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Australian porn king Scott Phillips admits torturing
thieves
From
the AAP, April 10, 2006:
A wealthy pornographic website master tortured two burglars and then
dumped them at a police beat office, a court was told today.
Scott Gregory Phillips, 31, pleaded guilty in the District Court
in Brisbane to one count each of torture and robbery of Daryl Jay
Irwin, and causing grievous bodily harm to, and entering the dwelling
of, Daniel George Atkinson, all on January 21, 2002.
At the time of his arrest Phillips had a million-dollar company,
Internet Billing Services, and operated a porn site, pinkbits.com.
When Phillips was bailed on a surety of $20,000 in 2002, the man who
put up the money was Gregory Shiraz Lasrado, himself a wealthy porn
king at the time, but now facing a heroin possession charge.
Prosecutor Todd Fuller told Phillips's sentencing hearing today that
Irwin and Atkinson had broken into Phillips's Mount Nebo home in late
December 2001, and stolen various items including cheque books.
Mr Fuller said Irwin was a friend of a former business associate
of Phillips and had committed the burglary to steal property which
might or might not have belonged to his friend.
Phillips tracked Irwin down and, armed with a knife, abducted him
from his workplace at a Coles supermarket in Sunnybank on Brisbane's
southside. Phillips then took him to his Mount Nebo home, tied him
to a chair, with tape, rope and a belt.
"He then placed a plastic shopping bag over his head and held his
nose to stop him breathing," Mr Fuller said.
Phillips also bashed Irwin around the head and knees with a bat and
punched and threatened him during an interrogation where he forced
him to give details about his family.
Phillips then drove Irwin to his office at Milton and forced him
to lure Atkinson there on the phone. He attacked Atkinson with bolt
cutters and repeatedly kicked and punched him, forcing him to sign
over his motorcycle.
Phillips ransacked Atkinson's home, taking items to offset his losses
and took the pair to a Cash Converters store to try to retrieve some
of his pawned stolen goods. He then dumped them at a police beat at
Sunnybank, giving his details with an officer before leaving.
The sentencing hearing before Judge Warren Howell was adjourned to
resume on April 28 and Phillips, who did not apply for bail, was remanded
in custody.
From
Brisbane's Courier Mail April 11, 2006:
The court was told Atkinson was so badly injured he had to have a
titanium plate inserted in his face. Irwin received a broken finger.
Both were bruised from head to toe. Arresting officer Detective Senior
Constable Adam Cass, who has toiled for more than four years to bring
Phillips to justice, said it was "highly gratifying to finally see
him taken into custody".
Snr Constable Cass describes Phillips as a "highly brazen, violent
psychopath".
He believes Phillips opted to personally deliver justice to Irwin
and Atkinson because "he gets off on it".
He said Phillips had complimented police on their investigation since
his arrest and was intrigued by the techniques and methods that led
to his capture.
"He rates himself as a stand-over man," Snr Constable Cass said.
"He was very confident during the attack – he assaulted the men in
public on some occasions – it was as if he expected to be arrested."
What the victims said:
Daryl Irwin: "He sat me on a wooden chair, tied my hands together
at the rear, tied my feet together and put a plastic shopping bag
over my head so I couldn't breathe. At the same time he held my nose
so I couldn't breath. He took it off when I started to struggle. He
then picked up a baseball bat and hit me over the head and around
the knees. He punched me in the nose so it started to bleed. He then
started kicking me. I fell over. He picked me up and said: 'Don't
break my chair.' He continued to punch and kick me all over my body."
Danial George Atkinson:
"... The next thing I remember is waking up in the office in the
building. I remember lying on the floor on top of ordinary brown cardboard.
This cardboard was on top of the carpet. I remember there was heaps
of blood on the cardboard and carpet. Whilst I was lying there I was
rolling about on the cardboard, I was in severe pain in the head,
legs, ribs and even my arms and legs. I remember when I woke up Daryl
Irwin, my friend, was also there. I think he was on cardboard on the
floor as well. I could see his face was puffed up and bleeding. I
can't remember much conversation with Daryl." Later, he said, his
alleged attacker told him: 'If you tell anything about what happened
today I will come back and rape your parents'. "
Scott Phillips learned from the masters of the adult internet and now
he's one of them, earning millions of dollars of month from his internet
porn operation.
Phillips entered the adult internet industry in Brisbane, Australia
in 1996 working for smalltime operator Don Reid. Then he worked for
Dean Shannon of Intergal.
"Then he met up with Serge and learned from him," says an
internet porn source. "And Scott learned from Fantasy Man (Ron
Levi). He learned from the best."
In 1997, Phillips went into business with Greg Lasrado in the PinkBits.com
operation. But the two men found working together strained their friendship.
So Phillips bought out Greg and Lasrado went his own way.
