Through the magic of the interwebs, I recently came across this: “TakeDown Piracy Announces Gold Sponsorship of CineKink Film Festival” (XBIZ 1/31/13 here).
CineKink is an annual event featuring films and videos that celebrate and explore sexuality diversity. In addition to screenings, plans for the festival also include a short film competition, audience choice awards, a feminist porn presentation and panel, a special adult entertainment showcase, and a kick-off gala (among other things). CineKink goes on tour, with stops New York, LA, SXSW in Austin, and other locations. This year’s New York event happens from February 26 – March 3, 2013.
Like most events of the arty and/or festival-like nature, CineKink accepts sponsor dollars in incrementally defined levels. So, for example, you could be a Presenting Sponsor with a $10,000 donation or a Gotham Sponsor with one of $300. Different sponsorship levels get different rewards and accolades – for a $1000 Gold Sponsorship, one would get…
Gold Sponsor ($1,000)
Year-round recognition, including the NYC festival and all tour appearances, as a Gold Sponsor of CineKink
Logo and link in the Sponsors area of website, and on landing page for CineKink NYC/2013 and all subsequent events of the year.
Company logo included on all CineKink NYC promotional materials with fourth-tier sizing and placement.
Inclusion in all CineKink NYC and tour press releases.
Sponsorship of a CineKink NYC event or screening.
Half-page ad in the festival program.
Logo on CineKink NYC trailer, which opens each screening.
Company’s promotional material on Sponsors table and in Kick-Off Party gift bag, and distributed on tour. (here)
Looks like the folks at TakeDown Piracy (TDP) are gonna have a little CineKinky swag on their hands… heyyyyy. But seriously – how nice!!
As we all know, I think stealing is wrong. This includes pirating content (adult and otherwise) that doesn’t belong to you. Consequently, I love TakeDown Piracy, a company that provides content owners and copyright holders with some recourse to fight back against folks who pilfer their shit (ie porn tube sites).
And, as we all also know, I’m not very arty… but I love film and sex and free expression and free expression of sex via the film form (reviews!!). And I love that there’s a CineKink to showcase such things in whatever manner the artists and organizers devise, with stops all across the country. Thus, to me, the support of CineKink by TakeDown Piracy sounded like two bits of awesome having dessert together – love it!!
But more interwebbing eventually led me to this bit of shade thrown at TDP by writer/blogger Violet Blue (here 2/2/13)…
I love CineKink and am saddened to find out it is now sponsored by a company whose business model is mass-DMCA blasts, warfare on torrent sites and profiting off the removal of links – legit or not. Anti-piracy business TakeDown Piracy has announced its gold-level sponsorship of the 10th anniversary edition of the CineKink Film Festival. TakeDown Piracy is listed by Google as one of the top five reporters of digital violations in the world. TakeDown Piracy Announces Gold Sponsorship of CineKink Film Festival (XBIZ)
Huh?
I don’t know everything and sometimes I miss obvious things, but for the life of me I cannot figure out why Violet, who’s apparently…
[R]egarded as the foremost sexuality and tech expert and sex-positive pundit in mainstream media. (here)
…would be down on an organization that works to protect the rights of artists, producers, performers, and everyone else from content pirates on the internet.
But I think I found a clue when I read further down on Violet’s “About” page and came across this:
Forbes and Oprah Winfrey have both called [Violet's] podcast (Open Source Sex) “One of the Internet’s most popular podcasts.” Blue titled her podcast “Open Source Sex” for the intersection of technology and sex, and the free-flowing information exchange of the open source software movement.
So this means Violet is for software (software only?) being open and free-flowing – like free exchange..? Meaning everyone can have everything they want?!!
That’s actually a really noble idea, especially if Violet walks the walk herself… like, if she gives away the over forty print and digital books she has authored and/or edited (that’ve also been translated into six languages, btw; here) and/or gives away any other products and/or ideas she’s developed… Oh and also only contributes to projects and entities that give content away for free (well, maybe they just have to give away her bits for free… they can charge for other stuff if they want to!!) and teaches everything she knows for free and/or via entities that don’t charge any form of entrance fee or tuition, etc…
Does any of this happen, or is there something else going on?
* * *
Like what you see? Follow PVV on Facebook and Twitter!!
Visit Dr. Chauntelle at ChauntelleTibbals.com and on Twitter at @DrChauntelle.
