Sex sells: The Barcelona-based adult movie company Private Media is taking a unique twist on an old mantra, preparing an ambitious effort to compete with free and unlicensed content online. Private’s goal is to completely revamp its entire business, generate revenue from advertising with a Groupon-like voucher twist and give away the majority of its content for free. “There is no reason to continue to charge people,” said Private CEO Berth Milton during a phone conversation last Friday.
Like everyone in the porn business, Private has seen its revenues erode in recent years as consumers flock to file sharing networks and sites like YouPorn for free and unlicensed copies of their movies. A few competitors have started to sue end users for file sharing, but Milton doesn’t think this is the right way to go. “We don’t mind P2P, that’s absolutely okay”, he told me, reiterating that noncommercial piracy can actually serve as promotion.
More here at Gigaom.