Queensland's main porners (Dean Shannon, Greg Lasrado, Scott Phillips)
no longer do much business together. But they live near each other,
socialize with each other, and frequently imitate each other's business
methods.
Like most of his peers, Phillips stole copyrighted pictures and other
content in 1996-97, at the beginning of the adult internet boom. In
1997, Phillips had a big run-in with content cop Steve Easton at APIC.
Since then, they've patched up their differences and now seem to work
together.
Scott had a big meeting with Cybererotica's owner Ron Levi in 1997.
Scott says that's when he decided to start doing things by the book.
His business soared and he started processing over three million dollars
a month.
Scott is a friend and ex-business partner of Serge
Birbrair, who's intervened with Phillips on behalf of people mad
at Scott.
Serge says: "Yes, this is true. I never forget when I had to intervene
on behalf of webmaster hurt by Scott. When we delivered him to the hospital,
his penis was missing, nuts were squashed, left ancle was removed and
so was right half of the brain. Thanks to the wonders of modern medecine
the guy is fine now and runs a huge public Internet company."
Serge writes Luke: "I intervened once on behalf of... NiteLifer
[John Atheron], you know him, ;-)) with Jeff aka KB. Come think of it,
we might help clear misunderstanding once between Jeff and Scott also
;-))"
According to my internet porn sources: Most of the content for Scott
Phillip's site Amateuravenue.com was stolen from Jeff Miller's Sunup
Media Group. Scott would supposedly tell people complaining his theft.
"I am my ISP's largest customer. They're not going to do a damn
thing. We're down here in Asutralia. You can't touch us. So f--- off."
And when you contact Scott's ISP, you get the runaround.
Scott replies: "Sunup media doesnt think I stole content, why
publish such garbage?"
Jeff Miller from SunUp Media writes on Netpond: "I would just
like to confirm that ScottPB and I did resolve our differences in August
or September of 98. HOWEVER, part of the deal was supposed to have been
the purchase of a beer by Scott, for me, at the Orlando IA2000 show.
I never got my beer, and as such, consider this matter to not yet be
100% resolved."
Luke says: Once you get inside the sites of Phillips and Lasrado, it
is all leased content. There's rarely if ever any original content.
The copyright infringement occurs on their free tours.
Scott Phillips replies: "Yo luke, this is complete rubbish I'm
serious, we spend a fortune on content and yes, we had a dispute with
Jeff which we resolved by admitting fault and buying every bit of content
he had. He thought it was fair, and so did I. And this, is ridiculous...
I have NOTHING TO DO IN BUSINESS WITH GREG LASRADO, his companies and
mine are separate, nonrelated entities. We are simply friends."
Luke: What is your connection to Filthycash.com?
Scott: "No connection whatsoever, direct or indirect. I am close
friends with its owner [Greg Lasrado], and it is an excellent program
btw and very successful. I run http://www.adwealth.com and http://www.mostcash.com.
We pay per click and per signup, filthycash pays recurrings. We don't
regard each other as competitors."
Luke: What is your connection to the WTFRC company?
Scott: "Nothing, it belongs to a guy called Joe Nirta. I had dinner
with him a few times, but havent seen him in a few years now."
Scott writes on Netpond:
Luke, some of your facts are wrong.
1) I have nothing to do with the content stealing company
wtfrc, which belongs to a scumbag called Joe Nirta
2) I've never been accused of double billing, despite
using the same merchant account for five years. Call Sophie Kozaris,
head of electronic payments at the National Australia Bank in Melbourne
and ask her what she thinks of our business practices.
3) I've never recieved cease and desist letters over
content, ever. Whenever we accidentally have used somebody elses pic
we admit fault publically immediately and spend a truckload of money
buying content off the wronged party. In early 1996 I stole content,
when virutally everyone did. I had a dispute with Steve Easton, he convinced
me that he was right and I was wrong, s I bought content from then on.
Just after that I met Ron Levi for the first time and he made me realise
that doing things the *right* way was the only way.
4) Jeff I owe you a beer :-)))) And despite all the
s--- people starts about Australians, nobody wants to come out and say
that we have ripped webmasters off. So where are all the webmasters
Scott Phillips has ripped off since 1996?
Backdoor Bruce writes: "Scott Phillips showed up on the doorstep
of a friend of mines house at 2 am drunk and abused him over a dispute
over clicks. Then again this guy did rip him off and steal substantial
business from him so I can't say I blame him."
Luke writes: Dear Scott Phillips, could we do a telephone interview?
Scott writes:
Sure, if you give me some indication of what the accusations
are. I'm basically semi-retired at this stage of my career, like the
General [Dean Shannon] I make more money being out of the limelight.
Greg and I are best friends but no longer do any business together.
