For the Porn Viewers of LBRY…
Originally published on LBRY, 12-20-2019
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I’m very excited to finally have created an account on here. The funny thing is that I have been aware of LBRY for years, yet it’s taken me so long to start posting my content through this platform. I’m no stranger to the open source movement, decentralization, or cryptocurrency, but I guess it can be kinda scary to take the leap and move onto a platform where I have no idea how the users will react to my presence. There was a little fear that I would take time to post my content onto here, and there would be no interested viewers, or in the case of Switter, few-to-no customers. I’m glad to see that my presence on here is appreciated, which I have gathered from my gain in followers, people paying to see my videos, and the plethora of tips. Honestly, I find LBRY quite addicting, in a good way.
Unsurprisingly, when searching the NSFW-related tags on LBRY, I find a lot of videos that obviously do not belong to the users posting them. One reason I find this to be a shame is because it looks like the majority of porn videos on here is just stolen content, rather than content that directly benefits the companies and performers. In my case, I am an independent producer; other than giving the platforms I use (Pornhub, ManyVids, Clips4Sale, etc.) a cut of my profits, I, personally, get to keep every cent – let’s forget that Uncle Sam exists for a minute. Just imagine how beneficial LBRY could be to performers like myself who do not having the backing of the marketing departments of big companies or the mainstream adult industry.
Maybe you’ve seen people make fun of others who purchase porn by saying, “You can watch it for free!” Maybe you’ve said it yourself. The truth, whether or not you agree with buying porn, is that people purchasing our porn is how we make money. Very few performers make a decent income from advertisements on tube videos through sites such as Pornhub. Actually, many porn performers had to resort to stripping or escorting to make a living again after tube sites gained headway. (I don’t have a problem with tube sites; I just think companies were irresponsible with how quick they were to launch them, but that’s another story. I also don’t think stripping and escorting are problematic in themselves, but performers shouldn’t have to feel forced to go into that kind of work, and I’ve read too many accounts of such cases.)
Porn performers do not make money from having their content pirated. “But the exposure!” I have been doing various forms of sex work since 2011, and I will tell you that “free exposure” doesn’t do shit for the vast majority of creators. If a creator happens to indirectly benefit from this exposure, that’s not the norm – it’s a miracle. If you believe free exposure really works to help creators, then help them by sharing their posts on social media, following their profiles, subscribing to their newsletters, and so on.
Nowadays, many porn performers struggle to make a living within the industry. Stealing our content makes it even harder for us. It’s not just about money either. I pretty much had to quit camming because people were recording and distributing my streams without my consent. I’ve had people I know find them and tell me about it. Someone I know had a random creep find her on Facebook because of stolen camming content. Outright or aiding in stolen content puts our privacy and safety at risk. It’s important for us performers to have control (or at least say) over how our content is distributed so that we can be on top of personal security.
If you want to purchase porn, or even watch it for free, do me a favor and seek out videos that the performers themselves (or their official distributors) have uploaded. You may not know this, but many adult performers hate Pornhub because of how they disrupted the industry, causing thousands of creators to scramble around to make a living again. After a decade, Pornhub is slowly getting into their good graces by (finally) allowing clips sales and more, although, honestly, I think it’s just mostly because younger performers are getting into porn, not knowing a time when Pornhub didn’t exist.
I don’t want LBRY to be viewed the way Pornhub was within performer networks. I don’t want LBRY to be the new hub for stolen porn. There’s so much potential here for both the adult and vanilla worlds. Do me a favor and help me to empower fellow porn producers by introducing them to LBRY, and encourage them to share their content here. I see this as being a win-win for all. How could it not be?
