.

–Lor’

12:34 PM - 12 Comments - 3 Kudos

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Jungle Man

Wellll, this may not be exactly the same thing, but internet artists such as MR. X and Nightwing 316 certainly do spend their money on programs such as Poser, as well as spending their own time, to provide quite a bit of material for people completely free of charge. True they have pay sites as well, but I’m sure in their mind they are 2 completely different animals.

Posted by Jungle Man on Sunday, April 02, 2006 at 1:07 PM

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Charlzm

Hang with me for a minute. I’m long-winded, but I have a point.

The people who take photos used in fashion magazines, make television shows for networks or record for major record labels don’t try to sell their wares directly to the public. They have a distribution network to do that for them. Or, more in line with reality, a distribution network has the creative types to do the work of providing content for them.

As we all know, Napster killed that model. It’s still intact and working, but the poison has been ingested and its days are numbered. People want the freedom to choose what entertainment they will consume and when and where they will do so.

Major distribution channels will adapt in some way, but there is a really good chance that, in the intermediate future, there will be no (or very few) actual record stores, Blockbusters, multiplexes or newspapers.

This is sad, just as it was sad that the village blacksmith and the buggy whip makers went out of business when horses were supplanted by cars. But it’s going to happen any time there’s a major change in the way the world works.

So, combine the internet and peer-to-peer distribution and the joint consumer feelings of “I want it when/where/how I want it” and “I’ll get it for free if I can”, and we have the recipe for the end of the old model.

So… how does this affect Bedroom Bondage.com? I can’t really say. But to pose the argument of “if people had to pay to make it, they wouldn’t be so quick to steal it” I think sort of misses the point. Yes, it’s a valid viewpoint. It’s a variation on the golden rule and I fully believe it to be true. But I don’t think that’s the solution.

There will always be those who will take advantage of another for their own gain. The easier it gets (internet), the more often it will happen.

I used to work at a record store. And a movie theater. I saw the writing on the wall and I moved on (true, for various reasons other than this, but those are not growth industries). Perhaps all the internet sites we love will do the same.

It’s hard to predict, since porn is the last big industry that big industry doesn’t want to get into. Maybe they’ll just try to crush it out via regulation. Oh, wait, isn’t that already happening?

I don’t have a solution, but the problem is both bigger than the golden rule and yet based on it as well. I’m curious to see how it all plays out. As the Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times.”

Posted by Charlzm on Sunday, April 02, 2006 at 1:26 PM

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Whiplash Studio.com

While I like what Charles point, there’s one flaw in it: When the people who pay to make it (photos, movies, music whatever) stop making it because other are giving it away for free online, then why make it in the first place? When it becomes unprofitable for someone to make a movie or for L to take photos like these, then were are the pirates going to get the stuff to post. If movie theatres and record stores go away, then why are musicians and movie makers going to keep making movies and music if they can’t make money off of it? They won’t and when they go away, this “free” internet market is going to go away as well. Someone has to spend money to make the entertainment for someone else to be able to steal it and put it up for free. I think the argument of “if people had to make it that wouldn’t be so quick to steal it” is right on the point. If the people making it went away, the people stealing it would have no one to steal it from, thus, no product to post online. There will always be someone out there making it and unfortunately always someone out there stealing it.

Posted by Whiplash Studio.com on Sunday, April 02, 2006 at 2:20 PM

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Charlzm

Snidely/Tom:

There will always be new blood coming into any industry. “American Idol” is the biggest thing on TV, yet album sales are down and not getting any better. There will always be ways to entice new dreamers into the factory. It’s just going to be tougher for them to get in and tougher for them to stay in.

Movie attendance is down and going down. Sales of recordings in brick-and-mortar locations are down and getting smaller. This isn’t supposition; it’s happening and has been for years.

I’m not suggesting that people will stop trying to make movies or record music. I’m saying that they will find news ways to create product and new ways to distribute it to the consumer will be created or developed.

Look at internet porn sites: when a new venue for distriubution opened up, there were the porn makers. They were among the first to creat direct-to-consumer video content. I’m sure they helped push a revolution in publishing to make small, niche magazines profitable (as Robert Q. Harmon how he did it back in the 70’s).

