Degrading Sex Work Enables Piracy

If I make a short, non-erotic film for about $10,000, and distribute it through pay channels like YouTube Red or Netflix (or even get a major distribution deal like the Blair Witch Project filmmakers), then it's obvious to most people why I would have a serious problem with other people uploading the film and making it available for streaming or download in a way that I don't get any money from. This isn't a hard concept to grasp: I spent my own money and put a lot of effort into something, and so I deserve financial compensation from people who want to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Yes, perhaps the world would be a better place if we abolished money and everyone was able to get whatever they wanted whenever they wanted it, but we're pretty far from that kind of world right now and we're not going to get there any time soon.

The same understanding doesn't hold true for erotic media, though. Judging by the popularity of some free streaming video sites for adult videos, and all the videos up for sale there that are clearly taken from paysites, piracy seems to be the norm for videos that are meant to sexually titillate their viewers. Although this problem is most prevalent with erotic videos and photos, it happens with other kinds of erotica as well; I find pirated ebooks of California Bondage Sorority Book One online every week, even though it's really not all that popular (yet). This isn't a matter of just robbing creators of pocket change, either; last month Dave Simpson, longtime producer of bondage photos and videos, committed suicide because piracy virtually destroyed his business. (Contrary to the widely-held perception of many consumers of erotica, for many creators it is their primary form of income. Piracy destroys lives.)

When erotica producers find their work posted online without their permission, though, they don't always have the same mechanisms in place to get their work taken down. Part of this is because a lot of sharing sites just don't have the same standards as sites like YouTube when it comes to taking down stolen material promptly (and some of those sites operate out of countries with lax enforcement of copyright laws). A lot of it has to do with the fact that sex work is degraded in our culture, though, because people who make erotic photos or videos or books are seen by many people as somehow less deserving of help (or even basic respect) than others. Just like women who dress sexily are told "what did you expect" after they go out to a club and get raped or sexually assaulted, erotic photographers and videographers and models and writers are blamed for the piracy of their work because "they knew they were in a seedy business." It's not right to blame women for getting raped, and it's not right to blame adult producers and models and writers for their work being pirated.

A lot needs to be done when it comes to getting pirated videos off of adult streaming video sites and file-sharing services, but in addition to the technical work of reporting videos and making it easier for these sites to detect when paid content is being uploaded to their servers, we also need to keep working to change mainstream culture when it comes to its perception of sex work and sex workers. If erotic video and photo producers had the same piracy-reporting tools at their disposal that others producers had then it would be much easier for everyone involved in erotic media to make a living doing what they love, and hopefully there won't be so many suicides in the future.