You may quote anything herein with the following attribution: “Reprinted from Porn Valley Vantage/PVVOnline, copyright © Chauntelle Anne Tibbals, PhD (www.PVVOnline.com).”
PVVOnline – Critical Commentary on Adult Production
My thoughts on this:
The last thing I thought I’d see when sponsoring a great event like CineKink is for some random blogger taking shots at my company. It really does boggle the mind. CineKink is all about independent artists and filmmakers. That’s exactly the kinds of companies we strive to help at Takedown Piracy. Why Violet Blue would have a problem with this is beyond me. Is Violet Blue advocating against copyright holders standing up for themselves against the exploitation of internet pirates? It makes sense since she’s clearly opposed to me being compensated for my work that she would also be opposed to artists being compensated for their work. If my clients tried to do all their anti-piracy in-house they would have to pay someone, and that would cost them insanely more than they have to pay to just have me do it. So what exactly is Violet Blue’s problem again?
It’s funny to me that for every 2bit hack like Violet Blue pandering to the freeloaders out there with her outrage, what you don’t hear is complaints from my actual clients. If my company is somehow some bad thing, why aren’t my clients complaining? And wait…what’s this…I see ads on Violet Blue’s site for companies she’s promoting as an affiliate…surely none of those companies are my clients right? Wrong. About half of them are. I wonder if those companies Violet Blue is promoting are aware of her pro-piracy stance? Or does Violet Blue owe me a thank you since she’s deriving revenue from companies I am working hard to keep profitable?
But let’s talk about giving things away for free. When I first heard this Violet Blue criticism I was hoping and praying she was going to be at one of the numerous events I was speaking at (for free mind you) in the next few months. But lo and behold she is not, because you see, Violet Blue does not speak at events for free. You see, Violet Blue demands to be compensated for her time and effort, something she apparently does not support when it comes to other people’s time and effort. Violet Blue touts her numerous books she’s authored, but is she giving any of them away for free? Doesn’t seem like it, they are all for-profit books she’s selling on Amazon. But since Violet opposes copyright owners enforcing their rights, I’m sure she won’t have a problem with you pirating all her books. I’m sure she won’t have a problem with you giving her books away for free and then selling advertising against them that you profit from and she gets nothing. Right Violet? Adapt or die baby.
But let’s be clear…this is the same Violet Blue who wrote an article crying racism for ‘victim’ “female performer Shane Diesel”, before doing a 4th grade level of research and learning that Shane Diesel is not only not a female, but he’s an obscenely endowed male performer whose fetish is race play. But Violet didn’t let the actual facts get in the way of pointing the finger at someone and declaring racism. Facts be damned Violet!
And the article Violet Blue links to in citing how much she loathes my company is an article from a pro-piracy blog called TorrentFreak. The article outlines how we found a torrent site home to 10s of 1000s of infringing works. When we sent a notice to that torrent site to remove our clients works, the torrent site responded demanding $50 per work to remove. This is a site that has had over 350,000 infringing links reported to Google. So according to Violet, I guess copyright owners need to fork over $17.5 million to this one site just to enjoy their constitutionally protected rights. Or in other words, Violet Blue is using a pro-extortion argument for decrying me for supporting independent cinema. I’ll just let that sink in for ya.
Violet Blue is from that San Francisco bubble of so-called “sex positives” that support your rights as long as they are in lockstep with what they approve of. It’s a melting pot of anti-capitalists and sexologists that claim to love sexual expression right up until you decide to make money from it doing sex that they don’t approve of. She’s a water carrier for anti-copyright groups like the EFF, a group funded and astroturf’d by her neighbors at Google. They give the talking points out to parrots like Violet Blue, who can’t be bothered with doing any actual research on the issue, instead people like Violet take to pandering to the masses on the internet who want everything for free and are more than happy to let Google dictate public policy even if it means trampling over the rights of minorities.
I’m proud to sponsor CineKink with my hard earned dollars, because I put my money where my mouth is. I support independent film with my work and my money, I don’t just blog about it and fawn over myself. If Violet thinks she knows a single thing about me or my company, it’s not because she’s actually made any attempt to research it. I’m not hard to get a hold of Violet. Or you can just ask most of your affiliated studios on your site, again, about half of them are my clients.
