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ETO Technology News - April 2007 edition
Trouble from on high
The Church of England has found itself in an embarrassing position. There's a legal test case looming over whether mobile phone masts on church towers and steeples are illegal because they may be relaying pornography.
Chancellor George Pulman, Chelmsford's ecclesiastical judge ruled that churches are "wrong in law" to "facilitate the transmission of pornography, even in a slight or modest way", and refused Chingford's St Peter and St Paul's application to erect a T-Mobile base station in their spire. Now the Church of England's highest court is to hear an appeal by the Reverend Tom Page, the rector of Chingford, and QS4 (the Church's approved mast installer) against Mr Pulman QC's decision.
This situation has arisen because many parishes have taken advantage of the demand for high locations for mobile phone antennae, and charged cellular phone firms thousands of pounds per year to host their equipment on their buildings. Official Church of England guidance since 2002 has encouraged this, while acknowledging the existence of 'immoral material' which could be passed on via transmitters on their towers. However, it was argued that any ills this caused to society were outweighed by the advantages of easier communication in general and the benefits to the church serving that society. No mention of moral detriment to non-Christians though.
In a change of attitude, the General Synod recently condemned exploitation of church buildings, and critics are now urging the C of E to dissociate itself from cellular providers as 'dangerously' obscene images (including, presumably, child porn) were now being carried. Streaming video over faster wireless connections and bigger, clearer screens on mobiles in future are also of concern.
The appeal against the diocese of Chelmsford's consistory court's earlier ruling is now to be handled by the Archbishop of Canterbury's Court of Arches, and is expected to be heard within weeks. Should it find that George Putman acted appropriately to ban the installation in Chingford, it will have far-ranging implications for the mobile industry in the UK.
COLT Studio Group mates with Brickhouse Mobile
Brickhouse Mobile, a leading wireless brand extension agency has entered into a multi-year agreement to launch and promote COLT Studio's new COLT Mobile brand. COLT focus predominantly on images of masculine men for the gay market and intend to convert forty years of back catalogue content for use in the wireless market. A mixture of classic 'cut and chiselled' COLT Men and new content will be available as wallpapers, video clips and animations. In addition exclusive audio clips, branded 'COLT Mantones' will be made downloadable.
These new products will be available through applications on authorised carrier decks throughout the U.S. and international markets as well as a COLT branded WAP site and web site (www.COLTmobile.com) later in the spring.
John Rutherford, President, COLT Studio Group, said, "In order to navigate the rapidly changing world of mobile content delivery, we looked for a partner that could both guide us and apply the same benchmark level of quality that we bring to the COLT Studio Group brand everyday. In L.R. Clinton Fayling and his team at Brickhouse Mobile, we found partners that understand that at the end of the day the consumer experience comes first. As we enter the fifth decade of the COLT Studio Group, developing new channels of content delivery, along with key partnerships, allows the COLT Studio Group to satisfy the needs and tastes of our discriminating customers, and to maintain our position as the world's premier all-male erotica company."
"We feel very fortunate to be working with COLT, a premiere brand with a storied history," added Fayling, President of Brickhouse Mobile. "We look forward to reaching COLT's loyal fans, as well as finding new ones, via products and cross promotions that leverage the technology and convenience of the mobile phone."
Brickhouse Mobile and COLT Studio Group are currently working with industry associations, carriers and government organisations to insure that all content available through these offerings comply with current U.S. and international standards. In addition, Brickhouse Mobile will help COLT to implement a variety of techniques to insure content can only be viewed by an age-appropriate audience. Age verification will include the use of a credit card and user information registration via the COLT branded sites.
Video games target sex and women. And sexy women.
Last month's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco tried to address the male/female player disparity in the industry, while looking towards more sexually explicit content. A formal roundtable discussion was held to discuss the business of sex in video games, with Brenda Brathwaite, chair of the International Game Developers Association sex special interest group saying, "Right now, the [adult video game] market targets mainly straight white guys. And straight white guys aren't the only ones having sex."