My point is that the tried and true will remain that way. People will always want to consume their chosen entertainment. But who makes it, how it gets to the consumer and how it will be paid for are all in flux.

I sincerely hope Lorelei and our other favorite websites find a way to stay ahead or at least keep up with the change.

Posted by Charlzm on Sunday, April 02, 2006 at 7:30 PM

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Duct Tape Messiah

*Raises his hand*

I did it. I did it as a form of viral marketing for a website that no longer exists thanks to new federal laws and my latent desire to protect friends from government idiots with tin badges. Also did it to throw a small gauntlet in the face of presumption that it can’t, it shouldn’t, it mustn’t. And I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. I guess the thrill of being an amatuer is that you can focus on your love of the creation and no so much the potential cash you can be making. Ce la vie

Posted by Duct Tape Messiah on Sunday, April 02, 2006 at 4:27 PM

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Richard

Most paysites give away free material because it’s a nice way to let potential customers know whether or not they’d like what’s on the site and they’re not paying for something that’s a complete unknown. Somebody sharing their own work isn’t an issue. The issue is with somebody deciding it’s okay to share someone else’s work. That sharing isn’t limited to only posting the free promotional samples–it’s sharing sets right off the paysite.

What spurred my post, in Lorelei’s BB club forum, was a poster intimating that it was okay for sharing sites to distribute photos from paysites because it was free advertising. It’s not just the photo sharing that’s annoying, but the grating self-rationalizations that photo sharers have that they’re somehow doing producers a favor by giving away their material. I’m sure that they go to bed crying themselves to sleep because of all the ungrateful photographers who don’t appreciate their tireless unselfish devotion to promoting their work. I always wonder if they believe their own bull.

A lot of photo sharing sites have mission statements about how they respect the work of the paysites they’re “promoting” and how, if somebody likes what they’re giving away, they should join the site (like the sharer with dozens of sites stealing photos must be doing). Any time a producer asks them to stop posting their work, the real colors come out. Suddenly, the true petulant childish nature of the sharers is out in full force as they blast and insult the producer for daring to tell them to stop giving away the copyrighted material for free. Somehow, these sharers mysteriously know all the sales figures of the producers, whose work they steal, because they always seem to be absolutely certain that they’re increasing those sales by giving away photos they don’t own. Nobody ever sees these people putting their money where their mouth is–they’re much more comfortable putting somebody else’s money there. The few times that a photo sharer has gone pro, and saw their paid images being posted on the net for free, words like “sharing” and “promotion” were replaced with “stealing” and being “ripped off”. They didn’t seem to believe anymore that giving away paid work was a sure-fire means of increasing sales–or at least not when it was material that they bought and paid for. Payback be a bitch.

The simple reality is that photo sharing sites are put up to get free photos and the people doing it couldn’t care less about the impact on the people’s works that they’re stealing. All they care about is getting stuff for nothing. They don’t care if it hurts the business of the people who created the images. It would be nice to see them stop pushing their self-lies.

With the FetishCon in Tampa, anybody, with the desire to be a bondage photographer, can hire a model and shoot whatever fantasy they want to see. Just once, I’d love to see one of these sharers hire a model long enough to do two sets and put them both up on a token site. The first set would go up without sharing the photos. They second should be put up on their sharing site and then, after a few months of being given away for free, placed on the token site. That way, if they’re not bright enough to figure things out all by themselves, they can find out once and for all that giving away one of the sets doesn’t result in increased sales.

I’m not trying to bust on people who visit sharing sites for photos, but don’t post stuff they don’t own. I understand that people getting something for free would rather do that than pay for the same thing. They’re not helping me earn a living off my photography, but at least they’re not giving away the material I paid for.

As far as there being a new business model, that will eventually happen between using the law to go after copyright violators and forcing computer manufacturer’s to put in copyguarding hardware on all computers. The technology that makes it easy to share can also make it impossible to share or even own digital content. That, sadly, is the direction that things are going. It’s already been done to VCRS/DVRs. It’s only a matter of time till it happens to computers. New video cards are already being designed to prevent watching hi-definition movies on computer DVD drives. There will always be a way that a few people will get around the technologies and those are the people that the law will go after.