Greg got me started in business many years ago, he gave
me a chance when nobody else would. We ran internet service providers
and a chain of computer shops together, dabbled in property development
and ram manufacture and other things until we started pinkbits, which
was very successful.
We went our separate ways a few years ago, and Greg
with my help started his own net porn business which is now more successful
than mine. We are close friends and share ideas, but we never do business
together, as we both enjoy having a friend with no hidden business agenda.
Greg is the most talented businessman I have ever met, he fully deserves
his success. I am semi-retired now, I train and teach kung fu an average
of six hours a day and have very little interest in the adult web aside
from the money.
I didn't read the article in the Age myself, but I was
told about it.
Bruce says: "Ask about Kristen Holden. He ripped off everyone
including Scotty and Andy from Sex Tracker."
Scott says:
He is a slimy little weasel motherf---er spoilt mammas
boy who balled his eyes out in my office crying like a baby when I confronted
him with his theft. A short list of people he has ripped off include;
Simon Johnson, John Johnson, Prophet_8, Cyrus, Greg Lasrado, Webfather
and many others.
His father actually repaid me the 20 K he ripped us
for, which Kristen used to fly first class to IA2000 and stay in the
penthouse at the bellagio.
The little bastard couldn't lie straight in bed and
better not come anywhere near me, ever.
My good friend and tough bastard Simon Johnson [brother
of John Atheron] had the right way to deal with scum like this.
I think there is a strong anti-authoratarian tradition
resulting from our convict days, most Australians simply do not like
people telling them what to do. Australians like Americans telling us
what to do even less.
Its not a bug, its a feature. Australian internet porners
are among the world leaders, with unparralelled reputations for paying
webmasters ON TIME and IN FULL, with unblemished reputations for integrity
in an industry full of scammers.
We are very proud of our reputations for looking after
webmasters (our customers) , who are all we really care about. For myself,
this correlates to a complete lack of caring for what happens to the
surfer. I live on the bottom of the world, I made my first five million
dollars before I even met an American face to face, why should I care
if I force a surfer (who we call a wanker) though an endless series
of exit consoles and blind links? Our loyalty is to the webmasters who
help us make our money, our commitment is to innovation to make more
money off surfers so we can pay higher prices for clicks than our competitors.
And there isn't a person on the internet who can say
Scott Phillips has ripped them off. Thats something I am very proud
of, personally.
>What do you think of Steve Easton and APIC
I know Steve, I like him and I understand his position.
He has a different paragidm to adult webmasters. Luke, Steve doesn't
hate me, I am a member of APIC/webposse and have helped him numerous
times.
How I got into the industry is a long story I'm retired
because I am rich and an extra few million wouldn't make the slightest
difference. My direction in life is to complete the system of kung fu
I study, which I should do this year. After that I want to settle down
to a quiet life of mastering my art and teaching my students. How very
exiting ;-(
8/6/00
Shawn writes Luke: "Scott is a maniac, and basically a rougue.
He has heaps of money and just hits whatever he is unhappy with. Both
Lasrado and Shannon are going into commercial business now. Not together."
Mike Fruchtman aka Zulu says: "I like Scott Phillips. I have no
problem with him. The image that he has in the industry as a bad boy,
as a scammer... When he first came out four years ago, he was tricky
to play hardball with. But he's a good guy. He's got a good reputation.
He pays on time. I stand behind Scott."
3/21/01
Scott Phillips writes: "Daniel [Hicks] is a self styled Brisbane
net porn god, who strangely has not made one dollar out of the industry.
His one claim to fame is stealing playgals mailing list after he was
fired (he incorrectly told me he was a part owner) and attempting to
sell it to all and sundry. As far as I can tell the only thing he is
good at is launching vexatious legal actions. Oh yeah, hes is a raving
flaming, lisp speaking homosexual, with all the homo baggage that goes
along with that."
Phillips operates several casino sites.
The average casino player costs $250 in advertising to attract to your
site. Then he'll average $275 a month while staying an average of six
to eight months.
XXX webmaster source says: "Scott Phillips talks like Rob Black
and Rob Spallone. He does not sound like someone who made it on the
back page of the Financial Review business section.
"Scott Phillips is very successful. Scott conquered the IBill/RBL
issues. I would never send him any traffic in case he shaved the hell
out of it. I would never work for him.On a business level, Scott is
ruthless. On a personal level, Scott's a nice guy.
"Scott went out and learned from the masters. He started with
Dean Shannon of Intergal. Then he met up with Serge and learned from
him. And Scott learned from Fantasy Man. He learned from the best.
"And Scott hires great programmers. Scott has a dual degree in
law and accounting. He uses several different credit card processors."
Luke: "Are these Australians deadly dangerous?"
