According to DVDWatch and my own extrapolation, these are the biggest porn DVD replicators in the U.S. for 2006 (I have not figured out the international porn DVD replication business yet): * ADM (Advanced Digital
Media): 21329 Nordhoff Street Chatsworth, CA (California) 91311-5819
Phone: (818) 882-3095. Quick turnaround but about 15c per disc more expensive
than L&M West. Philips database for licensed replicators. Replication brokers: * KBH-Blaine (owned by DamagedPictures.com) I've heard speculation that some replicators charge a premium for porn but most sources tell me that is not true. What Percentage Of Porn DVDs Are Replicated Overseas? My impression is that most porn replication is done in Southern California, but according to a DVD Watch report from April 2006: "...[T]here is increased incidence of discs being sourced overseas although this is predominately less "time sensitive" repertoire e.g. budget priced product and adult material." Duplication in porn was Mob-dominated. This is no longer true. So which major porners replicate overseas? What's the price differential between replicating and packaging DVD overseas compared to in California? I believe most porn DVD replication done in China and Taiwan is of pirated material at low-cost and high-volume. I've heard of quotes as low as 18c per disc (on a spindle, not packaged) from China and Taiwan for 10,000 unit minimums. In the wider replication market, there's significant consolidation. This must be happening in porn as well. The big five pressers (Technicolor, Cinram, Sony, Optical Disc Services and Sonopress) account for 56% of the market. None of these five replicate porn. The other 44% of the market is divided among 302 pressers, of which 93 are in Asia, 87 are in Western Europe, and 61 in North America. (DVD Watch, April 2006) The price of DVD replication has been dropping about 5% per year for the past seven years. According to DVD Watch (April 2006), the price differential between DVD5 and DVD9 (dual-layered) is about 25%. The typical price to replicate DVD5s is now 42c per disc and DVD9s is 56c (with 5,000 unit minimums). North America replicates about 45% of the world's DVDs (projected 2006 totals -- 7872.5 billion). To get a movie ready for DVD replication, it usually costs about $600 for authoring a DVD5 (taking the edited movie and burning it into a DVD master) and about $700 for a DVD9 (dual-layed DVD through RDSL -- Reverse Disk Spiral Layering). Editing a hardcore movie costs about $1100. Editing for hard and soft versions can be done for about $1500. Boxcover design costs about $500. For 5,000 copies of a DVD boxcover, it'll usually cost less than $600. Replicated, packaged and wrapped DVDs for a minimum order of 3,000 will cost about 70-80c each DVD. A typical new porn DVD (not a compilation) will sell to domestic distributors for about $10 each (Evil Angel will get about $15 each) and to foreign distributors for about $8 each. A source tells me 5/9/06: "The barrier of entry to be a player in DVD replication is high. The cost of equipment is extremely expensive. Two million dollars expensive. You can go low-end duplicators like your guy Joey Abinanti. He has commercial grade machines that can do about 40 discs at a time as opposed to L&M (where LFP, Pulse replicates) which have industrial strength machines that can do tens of thousands of discs a day. "Evil Angel uses four companies to replicate. If you drive around Chatsworth, there are a bunch of companies that say 'Media Replication' or things like that. "I'd guess that L&M's business is primarily Adult. The people there are extremely rude. Israelis. You go up there and you see Adult people. "You can go cheap in the South-East U.S. for 60c shrink-wrapped, packaged. High-end will run you 75c each disc. "Sunshine has their own replication facility but many people don't trust them. "The prices depend on your minimum order. It's usually 1500 or 2500 units. Most people print 5,000 inserts because of the price break. So they tend to have a lot of sleeves in their warehouses. The average porn producer is lucky to sell 1,000 units of his movie." I wonder what percentage of the market of the top ten replicators hold? I'm guessing about two-thirds. I'm guessing that most Los Angeles pornographers get their DVDs replicated in Southern California. As far as DVD authoring: Sin City owns its own authoring company. There's
CopperDigital.com in Hollywood which does RLD, PXP and others. Evil Angel
