Porn on iPods raising eyebrows (among other things)

Six months ago if you were to ask me to categorize the types of video that would immediately jump to the forefront in the then non-existent video podcasting space, I'd easily said (1) news, (2) religion and (3) porn. I'm therefore moderately intrigued by the resistance to immediately translate mass amounts of pornography for the new video-enabled iPod and the legion of knockoff devices it'll spawn.

What's of particular interest is that such definance apparently stems from major adult production companies themselves, wanting to avoid a littany of foreseeable lawsuits as a result of underaged people inappropriately accessing blue material. I must say I'm impressed.

It's like when Budweiser started running "don't drink and drive" ads - a new sensible maturity emanating from the San Fernando Valley. It's the kind of savvy PR tactic/right thing to do that makes me want to go out and rent a Jenna Jameson DVD, just because.

Everyone knows there's always been a strong link between sex and technology, so the issue isn't encouraging the distribution of pornography - it's controlling access by demography.

Companies directly involved with distributing such material want to contribute to the development of a parental locking control system on the iPod to prevent children from storing and/or accessing such material. And other DRM-esque features like age-verifying a user prior to downloading and copy-protecting adult content to prohibit transferring files between devices are in the works. But that's just the initiative from the big companies, the instant and immediate targets of class action suits, not the cease and decist-caliber independent publishers giving people their jollies for $11.59 per month.

In time these efforts will give rise to new and interesting ways of delivering content in the Digital Age. Lessons learned will trickle down in a retroactively progressive fashion, if you will, to more traditionally mainstream classifications of content. This will mean better, more reliable, more secure and legal distribution models for all types of multimedia (text, audio, video, imagery), helping to address the ever-present quandary of piracy.

Portable porn has been envisioned for a long time, and the adoption of such content on the PlayStation Portable and iPod is, dare I say, critical to the success of mobile video overall, both technologically and in terms of a reliable revenue model. Adam Curry, the father of podcasting, predicts time-shifting adult material being phenomenally huge towards promoting portable communications, interpersonally and for business. Adult entertainment has for years been the litmus test that validates the commercial legitimacy of a new platform or product; everyone relies on it, but no one talks about it.

There are already several services, paid and otherwise, that produce mature mobile content for the PSP and other video-capable devices. Stag images and movies, custom formatted for portable video devices, are popping up left and right, motivated specifically by the expected commercial explosion of the video iPod. Several independent, DIY online services have already produced softcore and/or hardcore feeds that can be subscirbed to and downloaded in freeware RSS aggregators like iTunes, copied onto a portable device, and then played back. Suicide Girls joined POVPod.com as being the first to get a lot of press in offering content suitable for the new iPod's H.264 video, 768 Kbps, 320x240 hi-res, 2.5" LCD screen. And those sites followed the footsteps of Sam Sugar's PSPPorn and Porn4PSP in offering content suitable for Sony's mobile communications device.

In the grand scheme of things, porn continues to innovate, if you want to call it that, and whether you admit it or not.