XXX: "Yes, in person, Scott's deadly dangerous. But as far as
putting a hit out on you, I don't think so. John Atherton may send his
younger brother Simon over to kick your ass. But Simon would make John
pay all the money he owes him so John would never go for that. Simon
was sending traffic to John, and they had a dispute over whether John
was shaving. Simon says John shaved him dramatically. They don't do
business together or even speak."
4/5/01
Scott Phillips vs Private Label Resources
Billonia writes:
Tonight during a regular edition of the Wednesday night
plrradio show things got a little out of hand. In the beginning of the
show the DJ's were discussing last weeks show about Spam. I didn't get
a chance to catch it last week, but it looks like they ruffled some
feathers with some of the big porn guys you refer to as the Australian
porn mafia. Soon after ScottPB entered the chatroom the plrradio
guys noticed that there server was being attacked and the chatroom was
being attacked. If you went to http://www.plrradio.com and looked at
the title of the page it clearly stated, "AdWealth Loves you and Spam
is g00d :)"
Seems Scott went a little to far and started hacking
multiple sites owned by D-man and other plrradio staff. No more than
2 seconds later the plrradio chatroom died. I don't know if this is
related to ScottPB and his cronies or not. But it is most likely. The
DJ that was on air (Headless), stated that the chatroom went down but
he didn't have any more information at the moment. They continued their
broadcast and went on with the show even though they were being attacked.
The reason they were being attacked is because ScottPB didn't like the
fact that they were discussing his crocked ways of Spam. Here are some
clips from the chatroom: scottpb> and I make well over a million a month
from spam
scottpb> would YOU STOP???
wenchy> Hey guys! :)
scottpb> hey wenchy :)
d-man> hey Wenchy
uncletony> GOOD FOR YOU SPAM BOY!
cyberpunk> spam is evil
And here is some more logs when confronted about hacking
the plrradio servers
nicfit> I suppose that logging into our server when
you don't belong there IS ethical Scott?
washiez> Thats a felony.
scottpb> i'm shedding a big tear
And here is ScottPB admitting to spamming:
scottpb> i am well on record for my opinion
scottpb> that i don't give a f--- about the surfer, how much he complains
about spam or anything else
d-man> your spamming - I have proof now - what's your point?
scottpb> i do spam
scottpb> i support spam
scottpb> i do all kinds of s--- which you *ethical webmasters* consider
bad
And here is another copy of ScottPB telling everyone
to go check out what he did to plrradio's home page:
scottpb> hey can someone reload the plr radio home page
and tell me the title
scottpb> hohohohohohoh
scottpb> hahahahahaha
gangaman> lol
scottpb> mushahahahaha
You should do some more investigating into this matter.
Seems like ScottPB got a lil hot while he was under the gun.
I don't mind people attacking me, I have nothing to
hide. The plrradio chatroom was taken down by plr, since they thought
they were being hacked. They blamed it on me, when it was really them
doing it out of paranoia. As for changing the title of their homepage,
I thought that was a benign way of indicating that if you are going
to talk s--- about me, you should do it to my face.
Luke the chat room quote is all mixed up in order, totally
changing the context. Get a complete log of the conversation and you
will see it differently.
Scott Phillips Interview
2002-11-18 20:07:58
I spoke by phone with Brisbane internet pornographer
Scott PB 9/11/02.
He has me on speakerphone and about eight of his employees are in the
room listening and applauding during our conversation.
Scott: "Say hit to Jeff Marrison. He's my business partner [for last
three years]."
Luke: "Hi Jeff."
Scott: "He used to be Seth Warshavsky's head guy."
Luke: "How has the business changed in the past three years?"
Scott: "Last time you were in the industry, the biggest thing to make
money was traffic. A couple of years before that, around 1997, all you
needed to make money was bandwidth. Traffic took care of itself. For
the last two years, you really needed to be spamming to make money or
buy traffic off spammers because they were the only people who had the
big traffic. Now the pendulum's swinging back the other way and the
important thing to make money is having your own merchant accounts and
managing your own merchant accounts.
"The programs that are using third party processors like IBill are basically
f-cking the webmasters. They get about 30% less signups overall than
someone with their own merchant account. They scrub all the foreign
cards [scrubbing means the processor refuses to process that particular
credit card for fear of a chargeback]. They're scrubbing anyone who's
ever signed up for an adult site before. Then when the customers goes
to cancel, it's child's play. So that cuts out a huge percentage of
their revenue.
"So, those sorts of third-party billers are turning in the order of
$55 US per join whereas those who are maintaining our own merchant accounts
are getting about $75 US per join. It doesn't take a genius that whoever's
earning [on average] $75 per signup can afford to pay a helluva lot
more [to webmasters who send them traffic] than those who are earning
$55 per signup."
Luke: "What are the keys to securing your own merchant account?"
Scott: "You need a lot of them for a start. Visa and Mastercard like
to yank them off you for no reason at all at the most inopportune times."
