YNOT – Recently, on several gay blogs, I’ve read about the outrage over [gay adult studio] Corbin Fisher suing pirates. Some posts bear ridiculous titles like “Corbin Fisher Wants Your Cash.” In truth, Corbin Fisher has used rather harsh language to refer to the teenagers who are stealing porn, but let’s move from tone to substance and take the argument from there.
I couldn’t agree more with the main point: We should prosecute thieves mercilessly. We should not and will not discriminate based on age when it comes to piracy.
A crime is a crime, and theft is a crime. There is no difference between stealing movies online and shoplifting.
Connecting a push for justice with teen suicide, as some have done, is a ridiculous, disgusting, bogus claim made solely to stir up hysteria. First of all, copyright owners don’t sue pirates right away. We start out by trying to negotiate a reasonable settlement. In hundreds of negotiations, Lucas Entertainment has not come across a single teenager so far. But were that to happen, we would prosecute as always. We are not going to discriminate because of age.
The real issue here is not any studio’s effort to protect its property. The real issue is that piracy sites are, in fact, wide open to underage users. Legitimate adult sites age-verify their users — piracy sites do nothing of the sort. Thereby, they violate yet another set of federal laws (in addition to intellectual property laws).
Piracy sites have moral and legal responsibilities to keep underage users away from the material they offer … and that would be the correct way to deal with the whole question of what to do about underage porn thieves.
Having said that, make no mistake: Both the music and movie industries — mainstream and adult — will go after all piracy facilitators and take action accordingly.
To Unicorn Booty and other similar bloggers: Don’t try to trick your readers with false naiveté. Corbin Fisher doesn’t “want your cash.” The studio simply wants to protect the entertainment business. Otherwise, there will be nothing left to steal.
Michael Lucas is the founder and chief executive officer of New York City-based gay adult studio Lucas Entertainment. Born, raised and educated through law school in Moscow, Russia, the 39-year-old auteur is a model, actor, director, producer and gay-Jewish cultural arbiter. He holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and Israel. Read more about him on his blog.
