Sex Tech: Prenda Law cries foul, Visa continues adult processing
Summary: A collection of notable new sex and technology news items. Covers innovation, legal issues, IP, privacy, controversies, business and more.
Visa rumored intent to drop adult payment processing; notorious porn torrent lawsuit trolls Prenda Law may start to feel the sting of ignoring the rules.
Will porn's most prolific copyright troll law firm get a taste of its own medicine?
A few months ago, I took a look at Lightspeed Media (run by Steve "Lightspeed" Jones), the star client of the nation's most prolific porn copyright troll firm - Prenda Law, run by John Steele.
Jones is obsessed with punishing hackers, who he believes are all out to get him.
You may remember Prenda for other reasons, as one of Steele's recent career highlights was his charge to sue a bewildered 70-year-old woman for downloading porn - even if her wifi had been compromised.
Now a California judge has ordered the firm to answer charges that it engaged in identity theft.
Rather than answer the charges, Prenda Law is attacking the judge saying that Hon. Judge Otis Wright is "too biased against pornographic copyright litigators to provide Prenda with a fair hearing."
- Porn troll facing ID theft charges wants judge off case (Ars Technica)
Sex strategy game won't stay down
The "erotic strategy game" Seduce Me is on the market, despite being dumped unceremoniously by Valve, (even though it was within rights to be on Valve's distribution program).
Many thought Valve's ejection of the game would spell the end. In September of 2012 sexually explicit strategy game Seduce Me - from Amsterdam based No Reply Games - was removed from Valve's distribution program Steam Greenlight for living up to its sexually explicit labeling.
Now, a few months later, the playfully cheesy, adults-only game is back for sale on its own website and available for sale (Mac/PC only; €12.99, or around $17; seducemegame.com).
- Seduce Me Makes It - UPDATED (Escapist Magazine)
Streaming porn coming to your Wii
SugarDVD, a streaming service that calls itself "Netflix for porn," is already available on PS3 and Xbox 360, and now it turns out the Wii U is going to be next.
A spokesperson for SugarDVD told Complex Magazine that a SugarDVD Wii U app is being built.
There's no word yet on release date. And yes, the jokes just make themselves around here.
- SugarDVD Will Bring Adult Entertainment to the Wii U (Complex Magazine)
Visa will still be processing adult payments
Visa Inc. on Thursday squelched rumors that it plans to stop processing online adult entertainment-related transactions, saying that statements circulating over the assertion are simply "not true."
Ted Carr, a spokesman for Visa, told XBIZ that currently there are no plans to halt processing for online adult charges.
"Our policy is that Visa cards should only be used in connection with legal transactions," Carr said. "If the transaction is legal, it’s allowed on our network. If it’s not legal, it’s not allowed."
(Though it will probably never be made public, personally I think it would be very interesting to see Visa's adult payment metrics.)
- Visa Confirms Online Adult Processing Rumor Is False (XBIZ, link may be NSFW)
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Talkback
Thank you
jvitous....I wonder if they found out about Loverock Davidson yet?
How sad.
Oh Man
Not surprising at all...
Actually, Valve was well within its rights to refuse to distribute the game
Actually, Valve was well within its rights to refuse to distribute the game. They're not an open market - they only host games that go through an approval process. Many games don't make it through that process, even if they're not erotic. Greenlight adds a community aspect to the approval process, but it's still an approval process.
Valve's platform is much like Apple's store for iOS apps. They curate and control which apps are available to the platform. And they can basically refuse any app for any reason.
"Now, a few months later, the playfully cheesy, adults-only game is back for sale on its own website"
It's actually surprising that they stopped sale on their own website to begin with. Most games continue to sell on their own websites even after being on Steam.
"Visa will still be processing adult payments"
Of course. Visa is a credit card company. They're not in charge of policing how it's used, other than fraud protection. I seriously doubt there was ever really any reason to believe otherwise.