YouPorn Is Killing the Porn Biz

As with so many other industries, porn is under assault from the changes wrought by the internet. Claire Hoffman chronicles the challenge a free file-sharing porn site, YouPorn, poses to adult industry goliath, Vivid Entertainment, in Portfolio magazine. The ready availability of pornography on the internet has sent DVD sales, the bedrock of the industry, into free-fall.

And it's not that the industry hasn't responded. Vivid and the other players have all begun subscription internet sites. But just as traditional media have struggled with finding enough revenue from the sum of all the new outlets, so has the adult entertainment industry. Will Vivid buy YouPorn for the $20 million its owner wants? CEO Steve Hirsch says, "It doesn't make any sense!" (More adult website stories.)