Sony Blu-Ray porn troubles
p2pnet.net News:- In 1982, “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone,” declared ex-MPAA boss Jack Valenti.
He was attacking Sony’s early video cassette recorder standard, Betamax, claiming it would ruin the movie industry. Somehow, Hollywood lives on, reporting eye-popping revenues, but the same charge is now levelled at file sharers by Valenti’s successor, Dan Glickman.
Betamax did not, however, survive. But were the efforts of Valenti and other spinsters the reason? Or was it another “oft-recalled explanation for the failure of Sony’s (SNE) Betamax videocassette format in the 1980s was the Japanese company’s ambivalence towards producers of pornographic videos?” – asks BusinessWeek.com.
“By contrast, proponents of VHS, Betamax’s rival, welcomed adult content with open arms and, the legend goes, caused Betamax’s demise,” the story goes on. “The new gadget also spawned a multibillion-dollar porn video industry along the way.”
In 2007, will Sony Blu-Ray hi-def discs go the way of Betamax?
Apart from the fact porn stars might not be overly keen on having their imperfections revealed in fine (and possibly overwhelming) graphic detail, “Sony said last week that, in keeping with a longstanding policy, it would not mass-produce pornographic videos on behalf of the movie makers,” says The New York Times, going on:
“The decision has forced pornographers to use the competing HD-DVD format or, in some cases, to find companies other than Sony that can manufacture copies of Blu-ray movies.”
Adult entertainment raked in $3.6 billion worth of video sales and rentals in 2006, says the story, which quotes Steven Hirsch, co-chief executive officer of Vivid Entertainment Group, “a big player in the industry,” as saying high definition, regardless of format, “is the future”.
Pornographers distributed some 7,000 new movies on DVD last year and sold discs worth $3.6 billion in the US, says the NYT.
Sony, meanwhile, is already losing money hand over fist because of various disasters in 2006, led by the infamous rootkit DRM spyware scandal fired up by its music outfit.
This was all about bad judgment, about hiding potentialy lethal (to computers) spyware on music CDs.
It’ll be ironic if another Sony judgment call, in this case one that might be lauded in some sectors, seriously adds to its problems.
Also See:
BusinessWeek.com – Next-Gen DVD’s Porn Struggle, January 22, 2007
The New York Times – In Raw World of Sex Movies, High Definition Could Be a View Too Real, January 22, 2007
Want to subscribe to p2pnet by email with Feedburner? Just click here.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php | | And use our own p2pnet newsfeeds for your site
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Lets not also forget the PS3 debacle….where sony has released a player so expensive and hard to obtain that it is hurting sales.
It seems Sonys trouble are comming in bundles this year.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:07 am
I’m not sure that all their troubles can be put into statistics that are meaningful.
At one time I used to think well of Sony products. Bought thousands of dollars worth of their equipment and hardware in one form or another. a rootkit later, a sue’em all campaign, a laptop battery forced recall, the betamax affair, the blu-ray debacle of forcing DRM, the requirement that floor salesmen sign an agreement not to speak bad of the Sony name and brand, and I’ve had it with them.
I don’t care they can’t produce these video game consoles in enough volume. I don’t care if they make tons of new HD-TVs. I won’t be buying anything that has the label name on it. I’ve lost the trust in the brand name and the corporate reputation reeks to high heaven. My eyes have been opened to just how bad they seek to twist the public opinion and influence it in their favor.
It will have absolutely no effect on me that they don’t support porn as I won’t have their equipment knowingly within my home. Whenever I see the brand name, I see a do not buy tag attached to it. I can not help but think that others in the public have the same thoughts.