This isn’t the way I want things to go, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m not a player in the copy protecting world–that’s something that only the big companies can do. My only recourse is to stop selling my photos. As is, the $8-$9 a day I’m making in token sales (the sum of all the incomes from dozens of sets) makes it hard to want to take the time to photoshop new sets.

Between the legal threats of obscenity prosecutions, credit card companies censoring what their cards can be used for, and ever increasing sharing, more and more fetish photographers and models are going to disappear. Censorship is making it harder to earn money from customers willing to pay and sharing sites are taking away potential new customers and drawing away former paying customers. If it was just one threat, maybe fetish producers and models could survive, but a two-pronged attack chipping away at what little money is being made is going to knock out most of the small players and eventually even the larger ones. Companies, like Harmony, have cut their staffs and no longer have a stable of salaried video directors like they did a half dozen years ago. The thing that’s really sad is that the cost to actually purchase photos isn’t all that bad. Somebody can join Lorelei’s BedroomBondage site for $16 and be able to download 9,000 photos. There isn’t a pictorial bondage book or magazine that can be bought with that kind of deal (if there even is something out there to even purchase anymore).

I never expected to get rich photographing my fantasies (it’s a shame at being right on that count). I was hoping I could at least make back the costs of shooting them and I’m just barely doing that right now. If it gets to a point where it’s not worth putting new material up for sale, dropping out won’t be a big deal. I’ll still have all my photos to look at and that’s the main reason I got into it. I’m more concerned for other photographers who count on those sales to make a living.

I won’t hold my breath too long for a photosharer to actually share something they paid for.

Posted by Richard on Sunday, April 02, 2006 at 6:09 PM

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Duct Tape Messiah

Take a look at the post above yours…..

Posted by Duct Tape Messiah on Sunday, April 02, 2006 at 7:21 PM

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Richard

I saw your post and couldn’t make much out of it. You did viral marketing, whatever that is (spam?). What laws made the site go away (2257 requiring proof of ID when photos were being used and only the original copyright owner has the proof)? You haven’t outright said that you gave away photos you paid for even if you’re alluding that you did. There aren’t any in your profile to indicate that you have any original material. You didn’t name the site that’s now defunct. I’m not sure what gauntlet you threw “in the face of presumption that it can’t, it shouldn’t, it mustn’t.”–the website?–the photos?–not the gov’t because the site folded rather than face risks of whatever unspecified new laws you were worried about.

I’ll have to wait for some clarification from you or somebody else that might have better understood what you said. If you’ve really given away your own photos on your photo sharing site, that’s great. You’re a rarity. It still wouldn’t make it right to give away photos that others depend on deriving income from. If you really like and respect the photographers, whose work your using, you’d ask permission to use some photos and respectfully not post them if they don’t want them posted. Anything else is disrespectful. Don’t expect anybody to believe that you’re doing them a favor if you’re using their images without their permission. Paysites will post some images for promotional purposes, but I don’t know of any sharing site that limits sharing to only those photos. I don’t know a single photographer who thinks it’s okay for any and all of their photos being up for grabs. It’s one thing for the copyright owner to share some, or all, of their photos. It’s another to have others posting them against the desires of the owner. Since you don’t mind sharing your photos, where might they be seen?

Posted by Richard on Sunday, April 02, 2006 at 10:06 PM

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Richard

It all seems to be part of a malais that is affecting the country–which is a sense of undeserved entitlement. I don’t mind that somebody wants free stuff. I want free stuff. The difference is that I don’t expect to get a lot of free stuff and don’t get all bothered and angry when it’s not forthcoming.

More and more, it seems as if we’re dealing with a society that, not only wants things (which is not bad), but expects them as a given without ever having earned them. That’s the problem with angry whiners who feel they’re owed free photos. Not only do they feel some mysterious entitlement to those freebies, but are so entrenched with that belief that they even feel the right to complain if those freebies aren’t quite what they want and see nothing wrong with attacking the person giving them something for nothing. They don’t quite understand the concept that they’re getting what they paid for.