and Jules Jordan use DVD Demon. There are two guys that do most of the printing of DVD covers -- FB (Frank Barbarino), and Great Western (owned by Michael Warner). Other printers include Breen Graphics, SL Digital in Hollywood and PrintTech out of Chatsworth. Friend: "Duplication with VHS was a simpler process. All you have are a whole bunch of VCRs and you're popping in blank tapes. It took a bunch of man power. A lot of these companies such as Vivid and Evil Angel did their own duplication. But now studios are not going to spend a million dollars on a replication machine. It's not worth it. "DVD replicators have to pay a royalty fee on every disc they press. When they buy blank media, there are identifiers on each disc. Numbers imprinted on a disc enable you to figure out who purchased your disc and pirated your disc." Jill Kelly Productions Mired in Piracy Battle Nov 16, 2005 court order. Nov 28, 2005 court order. I was told by a source at one of the replication companies above that they had permission to replicate JKP product if they were not paid by JKP. They were not paid by JKP. So they replicated. 11/21/05 Three Pirating Raids Monday Night One Israeli named Chaim (DVD Concepts) was a major target. Chaim is close (partners in things?) with Bill Linton aka Lynton Appleson (British Jew) of VIP, who also owns Robert Hill Entertainment. A source at DVDConcepts emphatically denies any wrongdoing on the part of his company and says he has the contracts to prove that everything the company does is legitimate. Federal marshals met at the Lamplighter in Chatsworth at 4pm Monday. The raids went down around 7:50pm. Zev at IVI and Danni at Skura (L&M Optical West) were also raided. Evil Angel filed a piracy suit against Alon Nottea and his DVD Concepts May 2, 2005. I believe these raids had something to do with Jill Kelly Productions (JKP). JKP and Bob Friedland signed deals, I've been told, so that if certain DVD companies such as DVDConcepts, are not paid in full, then the DVD companies have the right to resell their merchandise. JKP filed for bankruptcy a few months ago and owed many people money (including replicators -- perhaps DVDConcepts -- hundreds of thousands of dollars). "I used to do cash deals with Lynton," says a source. "He used to sell me DVDs from all these companies for a buck or two bucks each. Of course he stole from all these companies. I didn't care. I sold them for $19:99. "Do you know who introduced me to Lynton? Mike Esposito." Lynton, who has a long ponytail and looks like he has hair transplants, is just the front man for Chaim for VIP. Lynton is fond of wearing cowboy boots and often looks greasy. He is partners with a guy in New York. An email to DVDConcepts through its website bounced back Monday night. Nov 16, 2005 court order. Nov 28, 2005 court order.
11/28/05
2/10/06
Hollywood To Fight E-Piracy In Court?
What's The Difference Between DVD Replicator And Duplicator? I thought VHS tapes were duplicated and DVDs were all replicated. No, I'm told. With a replicated DVD, a big machine spits one out every three seconds. If you need 3,000 pieces of a title, you can go to L&M Optical West and get them replicated for 37c. Or you can go to Ray Pistol Duplication and get 50 duplicated at 80c each. Big batches are replicated and smaller numbers are often duplicated. Gay companies, which sell smaller numbers, typically duplicate. The quality is the same. The consumer will notice no difference. Most producers are thrilled to sell 1,000 pieces of a title. The consumer typically pays between $12 and $75 per title. If you are the only store within 100 miles selling porn DVDs, you can sell new titles for $60 each. James DiGiorgio writes:
How Does One Decide On A DVD Replicator? All the replicators extend credit to a known pornographer. L&M Optical West, the biggest, can be particularly generous with their credit offerings (depending on your reputation) and offer the cheapest deals. But just because they are number one does not mean that they are licensed by Philips. The biggest DVD replicators in porn can be pirates (can go to China with your masters, replicate them illegally in huge quantities and sell them to distributors around the world who don't mind dealing in stolen product) and not pay their royalty fee to Philips. Many of the replicators will pirate product (illegally replicate DVDs) and sell them overseas. Many of the replicators won't pay their DVD royalty fees to Philips and when the multinational cracks down on them, the replicator goes out of business and starts up as a new company. Producers, replicators and distributors can get legal letters from Philips saying that the DVDs you are selling are in violation of copyright law and here's a bill. Media Factory lost their license for a couple of weeks and then they got their license back again. My guess is that about a third of replicators in porn are licensed by Philips (who does not care if a company is replicating porn so long as they pay a royalty fee). Last November, Jill Kelly Productions prompted raids by U.S. marshals against replicators DVD Concepts, International Video Innovation, Inc and L&M Optical. JKP said those companies were illegally replicating their movies. One source tells me the piracy case died because the three replicators had contracts with JKP to duplicate and sell JKP product if JKP did not pay them. The police never prosecuted after finding out the truth. I heard the companies never got the masters and copies back though because by the time the cops found out the truth, the whole JKP thing was tied up in bankruptcy. ADM (Advanced Digital Media) replicates for mainstream as well as porn. They typically charge 60-70s per disc. (Another source tells me that Disney demands that all their replicators sign an agreement with substantial penalty for violation that they do not replicate porn.) ADM doesn't mess around. All your masters are kept in locked vaults. You can go