California court: Free porn portals not unfair to paid sites

Anthony Maki Contributor
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Entrepreneurs in the pornography industry aren’t happy about the explosion of websites offering vast stores of free porn to Internet users.

In a lawsuit against RedTube.com — a site that resembles YouTube (except it’s for… you know) — a number of adult entertainment players alleged the free site violated California’s Unfair Practices Act, according to Ars Technica.

“The ubiquitous distribution of free adult videos through RedTube.com has had a massive negative impact on the business model of adult website proprietors,” the complaint read. “Now that consumers have the ability to watch high quality adult videos for free on RedTube.com, fewer are making the choice to pay other adult website proprietors for the same content.”

The plaintiff, Kevin Cammarata, told Ars Technica that RedTube.com had caused “many millions of dollars of damages to proprietors of adult entertainment websites.”

Unfortunately for pay-porn peddlers, a California appeals court dismissed the lawsuit and slapped the litigants, in more ways than one. The court ruled that the complaint was designed to stifle free speech. Cases like these are dubbed a strategic lawsuit against public participation or SLAPP.

While the court didn’t side with subscription-based porn websites, it did agree with a former adult entertainment executive that members of the paid industry, in a manner of speaking, “have been brought to their knees.”