What's The Harm In Undisclosed Product Placement?

Hollywood's Enforcer Also In The Porn Business?

from the just-on-the-side dept

Mon, Sep 22nd 2008 1:04pm — Mike Masnick

MediaDefender, one of the companies that the entertainment industry uses to spoof files on file sharing networks and track down the IP addresses of file sharers has found its business to be in serious trouble lately -- and it appears that one quiet side aspect of its business is now being exposed as well. While the company tries to position itself on the side of good, claiming that it's fighting evil "pirates" and even helping law enforcement go after criminals, TorrentFreak has uncovered that the company has quietly been making a bunch of money by running some porn sites on the side, while also uploading files to file sharing networks pushing people to other porn sites, hoping to cash in on affiliate fees for getting people to sign up for porn subscriptions. It sounds as though everything the company is doing is perfectly legal, but it seems to tarnish the company's desired image in certain circles as being an upstanding citizen just trying to prevent piracy.

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Filed Under: copyright, file sharing, porn
Companies: mediadefender

13 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2008 @ 1:16pm

This will come back to haunt them
Pardon the pun, but once you get into the porn business, it's much harder to get back to anything legitimate.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2008 @ 1:39pm

Caught with their pants down
MediaSentry's true colors are showing. Maybe their next hard-to-find specialty porn video will be about Corporate Bankruptcy. It gets me hot just thinking about it.
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Potato Head, 22 Sep 2008 @ 2:00pm

So?
So what? Are you telling me you don't like porn!
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Benjamin Wright, 22 Sep 2008 @ 2:13pm

transparency world
I stand in awe at how technology forces transparency . . . and embarasses authority figures (in this case an IP watchdog) who think they can hide any information. --Ben http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2007/12/people-in-authority-sometimes-abuse.html
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Erv Server, 22 Sep 2008 @ 2:57pm

so....anyone using MediaSentry services are also tied to the porn industry?
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Grae, 22 Sep 2008 @ 3:13pm

Re: So?
Unless it's an illegal or extreme porn genre it's hard to be too shocked.

Is it a stupid political/public opinion move? Absolutely.

Though honestly it really rounds out the "mafia" feel to the RIAA.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2008 @ 4:01pm

Porn RIAA?
I've always wondered this. There are many, many porn torrent sites out there, with millions of downloads on them, with most of the torrents coming from paysite content.
If you take the RIAA's "each download represents a lost sale" claim, that has to be millions and millions of dollars "lost".

So why aren't porn sites fighting piracy? At least, why aren't they fighting it as hard as the RIAA does? And why, with all that, are porn sites doing so well and growing (most of the time)?
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2008 @ 5:31pm

Re: This will come back to haunt them
You are saying porn isn't legitimate? Not quite sure what kind of porn you watch, but for the majority of us porn is perfectly legitimate.
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Dan, 22 Sep 2008 @ 6:35pm

This wouldn't be the first whore that opened her own house. It is hard to claim virginity when you run a cat house though.
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Plop!, 22 Sep 2008 @ 7:11pm

I am going to leave this here.
Q: "Hollywood's Enforcer also in the Porn Business?"
A: Yes. Why Yes they are.

Pay no attention to this link!
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20080922/mark-buse-039-homosexuality-rumors-controversy-mccai n-039-anti-gay-ideology.htm
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2008 @ 7:54pm

Microsoft Ad Strategy
So, clearly, the most powerful message would be: I'm a PC and I am a porn star.
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 23 Sep 2008 @ 5:45am

Where are the nay-sayers
Where are the people who always claim that torrents and peer to peer has no real legitimate use?
No comments like that this thread?
Seems like a perfectly legitimate use of P2P to me.
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Lee, 4 Oct 2008 @ 10:26am

Re: This will come back to haunt them

Pardon the pun, but once you get into the porn business, it's much harder to get back to anything legitimate.

Ahh, that explains their current business model.
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