Luke: "Your peers have gone out and gotten their own merchant accounts?"
Scott: "Everyone's tried it for a while. Cybererotica had theirs for
a while but they lost it and they are back using IBill. Sexhit was the
biggest thing on the net. They are back to using IBill again. PornCash
is the other superhuge program. They still have their own merchant account.
MaxCash is back using Jettis and CCBill. Over the next year, you're
going to see the programs that are really big are not the ones that
have been big on the net for the past two years because those people
have burned their bridges.
"One of my good friends, who hates your guts so I won't name him, does
about US $5.5 million a month in recurring billings. He's got three
different merchant accounts so he can switch between banks around the
world. He's in a situation now where when he takes his $5.5 million
a month from one bank and puts it in another bank, Visa notices straight
away. It pops up on their radar screen. He's too big to hide. He has
a situation where his merchant accounts last about six days now. And
it is a helluva lot of work keeping them up.
"The websites that have these huge 300,000 member databases, the MaxCashes,
Sexhits, Intergals of the world, they are going to find it harder and
harder to keep that up."
Luke: "Why do Visa and Mastercard yank merchant accounts so quickly on
you guys."
Scott: "They hate the whole industry. A chargeback [where a customer
disputes a charge on his credit card bill, protests to the credit card
company which then investigates the matter with the merchant making
the charge] costs them about US$50 in letter writing, admin costs, etc
plus the intangible costs in damage to their reputation because people
are getting ripped off on the net. And the damages to business like
Amazon.com because someone has used a credit card on a porno site and
been triple-billed, and are afraid to use it on Amazon.com.
"The natural rate of chargebacks on adult sites playing everything straight,
refunding people who want to be refunded, is about 5%. If you work out
that 5% chargebacks, and chargebacks cost Visa about $50 each, and the
average that Visa makes out of the industry is 1.75 - 2%, the banks
pocket the rest... Visa is taking 2% of revenue but it's going to cost
them [chargebacks, at $50 each on 5% of transactions, or $2.50 per transaction].
To be able to do that, the average ticket price at an adult site would
have to be on the order of $125. The average ticket price on an adult
site is $30. Visa loses money every time someone joins an adult site.
Why wouldn't they want to f-ck us in the ass? They've wanted to f-ck
us in the ass from day one."
Luke: "Why don't Visa and Mastercard just refuse to do business with
you?"
Scott: "They'd love to do that."
Luke: "Why don't they just make a blanket ban on processing for adult
sites?"
Scott: "They're working towards it. We're seeing the first steps towards
it. They don't mind processing for adult sites. What they do mind is
the recurring billing model.
"There will always be wankers who want to buy porn and there will always
be people who will sell it. Visa and Master Card shutting down the recurring
billing model would only mean a new opportunity in a different billing
model. You could comfortably charge a $70 one-time charge to join an
adult site. That's a feasible business model. The day the real sh-t
goes down and everything gets f-cked and Visa and Master Card turn off
everyone's recurring billing databases, there will be huge chaos and
mayhem, but it creates huge opportunites because everyone starts from
a blank slate again."
Luke: "How's the rate of growth in the industry? Gross revenues up, profits
down?"
Scott: "I'd concur. Grabbing your own slice is harder than it has ever
been."
Luke: "What brought you back to Oprano?"
Scott: "We read the boards occasionally. We've spent the last two years
spamming our asses off for our webmaster programs. That was good fun."
Luke: "What value do you see in the webmaster boards for you and your
peers?"
Scott: "Do you make these questions up yourself? It's the lamest sh-t
I've ever heard. You can do better than that."
Luke: "Ron Levi was telling me in an interview a couple of years ago
about the many steps he makes to prevent chargebacks. Are some of your
peers more effective with preventing chargebacks?"
Scott: "There's a tradeoff between the amount of chargebacks you get
and the amount of income you take. If you want not to send out confirmation
emails when people join. If you want to pretend that it's free. If you
want to charge higher amounts, particularly when you above $50 per transaction...
If you want to make it hard for people to cancel... Those things increase
chargebacks but dramatically increase income. Any smart person will
walk a tightrope between the amount of money they earn and the amount
of chargebacks they have. If Ron thinks he's cut chargebacks to an absolute
minimum, he's cut income to the absolute minimum too. If you had a choice,
you'd be f-cking those surfers harder and faster than ever before."
Luke: "People seem to be more discrete than ever in what they post on
the boards and say in interviews."
Scott: "I know the Australian tax office at the least reads the boards
every day."
Luke: "It seems that people are spamming more than ever. Is there a significant
penalty to be paid for spamming?"
Scott: "I've always spammed, mate. I've always liked spamming. There's
no penalty as far as I can tell. It's easier than ever."
Luke: "I thought there were government agencies monitoring and prosecuting
spammers?"
