Porn pushes limits of technology

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The families who are able to chat via computer with loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan owe a debt of gratitude to a pornographer.The politicians who post their videos on YouTube also need to thank the porn industry.And, in the very near future, when you download a full-length feature film quickly, you will be indebted to the people who made their money developing technologies to distribute X-rated content.Even in prehistoric times, when some unknown artist carved the big-busted Venus of Willendorf more than 20,000 years ago, the pornographers were ahead of the pack.The porn industry found a way to use telephones and 900 numbers to make money and was among the first to realize the commercial possibilities of the Internet.Larry Walters, an attorney who works with First Amendment issues involving pornography in Orlando, Fla., said the adult-film industry currently is working on anti-pirating software to protect its movies and images -- software that will be appealing to major mainstream movie studios as well.The industry also is trying to pioneer age verification over the Web that goes beyond "who is the first presidential candidate you voted for?"A Web-based system of verifying a customer's age is important for porn, Walters said, due in large part to legal concerns.But if the porn industry can develop a good way to make sure someone surfing the Web isn't underage, the same technology could be used to verify that sales of tobacco and alcohol are legal.The motivating factor in all of these developments has been money.In 2001, Forbes.com estimated that porn was a $2.6 billion to $3.9 billion industry, but cautioned that it was hard to put an exact figure on it. Other estimates range as high as $10 billion to $12 billion.While many other sites struggled to make money on the Internet through advertising, pornographers developed banner advertising.Pornographers also created the concept of user-generated content, with "girlfriend sites," which used videos that guys had taken of their girlfriends. The problem was that not all of the boyfriends had the same video recorders or software, so a programmer in the 1990s figured out how to untangle the software so that viewers could watch all of the videos in the same format."With a lot of trial and error, the adult industry got the videos to work. Now all of a sudden you have YouTube. The adult industry was doing that for 10 years," Walters said.The most exciting development to come, he said, may be the purchase of VideoZ.com, a site that sells full-length pornographic movies that download quickly, by a mainstream movie distribution company. Walters said the company wants to buy VideoZ to gain access to the programming needed to download movies.Warner Mariani, an attorney in Pittsburgh who represents the adult industry, said the virtual world may eliminate the need to hire actors and actresses. Users will be able to create their own pornography using avatars, or computer-generated simulations of people."Build your own actress or actor and tell them what you would like them to do," he said.The concept of avatars also eliminates any regulation of the pornography industry because all of the action, all of the actors, all of the direction would be at the behest of the consumer.The concept is already partially realized on the Red Light Center Web site, where people can create the bodies they want to have virtual sex with each other. The mainstream version of the site is the popular Second Life.Just one more example of how the world's oldest profession has kept up to date.(Ann Belser can be reached at abelser(at)post-gazette.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)