In their defence, developers of several of the leading adult online games claim there are major difficulties in designing a game environment to please multiple market constituencies and this has resulted in their focus on the straight male market. Noah Dudley, producer of Naughty America (one of the online games mentioned above) said one of the problems is that women don't approach virtual sex in the same way as men. He said, "When we started, it was pretty much sex land. You could have sex anywhere [in the game] you wanted. Our marketing people said, 'We can't sell this to women.' So we cut way back on the sexual content. Now you can have [virtual] sex pretty much in your apartment. This shows that it's a lot more appealing to women."
The number of adult-orientated games is growing, with Playboy: The Mansion, fresh Leisure Suit Larry titles, Virtually Jenna (with a licensed digital avatar of the First Lady of Porn herself), Naughty America and RedLightCenter already available or soon to be released, amongst others. Better known online virtual worlds, such as Second Life and World of Warcraft also allow users to engage in remote sex, or wanking in front of their PC, as others might put it.
While the video games industry is embracing sexual content thanks to a maturing audience, it's yet to get to grip with how to engage with women in this context. And they want to, not for altruistic or gender equality reasons, but because more women customers will attract larger numbers of male visitors to their online realms.
"And they lived happily never-after", for Disney Lawyers.
A British producer of mobile phone pornography has triumphed over Disney in a copyright battle over the phrase, 'A Place Where Dreams Come True". Michael Wightman of Newcastle trademarked the slogan to help promote his wireless content business, but Disney also use the turn of phrase on their advertising for their theme parks in the US and France. Preparations were being made for a court case but Disney has now backed down before taking the row further.
"It's a David vs. Goliath victory", said Wightman (45), going on to explain that Disney had agreed to adjust their slogan to 'THE place where dreams come true' instead. In the past, Disney's legal team has built a reputation for being quick and keen to litigate in copyright disputes. The firm helped sponsor the Sonny Bono (or Copyright Term Extension) Act in the US to protect the assets of the business for an extra 20 years.
Changes neat the top at Private
Jérôme Fernhout has been appointed international sales manager at Private Media Group in Barcelona, replacing Marten Kull, who has left the company. Fernhout, a Dutch national now living Spain, where the originally Scandinavian adult entertainment media group is headquartered, will be responsible for relations with existing distributors and retailers, as well as new digital distribution platforms.
Private is actively pursuing new media distribution services such as VOD and mobile, illustrated by its increased presence at trade shows such as the recent Cable Congress in Amsterdam and the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, along with last month's IPTV World Forum at London's Olympia. Increasing its wireless global presence, in January Private Mobile services launched on Movistar in Argentina and Columbia, and on Croatia's VIPnet.
Free Speech Coalition petition for help fighting the .xxx top level domain
Following on from last month's news piece on the resurgent interest in .xxx addresses, it's reported that the Free Speech Coalition has released a press release petitioning for help opposing the proposal by Stuart Lawley for the domains to be made available.
Gennelle Belmas, professor of communications law said, "I argued for a '.xxx' domain in my dissertation. The side that does not like pornography argues that if you give it its own domain, you're legitimising the porn. And the pornographers don't like it because they say it 'ghettoises' the porn."
According to an open letter to the coalition's supporters by executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, Diane Duke, what the adult industry refers to as 'ghettoising', is, "making adult entertainment an easy target for anti-industry extremists and government intrusion."
Another concern addressed in the letter is that the industry is worried about the cost of this possibility, as ICM, who will manage the domains plan to charge registrants a rather inflated $60 (£30) per URL per year, thus adding to the expense of running an adult site. Additionally, if the .xxx domain is approved, it might be made "mandatory and subject to trans-Internet filtering that could effectively eliminate much of the adult content currently available on the Web."
Private VOD on Germany's leading broadband ISP
At the end of February it was announced by the Private Media Group that they'd signed a multi-year agreement with Germany's leading broadband ISP as part of a 'Triple-Play' inclusive package of Cable TV (including some HD channels), fast internet access and low-cost calls.