Scott: "F--- 'em if they can't take a joke."
Luke: "Are any of your peers paying a price for spamming?"
Scott: "I haven't heard of one person getting a fine. If someone wants
to sue me in Australia, let them go to it. It's harder than sh-t to
sue someone in Australia. You should know that."
Luke: "Has anyone tried to sue you in the past three years?"
Scott: "Xpics had a thorough go at it. After $250,000 in legal fees,
we settled out of court for $60,000. I was guilty as sh-t. It was a
defamation RICO suit. I'd sent out an email to 100,000 webmasters saying
that Xpics shaved. It did."
Luke: "You posted on Oprano a list of various crimes you were accused
of. When were you last in a physical fight with someone?"
Scott: "Last night at Hooter's strip club. I beat one of Jeff Fennick's
pro boxers down. I opened up a can of whip ass on that motherf-cker."
Luke: "Isn't that an unusual attitude for a businessman?"
Scott: "No. I'll beat you in person."
Luke: "I'm not looking forward to it."
Scott: "I am. You posted all those f-cking lies about me years ago.
You didn't think I'd forget?"
Luke: "What do you most object to in what I wrote about you?"
Scott: "You categorizing me as a career criminal with links to the Mafia
tops the list. I plan to stomp on your face when I meet you."
Luke: "Didn't you just post to Oprano the same thing?"
Scott: "No. I might be a violent psychopath who's been charged with
felonies numerous times but I'm not a criminal and I don't have any
links to the Mafia. And you know damn well, being from Brisbane, Australia,
that there is no such thing as the Mafia in Australia."
Luke: "The term 'Mafia' can also mean a clique. It doesn't necessarily
mean a criminal enterprise."
Scott: "I'm not in a criminal enterprise or criminal clique, nor is
there any such thing... Your attempts to categorize the Australian Porn
Mafia as some kind of criminal enterprise when in fact members of the
Porn Mafia run publicly listed companies down here and have never been
charged with anything worse than parking tickets. You know the full
truth. You've met Greg. You've spoken to me. You know all about the
players down here. You know all about it intimately because this is
your home town. Yet you still published on your board a bunch of stuff
that you know to be lies. Now, from where I stand, that's a dishonorable
act and in retaliation, when I meet you one day, I'm going to open up
a can of whip ass on you, sir."
Luke: "Ok. This is what I wrote in my first two paragraphs in my entry
on the Australian Porn Mafia. ""Australian Porn Mafia" is a term used
by many pornographers to refer to their "mates" in Brisbane, Queensland,
who control a disproportionate amount of the planet's internet porn
trade. This phrase does not mean that Brisbane's porners have been convicted
of belonging to an organized crime syndicate. In this instance, the
use of the word "Mafia" refers to a group of businessmen in one locale
who largely work separately."
Scott: "What about the part where you quote some anonymous webmaster
who says, 'These guys really scare me. You don't know what you are messing
with, Luke.' If you take the color of the whole ten-page plus diatribe
you write about us, the whole color of it is to portray us as criminals.
"I've shown your article to a number of persons and every one has said,
'I can't believe that someone would say that about you.' My propensity
for violence and my love for doing violence on others is clearcut. There's
enough sh-t that's real to publish about all of us without going into
bullsh-t. You published a load of rubbish about my friend Greg [Lasrado]
as well. In fact, in your own words, you "almost felt bad about all
the things you published about him after you met him."
"You write for sensationalist reasons and you know it is not true. The
definition of journalism is promoting the truth. You don't promote the
truth. You promote your own intentions. Now, I'm happy to sponsor your
website, because the attention you promote through your rampant self
interest, benefits me. But I draw the line at someone publishing what
they know to be rampant untruths about me.
"You claim journalistic integrity yet you haven't show any integrity
at all. It will be an absolute pleasure to issue a beat down on you.
"You don't take any care with what you publish. You don't know how to
act. You have no right to call yourself a journalist."
Luke: "I know you won't believe me but I've genuinely tried to write
as accurately as I understood. Many of your peers in America are intimidated
by you guys in Brisbane."
Scott: "I understand that. It's simple jealousy. We control a disproportionate
percentage of the world's market."
Luke: "How did you guys in Brisbane come to be so successful?"
Scott: "Because we know how to act. We act with integrity with everything
we do. We work together instead of against each other. We don't lie
to each other. We're all friends down here. There's enough money in
this business for everyone who knows how to act. Those people in Brisbane
who get into this business and don't know how to act, who rip webmasters
off, who f-ck around and tell lies, they don't last much at all. There
are no Brisbane pornographers who don't know how to act. You will go
broke down here unless you behave with honor and integrity. It would
do us all so much damage if there were anyone from Australia going around
ripping anyone off. I think you'd have to agree that Australian webmaster
programs have the best record for paying on time."