online and look through cams to make sure your stuff is not being messed with. It's not uncommon for a replicator (or any other business) to claim you owe them money when you've already paid that bill. So then you have to prove you paid the bill before they will leave you alone. It's not uncommon for a replicator to charge you for work they have not done. When you go to get the product you've paid for, they will say, "Oh, we can't find it. We must've lost it. We'll give you a refund." Some replicators will try to hold on to your masters. Or they'll claim they've lost the masters. They'll use the masters as leverage to try to get you to do more replication with them. They'll try to hold the producer hostage. You might order a set number of pieces from a replicator and he'll replicate far more than what you asked for and he'll try to charge you. Some replicators want to earn your future business. Others want to bite a piece out of you right away. Packaging typically costs 15c per disc. Why Are DVDs Cheaper In Europe And Asia? Why are there different formats for DVDs so you can't play a European-formatted DVD on an American DVD player? There's a huge market for cracking these codes and numerous bulletin boards on the internet on how to allow your DVD player to play any DVD. Why do many American porn producers sell their DVD rights overseas for a song? Is it because their foreign sales connections are so bad and untrustworthy? Do distributors have any legal liability if they distribute pirated material? How does a distributor know if a DVD was legally replicated? A distributor replies: "You might want to ask an attorney about this one, since I wouldn't touch this type of material. If a distributor actually did something like this, they could certainly be involved in civil litigation which would open them up to civil subpoenas, depositions and high legal costs." Mike M writes:
David Clark writes:
I get emailed: "Slysoft.com has a great app called anydvd that fixes all your problems. It's not free, but you download a demo. Its definitely worth the $25, as it lets you make backups of your dvds rather easily. I actually purchased AnyDVD and CloneDVD." REGION 1 -- USA, Canada Porn DVD Sales For 2005 The top six companies amount to no more than $100 million for the U.S. market according to industry sources. * Evil Angel: $25 million If there were 13,600 releases in 2005, the highest possible average (median) number of units sold per title would be 1,000 and the highest possible average (median) price would be $20 each, which would make for total DVD sales for 2005 at $272 million. According to experienced distributors, sales for new titles are double those for catalogue (titles from last year or older). So the combined sales of new titles ($272 million) and catalogue ($136) would equal $408 million for 2005. The biggest porn replicator, L&M Optical, has not been licensed by Philips (runs about 3c per DVD) at various times and pornographers who've replicated through L&M have had their DVDs seized in the Netherlands (home country of Philips). L&M indemnifies many if not all of their customers against such seizures. All the biggest porn companies replicate through L&M, including LFP, Vivid, Evil Angel, Red Light District. Evil Angel and VCA replicated in Taiwan a few years ago. Where does one buy the raw DVDs that replicators replicate? David from MyPornoReview.com responds:
Many American porn companies will replicate their DVDs in America for sale in Europe and elsewhere. Almost all European PAL-format DVDs will still play American NTSC-format DVDs though most American DVD players will not play European PAL-format DVDs. I believe that Vivid and Wicked will put our four titles of compilations for every original movie they release. According to AVN, there were about 13,600 new titles released last year. I believe that the number of original titles and compilations are about even. Comps sell retail for about $5 each and original hetero titles sell for about $20. Gay original titles will sell for up to $70 each. Macrovision (used by Wicked and Sineplex) helps prevent casual piracy but not sophisticated piracy. Other companies don't use it because there was a problem with regular DVD players not reading the Macrovision technology and rejecting the DVD. The quality pirates are able to break the Macrovision code. British porners replicate overseas, particularly in Holland and Prague. 6/13/06 I've blathered on my site about replicator KBH-Blaine (owned by the people behind Damagedpictures.com). I was confused. KBH-Blaine is not a replicator. Companies such as KBH have dealt with L&M for years. KBH and company are middlemen. KBH and company will take the titles from ten studios and walk into L&M with an order for hundreds of thousands of pieces. KBH's owner (not Kevin Beechum, but Blaine Hensler sp?) started as a middleman. What does "KBH" stand for? Blaine Hensler (the co-owner of Damaged Pictures)? While L&M Optical West is the king of cheap replication, the turnaround times can stretch to a month or more unless you have an in, such as KBH or you're Kenny Guarino. Does Guarino own part of L&M West? He intimates that he does. He likes to portray that he can