The deal includes access to an IPTV Video-On-Demand service with hundreds of titles from both Private's and Erotic Media's movie libraries and includes both new releases as well as classic blockbuster titles. This represents the first extensive adult Video-On-Demand offer for TV available to subscribers in Germany.
Berth Milton, CEO, President and Chairman of Private Media Group commented, "This deal is indicative of the increasing demand we are experiencing for our content from new distribution platforms. Just as adult content has been the leading revenue driver for many new media platforms in the past; it is again proving to take this position in the TV Video-On-Demand market. The high-margin Video-On-Demand market is without question a significant source of revenues for us going forward."
Erotic Media AG is described as a Swiss company specialising in marketing erotic movies both through its own TV channels and third party channels. The company is the market leader in Germany and operates the only German legal hardcore 24hr Satellite and Cable TV Pay-TV channels in the country. The channels are transmitted in both Germany and Austria and they are branded 'Blue Movie', 'Blue Movie Extra' and 'Blue Movie Gay'. The company also delivers content to On Demand Services throughout Europe. In addition erotic media is a major shareholder in Beate Uhse TV and the company is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Utah study reveals US and China dominate adult industry
According to the report, every second an average of 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography somewhere in the world, and a further 372 are typing keywords into a search engine while looking for adult orientated material. Offline, a new pornographic film is produced every 39 minutes in the US alone. These are just a few of the statistics featured in a study conducted by Ogden-based 'TopTen Reviews'. In the report, the firm claims the world porn industry produced overall revenue of $97 Billion (estimated) in 2006, beating Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Apple - combined.
"The pornography industry is a very large industry, and it's growing," said TopTen Review's CEO Jerry Ropelato. And the US have the biggest slice of the growing cake, hosting 244 million web pages of adult content, compared to second place Germany's trifling 10 million. 12% of all web sites were classified as pornographic in nature by the report. TopTen Reviews compiled statistics from more than 10,000 sources, including the pornography industry, media reports and anti-pornography organisations. Other findings suggest most viewers of Internet porn tend to be those with higher incomes. The report states 35 percent of Net porn viewers earn $75k (£38k) a year or more. The next highest, 26 percent, are those who earn $50k (£25k) to $75k a year. Ropelato said the main reason appears to be the ability of people with higher incomes to afford computers, and those with higher incomes can also afford broadband Internet service.
China's high standing in the report is due to its domination of sex-toy manufacturing industry, rather than thanks to a secret adult film industry we in the West aren't privy to.
Rough Trade Shows
Adult Trade Show season will reach a peak with our own ETO Show at the NEC in July, but in the meantime there's the AOExpo in Amsterdam and Eurowebtainment in Majorca to look forward to:
AOExpo: Amsterdam 2007
Having only one day of overlap with the World Telemedia show being held in the same hotel means there will be more focus on the expo itself, hopes organiser John Green. This spring's event is at the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky in Amsterdam from the 27th to the 30th of April, and will again feature AOE's mix of networking, fun events, hosted discussions and conferences.
More information is available from John Green on 0 870 7 327 327, via john@aoexpo.com or the web site at www.aoexpo.com.
Eurowebtainment Meeting: Majorca 2007
To quote from their press release, Europe's largest professional and most important meeting for entertainment in the Internet and Telecommunication branch this year again takes place in Palma de Majorca.
From May 10th through May 13th 2007 again their slogan will be 'Biz & Fun in the Sun'. It's described as a perfect occasion to make new business contacts and to gain latest valuable inside information about the Internet Entertainment and Telecommunication Biz - Of course they promise visitors will have lots of fun and enjoy themselves.
More information is available from Gabi Stöckli or Cornelia Gross on +423 232 6846, via info@eurowebtainment.com or the web site at www.eurowebtainment.com.
Strictly Broadband launches Strictly News
Dale to provide details based on the SB press release.