Luke: "I know they are well regarded by fellow webmasters and that you've
paid on time for as long as you've operated your business. Do you have
respect for all of your peers in Brisbane?"
Scott: "Absolutely. Dean Shannon in particular. He's one of the only
people who knows this industry better than I do."
Luke: "Is the technology of the delivery of pictures and video changed
significantly in the past year over the internet?"
Scott: "What could change about it?"
Luke: "Better quality."
Scott: "It's still people jerking off, mate. At the end of the day,
it's not going to change that much."
Luke: "What people are looking for hasn't changed much either?"
Scott: "It's easier to make a sale if you are more extreme in the niches.
The sh-t-eating, pissing, animal stuff, you wouldn't have seen that
on the net a couple of years ago."
Luke: "Do you have any qualms about dealing in that sort of material?"
Scott: "I don't have any qualms about anything except not paying webmasters
and kiddie porn. Everything else is fair game."
Luke: "A couple of years ago, I thought you were retired from the adult
industry?"
Scott: "I stopped and taught kung fu for a while. There's just too much
money to be made and it's a case of making hay while the sun shines."
Luke: "Do you think the sun might stop shining soon?"
Scott: "It's really up to VISA isn't it?"
Luke: "Are your peers prepared for different contingencies?"
Scott: "No."
Luke: "Things could happen and half the major players would be wiped
out?"
Scott: "Yeah, wouldn't that rock?"
Luke: "Are you prepared for various contingencies?"
Scott: "Yeah. Obviously we'd lose millions of dollars. What do you need
to start a business in this industry? You need the money to buy traffic.
I'd be willing to bet that most of my competitors are spending the millions
they make on cars, houses... My millions are sitting in the bank waiting
to buy more traffic when the sh-t hits the fan. Cash is the only defense."
Luke: "How come you are able to maintain your own merchant accounts when
others are not?"
Scott: "They've been operating at higher revenue levels so that they
popped above Visa's radar screen. If I do the same, I'll get my ass
shut down too."
Luke: "Are you intentionally trying to keep your business below a level
that will grab the attention of Visa?"
Scott: "I'm toying with the idea. We're now on the limits of what's
going to make a difference."
Luke: "Is it better to be loved by your peers or feared by your peers?"
Scott: "That's even lamer than the last question you asked. It doesn't
make any difference. Do you care that much what people think about you?"
Luke: "Not in the industry."
Scott: "We think alike on that point."
Luke: "Shaving?"
Scott: "It's easier these days to not shave than to shave. It's easier
to get market share when you don't shave. I pay webmasters $40-50 per
signup and still make a huge profit. If you were running off IBill,
that would be hard to maintain."
Luke: "Did you start with Dean Shannon?"
Scott: "No. Dean's first job on the internet was replacing me on my
first job on the internet after I quit.
"We had 25,000 members before I met another webmaster. In 1996, you
invented the sh-t yourself. The first webmaster I met was Serge and
we did a link trade in June 1996. He thoroughly f-cked me over on it.
It was a case of you send me traffic and I'll send you smoke and mirrors
back. But it was good. I learned fast."
Luke: "Did you carry a grudge?"
Scott: "No. We did business for years."
Luke: "Why would you do business with a man who ripped you off?"
Scott: "He didn't rip me off. He just got the better of me on a business
deal. I can respect that."
Luke: "Who do you respect in the industry?"
Scott: "Ron Levi is a man I enormously respect and admire even though
I personally disagree with him a lot. He's an arrogant egotistical buffoon
sometimes. Aside from that, he's genuinely a great man. And if you publish
that he's an egotistical buffoon out of context, I will smack you down
100 times as hard and I will search you down at your house, son."
Luke: "What would I need to do to remove myself from physical punishment
at your hands?"
Long silence.
Scott: "Hurting you is a fond dream for me. It's something I'm looking
forward to. I'm not chasing you. I'm not looking for you. I just know
that one day you'll pop your head up at one of the webmaster meetings.
You have no idea how much I am looking forward to it. You'd have to
do something pretty nice. You'd have to make do on all the bad things
you said and inferred about me."
Jeff: "The notoriety alone for smacking him would be right on."
Scott: "We'd have to get it on video and everything. It's giving me
a hardon just thinking about it. Bullying people who can't fight back
is always more satisfying."
Luke: "How many employees do you have?"
Scott: "Let me count the ones in front of me now. Eight. There are about
ten down here."
Luke: "Who do you have a problem with in the industry?"
Scott: "I don't think we have anyone. Oh yeah, Hans Berger. He controls
most of the world's bestiality content. He has ties to the Russian mob.
He sends his Serbian mercenaries after anyone who tries to sell to us."
Luke: "Have people suffered physical harm at the hands of his mercenaries?"