SMH
It is always fascinating to me how many of the so called “Information Wants To Be Free” supporters are also copyright holders. I wonder what their reaction to copyright infringement of their work is . . . Do they just lie down and take it? Why copyright their work at all, if they insist everything created should be “free”? Where do they get off charging for THEIR “expertise” when they admonish any other creators for standing by the right to own and sell their “expertise” of their craft (video, books, music)?
Even Blue’s claim at the bottom of her site: this website and all pertaining work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs2.5 License is superseded by this disclaimer at the site that link is directed to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/. That site states, users are free to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work as long as it is “Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.”
Oh, and I can’t help but laugh, as Ms. Violet Blue has allegedly Trademarked” her name, and in the past sued an adult performer for using the name Violet Blue . . . And for some reason she believes in trademark,, and enforcing trademark for herself, but not in copyright and enforcing copyright for others?
Well fuck y’all, with your Electronic Freedom Foundation rhetoric . . . Most of those fileshare, tube and file locker sites DO do it commercially! They charge member fees, they pay people to upload, they run ads with prices for ads charged based on the amount of traffic they get, versus how much MONEY the advertiser can expect to convert, based on the number of eyes an ad gets. That COMMERCIAL, no matter how you look at it.
Maybe it’s time for copyright holders that are against piracy to make the alleged “Free” supporters feel the pinch in the same way? There has to be a way . . . Oh yeah, most of us that do hold copyrights, and believe in them, don’t break the law and infringe on OTHERS copyrights on purpose. Except maybe the “parody” meisters . . . . ;)
Ignore this crap Nate. You’re too good a man to let something like this get to you.
It just goes to show you, anyone with an opinion, a computer, and Internet access can spout off, regardless of truth or fact. I’m with Sherry! Let the work and action of TakeDown Piracy speak for itself. Likewise, let the tiresom rhetoric of those like “VioletBlue” (is it just me that thinks it odd she doesn’t even use a real name?) fade into the millions of useless keystrokes with the rest of the inane verbosity that floods the lines.
If I had ever been even remotely inclined to buy one of Violet’s books or read her blogs, this alone has told me all I need to know – like they say in the Airforce, “all mach and no vector.” When Violet puts her money where her (seemingly) large mouth is, I’ll reconsider my opinion.
Fuck TakeDown Piracy and all you corporatist trolls. You will never stop internet piracy. But, just in case, I’m compiling the biggest library of free media you could imagine. Lol, have fun with your little crusade.
well said, dr. c.
Count me as supportive of Nate. I wonder if he will take the time to notify his employers of her stance that is so harmful to their interests. Perhaps some of her pirate friends will take the time to share all of her worthless books to distribute freely as they see fit too.
jcaesar, it is cold in your mom’s basement?
Nate, and TakeDown Piracy, is an amazing entity whose SOLE purpose is to make sure that the product we create isn’t stolen. I’ve personally seen my own content pirated, and am happy to say that he has been taking care of my recent film with the utmost of professionalism.
It’s so sad when “personalities” such as Violet Blue basically make uneducated proclamations that support piracy. Perhaps Ms Blue can start paying my bills, and the bills of every other content creator whose product has been pirated/stolen in the name of “open source”?
I had held Ms Blue in somewhat of a high-ish regard several years ago, when I first got into the industry. I heard she was going to be speaking on a panel at an adult conference. That was back in 2008.
Then I met her. Or rather – didn’t. With the “wall” of “her people” surrounding her at this VERY SMALL conference for adult web marketers (seriously, there were like 30 people in the room), she had to have “people” that you had to speak with first before you were apparently granted an audience. Since then, I’ve written her off as a self-serving, self-pedestaling idiot.
Full of hot air. Honestly, her saying she’s angered about an anti-piracy site sponsoring an independent fetish film festival – where most if not all of the projects are self-funded and could use the services of someone like TDP – is laughable, especially given her own self-inflated self-worth. You’ll notice she hasn’t been asked to speak at conferences; she’s burned too many of those bridges. Let’s move on, shall we? ;)
Btw @Nate – “I’m not hard to get a hold of Violet. Or you can just ask most of your affiliated studios on your site, again, about half of them are my clients.” <—brilliant ;)
Wait, there’s more… “I’m on the advisory board for online privacy nonprofit @WithoutConsent – and our newsletter just launched!” says Ms. Blue.
So…it’s NOT ok to leak private info, but it IS ok to steal people’s property?
Okie dokie, Ms Blue…if you say so….