NCT Essay.

My student number is: 2715439

My following essay relates to the third topic (essentially the challenges facing professionals due to the audience shift from consumption to production, and the subsequent offset of increased amateur content online that's free to watch).

The area of creativity chosen is: the online porn industry.

The refined genre of my essay is: original suggestive problem-solution academic essay.

References are numbered for ease of reading, while there is a reference list following the essay which follows referencing standards.

Essay:

Elderly people often find it hard to keep up with the changing times. Whether they are getting confused by this weird thing called ‘the internet’, or trying to understand why there is an ever increasing amount of people with a wire going from their bag or pocket, to both of their ears. But throughout these vast changes, there is one constant. Porn.

Porn is rather widespread nowadays. A 2009 report states that 25% of all search engine requests relate to porn, and that 35% of all peer-peer downloads are of a sexual nature.(1)(2) The basic fact is that porn is extremely prevalent on the internet, with usage higher than 65% in some age demographics.(3) Whereas porn is arguably the most used abbreviation in the English language, and porn, aka pornography, is defined as any material with a primary purpose to cause sexual arousal.(4) But while elderly people may struggle with certain technological concepts, there is a far greater struggle going on, and it relates to the porn industry, and digital media.

Humans have strong sexual drives, and with the current status of prostitution world wide (and tight cash flows), porn is often the answer.(5)(6) Frequently, this porn comprises of free amateur porn. You see, the widespread availability of video cameras and editing software, combined with the high market penetration of computers and the internet, has put the tools of production into the everyday person's hands. While creating films used to require large amounts of money, nowadays anyone can create videos, and fairly cheaply too. Most phones and laptops come with a camera these days, meaning one can easily record something, upload it to a video hosting website, and broadcast it to the world rather quickly. The ease in which amateurs can create content in a relatively short period of time causes problems for professionals. This essay will look at the challenges and problems facing the porn industry in relation to this problem. It will then go on and offer possible solutions, and ideas on how to combat these problems.

One issue is that amateurs are not only producing videos, but some of them are of a fairly good quality. Even worse for professionals is that the amateurs do it for free, and let people watch it for free. In the porn industry, this has resulted in an explosion of free porn, most of which is amateur. This increasing availability of free amateur porn has caused numerous problems for the professional porn industry. The first problem is that why would anyone pay for something that can be so easily acquired for free? Previously, if one had a demand for porn, they could go out and buy some. Nowadays however, if one has such a demand, they can go online and get it for free. So while porn sales used to be based upon people’s want for porn, it is now decided on people’s want for something they can’t get for free. Why some may buy porn due to their lack of awareness of free porn, this essay will assume that people only buy porn, because free porn is currently not fulfilling their porn needs.

This shift has caused major problems in the porn industry as professionals now have to offer not just porn, but unique or high quality porn, aka, something worthy of being bought. So professional porn makers have to try considerably harder to get sales. This could be anything form acquiring the services of the most attractive people as possible, or making a porn film shot in POV. The fact is that professional porn makers have to offer something of worth value. But there is another option that could work too.

Another option would be to market their professional porn with the free amateur porn in mind. Some simple marketing techniques could be employed to achieve this. First off, it would make sense to emphasize and explicitly state why the customer should buy this particular brand of porn, opposed to simply watching free porn. A statement of better production values and more attractive actors could work, or maybe even some guerrilla tactics such as heavily suggesting that free porn will give your computers viruses, whereas their ‘great pay porn’, won’t.

Another challenge facing the professional porn industry is the very strong possibility, and sheer realism that free amateur porn on the internet won’t go away any time soon. Thus it makes sense that a professional pornographer - or businessperson working for them - should try and combat this. One method is for their porn company to try and be very customer based, always uploading new porn and keeping things fresh to keep their customer. This method focuses on brand loyalty. But there is a more interesting idea that could work too.

As previously stated, a large challenge facing the professional porn industry is that it now has to offer something better, something worthy of being bought over free material. So an interesting idea would be for professional pornographers to offer a-grade porn for free. This new structure would work like television because revenue will be gained from advertisements, rather than the product itself. While internet advertisements might not offer much money, it just might in this environment. After all, people who watch porn are probably rather horny. Thus, advertisements advertising products of a sexual arena could thrive rather nicely. From shaming the porn watcher to try a penis enlargement remedy, or convincing him/her to buy something special for their loved one to make up for their large amount of porn watching. The possibilities are endless, especially if user accounts could be made where one states the city they live in. This opens opportunities for local adult shops and clubs, strippers, and women/men who might just pay their rent by using their body.

The fact is that while there are rather large challenges the professional porn industry is facing, there is also a rather large amount of solutions. As it can clearly be seen now, most the challenges have arisen due to the shift from audiences consuming what they were given, to producing material. This amateur production, and subsequent uploading of the material online to be viewed by others for free is problematic for the porn industry, and this essay has looked at that. First at the challenge that the professional porn industry now has to offer a product which warrants money expenditure in an environment which is thriving with free material. This shift was looked at, as well as the subsequent challenges that it causes. Such as the necessity to convince potential customers to buy porn rather than simply receive it for free, and some possible methods that this can be achieved.

Overall however, it is a difficult – and rather precarious - time for the industry, with some even suggesting that the whole industry is doomed.(7) But while these challenges remain, one must remember that humans essentially have a proclivity for porn. Hence, the need for porn is there, and the need will thrive years to come. So the overriding question is: will this need be satisfied by amateurs, or professionals?
After all, society is increasingly becoming a place where one frequently doesn’t pay for digital content, while amateur content is on the rise. Fan fiction is a great example of this shift outside the porn industry.(8) This shift can either be opposed, or responded to in a submissive manner. Either way, it all will be decided on how the industry handles the challenges mentioned in this essay.

Reference List

1 - HealthyMind.com (n.d.) Internet Pornography Statistics: 2003
http://www.healthymind.com/s-porn-stats.html

2 - Ropelato, J. (2006) Internet Pornography Statistics
http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html

3 - Featherstone 2005
Featherstone, L. (2005). You, me and porn make three. Psychology Today, 38(5), 82-87.

4 - Dictionary.com (n.d.) Pornography definition
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pornography

5 and 6 -
Legislation
Prostitution Act 1992 (ACT)
Prostitution Regulation Act 2004 (VIC)

7 - Goldstein 2009
Goldstein, D. (2009). XXX: Is the Porn Industry Doomed? The American Prospect, May 15 2009

8 - FanFiction.com (n.d.)
www.fanfiction.com