Although many of the big companies, such as Vivid Video and Wicked Pictures, offer free clips to entice viewers to buy the full movie online, Ford claims that only one in a thousand viewers actually whip out their wallets.
Ford thinks that some of the changes planned by the industry, such as video-on-demand, higher-quality design of the DVD boxes and mobile phone cybersex, will not make any difference to their sagging profits. "It doesn’t matter what the industry does — it’s screwed in terms of profitability," he say. "There is a ton of free stuff floating around and the amateur stuff — people filming themselves in their bedrooms and posting it online — is not going to go away. It will just keep growing."