Corbin Fisher insists that in all its legal dealings with copyright, it’s never encountered a closeted gay teen that harmed or killed himself as the result of one of their lawsuits. Which has Brian Dunlap, the COO of Corbin Fisher’s parent Excelsior Productions, telling Ben & Dave’s Six Pack that all these stories about gay kids fearing for their lives if Corbin Fisher goes after the 40,000ish BitTorrent users just don’t matter that much. Rather, the theory that we’ve put forward — that suing a huge collective of defendants will inevitably snag gay teen in intolerant households — is just a way for Queerty to boost its traffic stats. Which, sorry Brian, we have about 1,000 better ways to do that. (We could, say, publish actual gay porn!) “It behooves a blog to do what they can to attract attention and traffic without really having to back it up, and that’s, you know, what I’d characterize this as,” says Dunlap of our stories. “It’s sort of like, ‘If you let gay people marry, then next thing you know we’re going to let people get into incestuous marriages and marry animals and all this kind of stuff.’ You know you just propose this crazy, far-fetched, out there scenario, how do you disprove something like that? It’s so far out there there’s no basis for anything, and you can’t really counter it.” And there you have it, friends: Corbin Fisher’s defense against the possibility of it ruining gay teens’ lives is the same slippery slope theory used by the Family Research Council when it comes to marriage equality.
The Dunlap interview begins at 40:40.
[flv:http://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/sixpackserver.com/podcasts/sixpack64.mp3 https://queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com/2011/03/corbin3024.jpg 650 400]
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[photo via CorbinFisher.com]
PopSnap
They’re a fucking PORN site, not a grocery store or small electornics botique. This dude needs to get a real job that doesn’t involve watching people fuck all day if he wants anyone to take a word that comes out of his mouth seriously.
I guess what I’m saying is, I just don’t have that much sympathy for Mr. Dunlap’s “plight” over here.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
Clearly Mr. Dunlap reads this blog. So just for you, Brian:
YOU’RE A GODDAMNED DOUCHEBAG
I think someone needs to begin investigating Corbin Fisher’s taxes. Really go over their returns with a fine tooth comb. Very few American’s know this, but tax returns can be accessed by the general public. Clealry these assholes are obsessed with money, so hit them where it hurts.
Diz
I still think this is just one big bluff. Seems they would lose more money than make.
Cococore
He actually sounded very reasonable in the interview and I think Ben and Dave agreed with him. Now it’s Queerty that’s seeming kind of petty and desperate to make more of this than there is with posts like this.
T
Can we agree to just start a boycott of this site? Perhaps they would give up if they started losing more money from guys getting their porn elsewhere than they already lose from illegal downloading.
MaxH
I’m not sure the analogy is one to one, but CF certainly has the right to protect their property rights through lawsuits. It took a lot of money to create that ‘good’, and yes, they have the right to go after pirates.
Shannon1981
There is too much free porn out there to give this site hits, seriously. What they are doing is despicable, and in the name of all the people, especially the kids, whose lives would be ruined by being outed, we should boycott.
TheRealAdam
@MaxH: That may be true, but the cost-effectiveness of such a legal pursuit makes the attempt silly. This isn’t directly about money; this is really about making a statement to scare people into submission.
CF knows that and they are exploiting the fear factor, trying to make an example out of the situation to ultimately increase the bottom line.
ousslander
oh the children, the children.Enough already. If gay porn is their only outlet to be gay, then that is truly fucked up. Don’t want to get in trouble with the law or be exposed then don’t do anything illegal.
Steve
I thought the first round of lawsuits were to be filed in late February? It’s now mid-March and I’ve yet to hear of anyone who has had to face a suit. So really, Queerty, instead of getting all frustrated over this situation and spreading these threats of legal action like a wild fire, maybe you could post a story about a person who has been sued in this scenario by CF to maybe get some support for your position on this issue.
B
No. 6 · MaxH wrote, “I’m not sure the analogy is one to one, but CF certainly has the right to protect their property rights through lawsuits.”
