The guy has to be making crazy bank. Wonder why he didnt just pay his taxes. When you are bringing in a likely 100m a year, what difference will another 10m make? I think the guys behind huge sites like this just have weird personality's that make them like to hack every system they can which obviously ends up in situations like this.
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
Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium
31–40 of 86 posts
Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium
#32Alas, Hacker News - - - I knew ye well. (poor subject for this site)
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 considered a "poor subject" by conventional social norms. We're not that big on conventional social norms...
Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I question how much of the "user submitted porn" is actually user submitted. Flickr, YouTube, etc i buy that all the content is submitted by users. Porn sites, it seems far more likely that the content is mostly uploaded by paid staff. It's hard for me to believe that there are people who see a porn they like and think "wow, I should submit this to youporn". If you're going to build a porn site, the biggest part of t…
The major tube sites from the looks of things are primarily dominated by other sites trying to fight for traffic via branded videos, or by cutting a deal with the owner to have branded pages that not only showcase their uploaded content, but a few banners here and there to try and push half satisfied viewers to the core content hub. I'd guess that the tube site is getting some sort of service fee for allowing the sit…
I think that they view "amateur" sites as a 'fantasy' portrayal of reality like television. Yes, TV shows and adult sites don't try to break the 4th wall but that's to be expected in a drama.
Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium
#34I'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…
Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium
#35I'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…
Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium
#36Alas, 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…
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.
Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium
#37Earlier 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
Just one note: 45% is the top marginal tax rate. No one is actually taxed such that they lose 45% of their income through personal income taxes. The effective (average) tax rate will be much, much less. EDIT: not to mention lower taxes due to deductions, capital gains, legal tax shelters.
Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I were to do it, I'd just run a porn site and a non porn site with the same code base. Then I could make money from porn while talking about the non porn side of the technology at parties or whatever. Also, I think there was a bit of a land grab in porn before; it has really consolidated to a few big players, with margins otherwise in decline. Manwin/youporn is one of those big players, from the article. The other…
>run a porn site and a non porn site with the same code base so like reddit then
Though there are a lot of niche and non-mainstream, and very user submitted porn subreddits.
Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium
#39I'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 question how much of the "user submitted porn" is actually user submitted. Flickr, YouTube, etc i buy that all the content is submitted by users. Porn sites, it seems far more likely that the content is mostly uploaded by paid staff. It's hard for me to believe that there are people who see a porn they like and think "wow, I should submit this to youporn". If you're going to build a porn site, the biggest part of t…
Re: Programmer behind YouPorn empire arrested in Belgium
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
As megaupload shows, it doesn't even matter if you are protected from DMCA safe harbor. If a prosecutor thinks you are not, they will destroy your business without recourse.
It's a bad example to use because the prosecutor claims to have Skype chat logs of Megaupload assisting in the upload of illegal material as well as uploading their own illegal material. This would instantly remove their DMCA safe harbor protections as it relies on Megaupload not being aware of illegal material on their platform. Further it also requires that Megaupload have no financial gain directly attributable to…
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 the police was asked about it, they said it was "common" practice. Later during the trial, the lawyers requested the investigator as witness (to ask about all this), and the investigator refused to return to Sweden when the court agree to the request. This however had no impact whatsoever on the judgment.
The court judgment is also hilarious funny to read, as it include some golden nuggets of complete unknown laws, not written in the actually law books (reason being, work towards a law counts too in Europe, not just what is written). For example, if you produce a service, you might get hanged for it even if you produce it with perfect fine intentions. What counts is the primary usage of said service, so if you produce a tool, and the prosecutor claims that the primary usage of that tool is crime, you can go down for it as facilitator of crime (generic). Its facts like this, that really would have me worried if I created a program like nmap. Hopefully, prosecutors won't realize this law actually exist.