get anything he wants from L&M or from Michael Warner's printing company Great Western Litho. "It's a huge gamble to replicate with L&M West because they are not licensed by Philips," says a porn company owner, "but their price is so good. If you look through their plant, you won't believe the size of the operation. There's mainstream stuff there including Disney. Mostly mainstream." Danni Skura is the Israeli behind L&M Optical West. He seems heavily medicated. You'd think he ingested more lithium than Larry Flynt. Danny seems totally out of it. He seems to walk around in a daze. You sit there and you say to yourself, "What the hell is this? Who the hell am I dealing with?" Danny Skura seems half-comatose. It's hard to believe he runs a huge business such as L&M. Danny walks around in gym shorts and a t-shirt. His hair is a frazzled mess. Is it a front? Danny just does not look competent. Plant manager Effie seems to know every single part of the operation. If you can afford, them, Advanced Digital Media offers superb customer service (it's run by a woman, most of their work is mainstream) and turnaround times. Yet they are not licensed by Philips. 6/14/06 Philips database for licensed replicators. A search of the Philips database says only the Brooklyn site of L&M Optical is licensed. Any replication done by an unlicensed replicator can be seized and large judgments made in civil court (and federal marshals can impound your product if it is illegally replicated). I understand that L&M writes indemnities for many, if not all, companies who replicate with them (most of L&M's replication may be non-porn). Sometimes product has been seized and L&M has resolved the problem. I've blathered on my site about replicator KBH-Blaine (owned by the people behind Damagedpictures.com). I was confused. KBH-Blaine is not a replicator. Companies such as KBH have dealt with L&M for years. KBH and company are middlemen. KBH and company will take the titles from ten studios and walk into L&M with an order for hundreds of thousands of pieces. KBH's owner (not Kevin Beechum, but Blaine Hensler sp?) started as a middleman. What does "KBH" stand for? Blaine Hensler (the co-owner of Damaged Pictures)? While L&M Optical West is the king of cheap replication, the turnaround times can stretch to a month or more unless you have an in, such as KBH or you're Kenny Guarino. Does Guarino own part of L&M West? He intimates that he does. He likes to portray that he can get anything he wants from L&M or from Michael Warner's printing company Great Western Litho. "It's a huge gamble to replicate with L&M West because they are not licensed by Philips," says a porn company owner, "but their price is so good. If you look through their plant, you won't believe the size of the operation. There's mainstream stuff there including Disney. Mostly mainstream." Danni Skura is the Israeli behind L&M Optical West. He seems heavily medicated. You'd think he ingested more lithium than Larry Flynt. Danny seems totally out of it. He seems to walk around in a daze. You sit there and you say to yourself, "What the hell is this? Who the hell am I dealing with?" Danny Skura seems half-comatose. It's hard to believe he runs a huge business such as L&M. Danny walks around in gym shorts and a t-shirt. His hair is a frazzled mess. Is it a front? Danny just does not look competent. Plant manager Effie seems to know every single part of the operation. "They refuse to deliver anything on time," grouses a pornographer about porn's cheapest replicator. "Nor do they provide anything resembling customer service. They make us miss release dates. They don't care. They give everybody the same bad treatment. Perhaps they've priced themselves so low that they are not able to afford competent customer service. "There's an attitude among the people who work for L&M -- they're passive aggressive. You'll tell them a title you particularly need replicated and you'll get the titles you weren't in a hurry for and the title you begged them for, it just doesn't come. There's something weird and dysfunctional there. "There's an attitude among the staff that customers are a nuisance while the putative owner Danni Skura (has an Asian business partner named David) is out hustling for business even though they can't handle what they have now. "Danni has a slovenly appearance. He wears shorts and a dirty t-shirt. He's enigmatic. "Maybe L&M has more demand than output ability? "Effie, the plant manager, is an Israeli. He's a jerk. "How is L&M 30% cheaper than anyone else? Because they don't pay the licensing fee that other replicators do? I'd guess they skimp on customer service." They are the quintessence of a low-overhead operation. Sometimes they have machines replicating in the parking lot. Sometimes they have not had their customer records on the computer. It's on cards. Futureworks (owner Jonathan Resnick) is purported to be as cheap as L&M. It is based in New York but has a West Coast branch and is reputed to have a DVD replication facility in China. Email jeff_rosen@adelphia.net for more information. 6/16/06 David at MyPornoReview.com writes:
Ty Kirstein emails:
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