One issue is that the methods used to identifier alleged copyright infringers are not reliable, at least as a couple of years ago ( http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/the-inexact-science-behind-dmca-takedown-notices/ ). Researchers have gotten take-down notices sent to network-attached laser printers that are incapable of downloading anything, and they could get notices when not even a single bit of copyright-protected “content” was downloaded.
If a bogus notice is received by some homophobic parents, their son could get in serious trouble with them, and he does not even have to be gay. This could cause substantial harm to a completely innocent child, particularly since the parents would probably figure the kid was lying when he says he hasn’t done anything.
The methods probably have not improved – better alternatives are far more expensive, so it is possibly cheaper to send the notices regardless and let “God sort them out” (a phrase used in one of the world wars by a general not particularly concerned about civilian casualties).
Cococore
Btw it’s worth pointing out that your listening skills and comprehension are not so great, Queerty. He’s not using the slippery slope argument. He’s saying your argument is a slippery slope. Im a bit astounded you were unable to grasp that from the interview. This entire post really shows how you’re kind of reaching for some controversy here. Your desire to so subjectively skew everything here is so obvious.
Tony
I have grown bored with Corbin Fisher…they’re like a loud two year demanding attention.
Hey, CF got over yourself…you produce porn. In the grand scheme of things in America, that places you just above used car dealers.
John
Corbin Fisher should’ve used some form of digital rights management on the videos it sells in order to link particular titles with individual customers thus enabling C.F. to go after those who illegally upload said videos to file sharing sites in the first place.
The fact that Corbin Fisher chose NOT to digitally protect its products – even though it knew they were being uploaded to file sharing sites and then downloaded by closeted gay teens etc – amounts to near-entrapment–especially now that it’s been revealed how much money C.F. hopes to make from effectively extorting dough out of terrified, closeted gay teens etc by threatening to out them.
What’s more, who’s to say that Corbin Fisher didn’t upload some of those videos itself in order to further bait a ‘honey pot’ aimed at harvesting the IP addresses of downloaders.
BTW. How did C.F. get those reported 40,000 IP addresses? Via collusion with file sharing sites?
A prediction:
If Corbin Fisher’s de facto entrapment & extortion scheme results in the death of even ONE gay kid then…
http://pastehtml.com/view/1diters.html + http://www.joebaptista.com/attack-tool/index.html x the number of gays world-wide who are OUTRAGED that a gay pornographer has proven to be more toxic to young queers than the Westboro Baptist Church ever was = Corbin Fisher conducting its future dwindling business via mail order.
ry
Andrew Rasmus (Dawson, the guy in the picture) and Brian Lowderman (rumored to be the real Corbin Fisher) ought to be ashamed of themselves.
John
http://twitter.com/#!/jaybird62
Jarred
@jaybird62 Jarred
RE: @unicornbooty Can’t wait to see the spike in gay teen suicides and poorly investigated child abuse cases that res… http://disq.us/14g027
12 Feb via DISQUS Favorite Retweet Repl
EDIT: Full text
“Can’t wait to see the spike in gay teen suicides and poorly investigated child abuse cases that result from this mass lawsuit/outing. Way to go Corbin this is going to be AMAZING”
http://unicornbooty.com/2011/02/corbin-fisher-sues-illegal-porn-downloaders-outs-gay-teens-to-their-parents/#comment-145460526
dave02657
Fisher, whom I admired in the past for his innovative product, can burn in hell for what he and his fellow asswipes at CF are doing here. Should he proceed, there will be serious repercussions to those kids still living under their parents’ control. Damn him for this.
As for a boycott, I already did that when my subscription last came up for renewal. Never again, you slime.
lookyloo
Parents finding out their kids are into gay porn HAS BEEN OUTING KIDS FOR DECADES.
It just used to be magazines and videos hidden under the mattress..
Now it’s porn sites not being deleted from the computer’s ‘history’ and kids getting busted for illegal downloads.
If a kid gets caught stealing gay porn videos or magazines from a brick-mortar store and is turned over to the cops and, thus, his parents find out… Did that store owner do something terrible by rightfully calling the cops on the shoplifter..? NO.
This is the same thing.