Maybe having been poor as a child and having pretty good parents has given me a different outlook on life. I had to pay my way through college. I had to buy my first car. There was never a moment when I expected my parents to pay for these things. They barely were making ends meet as it was. I never had a chance to grow up feeling privileged. I know somebody at work that was going to give his daughter his six year-old car when he bought a new one and she refused it because the car wasn’t cool looking. I cannot even begin to imagine how spoiled this kid had to be to expect that she had a choice in what her first car could be–at least not till the guy actually took out another loan to get his angel a cool brand new car. Every time I see a news story at Christmas time about idiot parents standing in line for a day to get the fad toy of the year, I see more reasons why kids grow up with messed up values. They weren’t told “no” often enough as kids when they wanted something.

You’ve got to chuckle at people who claim they cannot afford $10-$20 for access to a paysite. What’s that, 2-4 hours at a minimum wage job where a week of afternoons will set them up for a year’s membership?–Or cutting out a couple packs of cigarettes?–Or bringing in water from home instead of buying sodas from vending machines for a week? It’s not the kind of money that requires mortgaging the home. Generally, if a person can afford a computer and internet access, coughing up ten bucks isn’t going to break the bank. Sometimes money’s tight and hard decisions have to be made where discretionary money is spent, but $10-$20 for thousands of photos isn’t an insurmountable amount of money or a particularly bad deal. Much as modeling seems like a glamorous job, I don’t know many bondage models that earn enough income that it’s their full-time job. Their regular job is often something like waitressing or some other low paying job that has flexible hours so that they can do shoots without too much hassle. There’s usually no health benefits or retirement plans. Modeling is a youth oriented job, so work declines as models age. If you like a particular model, and getting a membership doesn’t require a monthly trip to the blood bank, kick in a little money at the model’s paysite to show some appreciation.

Posted by Richard on Tuesday, April 04, 2006 at 9:52 PM

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Charlzm

I remember that modest little site back in the day. HAd some of Lorelei’s Bettie Page inspired shots of you tied to an upright bed frame or something like that.

Hey, why the hell DID you start charging?!?

Posted by Charlzm on Monday, April 03, 2006 at 11:34 AM

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Richard

I almost wish somebody had named a real example of a photo sharer that had actually shared something they paid for. It would have been nice to shake away some of my pessimism. I do find myself getting more critical of life as I get older. With all the garbage we see through a lifetime, it’s hard not to get cynical.

I can’t say that there will never be a photo sharer that hires a model or buys photos from a photographer. It’s always possible that it may happen, but it’s an unlikely phenomenon. The reason is that the kind of personality that gravitates to giving away the work of a person, who requires that work to earn a living, is not the kind of personality of a person that naturally gives away what they earned and paid for. They’d rather adopt the appearance of generosity by giving away someone else’s property. Even that “generosity” is tainted with the expectation that sharing photos they’ve stolen will result in others sharing photos that they’ve taken from paysites. It’s all about them getting something for nothing.

I finally had some time to look up viral marketing and it’s just another buzz word for word of mouth. “Viral” refers to the act of convincing the original ad viewer to pass along the ad. Hotmail was the prime example given. Everybody that sent a message through Hotmail had a tag line at the bottom that offered a free Hotmail account that enticed the recipient to create an account and every message they sent advertised the service freely. Sportscenter’s funny, imaginative commercials, that get forwarded voluntarily from person to person, are another example of free viral publicity advertising Sportscenter. Word of mouth advertising has been a wanted component as long as advertising has existed. The original ad is just the means to create awareness. True market saturation occurs when customers carry on that marketing. Word of mouth is free advertising that is far more persuasive than the original ad. We’ve all become jaded by advertising and take their claims with a degree of skepticism. When a friend tells us how great a product is or how cool a movie was, we’re a lot more receptive and willing to give the product or movie a try.

Posted by Richard on Saturday, April 08, 2006 at 9:42 AM