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Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium

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Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium

#61
post #31
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

taxes on 100m are not 10m more like 45m as the top tax rate in germany is 45%. The 100m a year is gross revenue also not net profit so he is probably pulling in a lot less after operating costs. People just get greedy and dont want to pay their taxes

Do not wanting to pay 45m out of 100m (or even less) is not a greed, it is a common sense.

Actually not paying your taxes however is illegal, no matter your motivation.

Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium

#62
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If governments and by extension, courts gets pushed enough, laws about safe harbor means nothing. Laws in general means little in this case. The pirate bay case in Sweden is the best example of this. The by law required impartial police investigator was hired by one of the parties the day after he finished his work. A several order higher paying job. the exact day after he finished his report on the pirate bay. When…

I'm not sure what the pirate bay has to do with Megaupload. I'm not arguing anything in general here, I'm just saying in the specific case of Megaupload there really wasn't foul play outside of procedural errors, if the claims of the prosecutor are true then Megaupload were indeed breaking the law and the DMCA safe harbor protection meant nothing. The Pirate Bay is entirely unrelated.

If your service is protected solely on the concept of safe harbor, that will then only work if you can stay small and unnoticed by the state. As soon your service name pops up in politics, laws like safe harbor will no longer protect you.

The pirate bay case is an example of a website, which though safe harbor would protect them in regard to user-uploaded content. They where wrong in that regard.

Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even stuff that is considered a "poor subject" by conventional social norms. We're not that big on conventional social norms Hmm, if you want to avoid conventional social norms, then NOT talking about porn on the internet is the way to go, I would say. The world is awash with people talking about porn.

Yeah the Internet is full of porn, but where do you find meta discussion about porn sites? You know business opportunities, history and stuff life that.

Very good point there. That still seems to be a big taboo.

OT: Proud to be German today :-)

Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium

#64
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what the pirate bay has to do with Megaupload. I'm not arguing anything in general here, I'm just saying in the specific case of Megaupload there really wasn't foul play outside of procedural errors, if the claims of the prosecutor are true then Megaupload were indeed breaking the law and the DMCA safe harbor protection meant nothing. The Pirate Bay is entirely unrelated.

If your service is protected solely on the concept of safe harbor, that will then only work if you can stay small and unnoticed by the state. As soon your service name pops up in politics, laws like safe harbor will no longer protect you. The pirate bay case is an example of a website, which though safe harbor would protect them in regard to user-uploaded content. They where wrong in that regard.

That may be, I have made no comment regarding that, all I've said is that the Megaupload case is NOT an example of that happening. The Pirate Bay case may very well be, but again, I responded to someone using Megaupload as an example of Government not caring about safe harbor, not TPB.

Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium

#65
post #23

Crap, that's my boss =/

Not anymore.

Probably only briefly. The only thing that kept Martha Stewart from retaking the helm of her company was an agreement to settle a civil suit the terms of which included a 5 year ban.

Do the criminal penalties for tax evasion in Germany also entail such a ban? In the US, it is fines and imprisonment only.

Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium

#66
post #2

I've always mused with the idea of creating a user-submitted-content based porn website. The base code can be whipped out in a few days, and getting traffic for that kind of thing seems to be super easy. The goal would then be to make minor money through smart advertising (most porn websites today are usability hell, with every single white space covered in ads; i'm sure one could do some smart conversion optimizatio…

How would you compete with XTube, YouPorn and Cam4 that are already entrenched in the market and occupy various niches?

Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium

#67
post #2

I've always mused with the idea of creating a user-submitted-content based porn website. The base code can be whipped out in a few days, and getting traffic for that kind of thing seems to be super easy. The goal would then be to make minor money through smart advertising (most porn websites today are usability hell, with every single white space covered in ads; i'm sure one could do some smart conversion optimizatio…

Just like megaupload was a bandwidth monster, you would be surprised with the hardware and bandwidth requirements these sites have once they become popular ....its not a system you run on Amazon AWS ... And investment in network protection you need to defend against DDOS ...?

Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium

#68
post #2

I've always mused with the idea of creating a user-submitted-content based porn website. The base code can be whipped out in a few days, and getting traffic for that kind of thing seems to be super easy. The goal would then be to make minor money through smart advertising (most porn websites today are usability hell, with every single white space covered in ads; i'm sure one could do some smart conversion optimizatio…

Most major ad networks do not allow adult content on the pages where they advertise. This means that you lose both access to quality ads (that bring the user experience you desire) and you lose the higher CPM/CPC of better networks. This means that monetization is the difficult aspect, and "usability hell" is brought by oversaturation with ads to compensate.

Actually that is an oppertunity for those who are good at convincing people to go to the sites that normally don't advertise on porn and show them the advantages (cheaper rates).

I understand that you don't want a brand like ms. Fields cockies next to a gangbang, but that is soley for ads that promote brand adwareness -- those that directly sell products could properly advertise on porn sites with little risk. I doubt anybody will discount bingocardcreator because Patio11 got a great deal on ads.

(In fact people are known to be less rational when turned on, so it might make sense to put less "need to have products" closer to the porn).

Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium

#69

Alas, Hacker News - - - I knew ye well. (poor subject for this site)

I find your reaction fascinating. You find the topic of porn so disturbing that a mere (very dry) discussion of its business side ruins the entire experience of HN for you? On a side note, you may be naif about hacker culture. On one hand, a lot of hackers consume porn (by virtue of the fact that a large percentage of the general population does). On the other, we tend to be curious about stuff, even stuff that is co…

> I find your reaction fascinating

Ooo fun, -4 on the Karma for that comment.

My comment was not related to porn so much as to the obvious link-bait and predictable "0_o pron!" pile-on. Smells faintly of Reddit with a soft lingering bouquet reminiscent of DIGG of yore.

Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium

#70
post #7
post #2

I've always mused with the idea of creating a user-submitted-content based porn website. The base code can be whipped out in a few days, and getting traffic for that kind of thing seems to be super easy. The goal would then be to make minor money through smart advertising (most porn websites today are usability hell, with every single white space covered in ads; i'm sure one could do some smart conversion optimizatio…

I've been out of the loop for too long, but back in the day (when Tube sites were just starting up), it was getting harder and harder to make money. So many people were starting up, and Visa was cracking down hard on charge backs. The biggest issue back in the day was Content licencing, which with today's whole DMCA crap, I would expect it to be far worse on a user-generated content site. If you licensed images for a…

The main thing that changed in the industry is that now these adult video streaming sites basically serve you the content for free, and like television that's paid for by the advertisers, it's paid for through affiliate fees. These are mainly affiliates for the online gambling companies who don't have access to other advertising channels, and a bit of adult dating. The issue is that conversion from this type of content to gambling doesn't make perfect sense, so it's often a better idea to produce content that are a natural fit to gambling instead.
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