B
No. 14 · John wrote, “BTW. How did C.F. get those reported 40,000 IP addresses? Via collusion with file sharing sites?”
They don’t have to collude with the file-sharing sites. Just look at the URL (and the links that URL contains) in No 11.
Specifically http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/ (which has a summary and a link to a paper giving all the technical details).
Regarding No 18, where lookyloo commented, “a kid gets caught stealing gay porn videos or magazines from a brick-mortar store and is turned over to the cops and, thus, his parents find out… Did that store owner do something terrible by rightfully calling the cops on the shoplifter..? NO. This is the same thing.”
It is not the same thing because the research I cited showed that innocent individuals can get accused of copyright infringement due to flaws in the methods used to find people who might be infringing. The analogy would be the owner of a brick and mortar store every so often picking a random kid (one completely innocent) to accuse.
ADC
I’m sorry but all this bleeding heart, “think of the children,” crap is comedy. When did it become legally permissible for (underage) teenagers to watch porn? Sure we all know they do it, but it’s nuts to expect an adult studio to placate it. I ask that w/o even throwing in the stealing angle.
If they’re closeted and downloading gay materials at all, then they’re putting themselves at risk of being caught. There’s no such thing as “the perfect crime,” and the truth always comes out. Then add the fact that they’re a) stealing and b) stealing what is illegal for them to see in the first place.
Meh.
I don’t doubt that CF are greedy bastards who want to squeeze money out of everyone they can…but stop trying to martyr the ‘potential’ kids being sued as these wholesome victims of the big, bad machine. They had no business doing ANY of what they were doing. They were stealing, and if they are under age, they were also breaking the law by even viewing XXX material.
Corbin Fisher and “teenager” shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same sentence, and I find it offensive that people are looking to a damn porn company for youth outreach or sensitivity. Cry me a river so I can piss in it. Knock it off.
B
No. 20 · ADC wrote, “I’m sorry but all this bleeding heart, “think of the children,” crap is comedy.”
Actually it isn’t. Here’s one thing that can happen (see the research I cited above in No 19, but read the paper instead of the summary): CF or some party CF contracts with identifies an IP address that downloaded a torrent file (this is not the actual copyrighted material CF owns – that is obtained in a subsequent step). CF then sends a take-down notice to the ISP that owns the IP address, with a date indicating when the take-down notice was generated, which is later than when the torrent file was fetched. Meanwhile, because the ISP uses DHCP, and depending on the timeouts, the customer who had the IP address when the take-down notice was dated may not be the same customer who downloaded the file. So, the ISP forwards the take-down notice to the wrong customer, and some innocent kid gets blamed for downloading gay porn when the kid did nothing of the sort (and may not even be gay).
orangegoblin
Why are we so desperate to keep people in the closet.
Personally I find being closeted to be cowardly and immoral. What is so bad about being gay that you should be so scared of people finding out?
If every gay person came out we would be a lot harder to marginalise.
Cowardly little fucks should have told their parents already.
AndyU
to be honost, i dont think its immoral or cowardly.. mostly from what ive gathered from the comments already are the teens being outed.. so if they are only teenagers then how is it cowardly to stay in the closet? would you rather every gay/bi teenager started coming out the second they knew they were gay? over the years people have started coming out of the closet at a much earlier age which shows that they are even more brave nowadays. now.. for the law suit, i personally think its ridiculous. if you have an internet-based porn industry then obviously it wil be downlaoded by people not paying for it, its like leaving the keys in a brand new car and expectiing people to just leave it and not do anything. and they should have been more prepared and educated considering it happened with music files before-hand.
just my opinion
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bigrawtop
they charge more than most sites, feed homophobic bullshit like the gay performers need to fuck chicks too, worship straight men and hire mostly straight men and teach them how to “act” gay sexuality so that it is convincing, won’t identity which of their models are truly gay-because that would be less appealing, won’t participate in some blogs coverage of them (thank gawd for that). So here’s a tip to the arrogant, millionaires who exploit straight men for money and encourage gay men to worship straightness: Make real and convincing porn and people will want to pay for it!