Scott: "Yeah. Who's the owner of bestialitymovies.com? There have been
a couple of incidents of people going to Europe and webmasters being
forced at gunpoint to sign over their IBill accounts."
Luke: "How would I get a hold of Hans Berger?"
Everyone laughs.
Scott: "If you call him up with an Australian accent, he will go rank
at you. He hates Australians pathologically. His company is called Book
& Film International."
Luke: "What questions should I ask you that I have't asked you?"
Scott: "You're the journalist, pal. It's even lamer than the last question.
This guy calls himself a journalist. No wonder he's broke."
Luke: "Are there any journalists in the adult industry that you respect?"
Scott: "I didn't know there were any journalists in the adult industry.
All I see is a bunch of cocksuckers who want to promote on rumors to
get attention and don't give a rat's ass if what they publish is true
or not as long as it is attributable to a source. That's where you fit
in. You are two or three levels below the National Enquirer because
they wouldn't even publish the sh-t you deal in. You get some anonymous
email and publish it as fact. It's bullsh-t and it's wrong, but it's
what you do for a living. No wonder you go broke, pal."
Luke: "Do I have the capability of doing people serious business damage?"
Scott: "You piss us off. I doubt you could do anything but achieve notoriety.
"You'll love this. Here's another reason why I want to beat your head
in. I'm in jail January 22nd. I'm up before the court on an application
for bail. The police prosecutor is making a long submission about why
I should be denied bail and languish in jail for two years to wait for
my latest trial to come up. And they read out a quote from your site
about what an asshole I am."
Much laughter in the background.
Scott: "Would you be pissed if you heard some anonymous unattributed
lie published as fact read out by a police prosecutor in a situation
where you have no right of reply and where your fate for the next two
years is up in the balance?"
Luke: "Yeah."
Scott: "I'd want to stomp on the f-ckhead who published those lies myself."
Luke: "How much time have you spent in jail?"
Scott: "Little bits here and there."
Luke: "The last time?"
Scott: "Torture, grievous bodily harm, armed robbery, kidnapping, extortion,
and a few other things. I'm innocent as sh-t. You can tell that by my
phone manner."
Luke: "Why didn't they put you away?"
Scott: "You're from here. You know how the justice system works. It's
been nearly a year and my committal hearing is only half heard. It will
be two plus years from now before they get around to sending me to jail.
Anything I did was absolutely categorically right and totally defensible.
I did the right thing. I behaved the right way because I know how to
act. The right way to act is to go through life honorably, honoring
your word, doing right by those who do right by you..."
Luke: "Which one person has influenced you the most?"
Scott: "A stockbroker down here named Guy Jones.
"I like to drink and I like to f-ck."
Luke: "Have you ever killed anyone?"
Scott: "If I had, would I be admitting to it, bonehead?
"My dad's a Jew but my mom's not. Therefore I am not a Jew."
Luke: "Do you believe in God?"
Scott: "Vaguely. A god."
Luke: "Do you believe in karma?"
Scott: "Oh yeah. Karma pays 2:1. You're going to figure that out one
day, son. You should look at your life. Why are you broke? This dumb
ass sh-t is broke and we even sponsor his lame-assed website."
Jeff: "No sh-t."
Luke: "How have you changed in the past two years?"
Jeff: "I've become more tolerant of others. Two years ago, I was going
to pull your eyes out and shove them down the back of your pants so
you could watch me kicking your ass."
Luke: "When strangers ask you what you do for a living, what do you say?"
Scott: "I say that I sell porn."
Luke: "What do they say?"
Scott: "Could I have a log-in?
"How did you go broke?"
Luke: "I sold my old website over a year ago and I've been living off
that for the past year while I've tried to make it in Hollywood."
Everyone bursts into hysterical mocking laughter.
Scott: "You are a well recognized player in what has to be one of the
most profitable industries on earth. You know all the top people. How
can you not turn a dollar out of it?"
Jeff: "He sold his own name."
Luke: "I have no abilities financially."
Jeff: "Why did you sell it? Were you scrounging for more coke money?"
Scott: "He must be a crackhead."
Luke: "For social reasons."
Jeff: "Maybe you should find a capitalist synagogue."
Scott: "God is about how you think and how you act and what happens
to you when you die and answering the big questions, it's not about
what you do here and now. Are you a traitor to your religion? I don't
think you are.
"There's a big difference between those who have Jewish blood in their
brains and those who don't. I identify strongly with Judaism and feel
the sh-t running through my veins like a river. I could be so f-cking
broke and I could make a million bucks in a heartbeat again."
Luke: "What advice would you give me to lead a better life?"
Scott: "Behave with integrity in your professional dealings and the
money flows like water."
Luke: "What part of your job do you enjoy the most?"
Scott: "The collecting the money part. Which part would you enjoy the
most? The part where you publish the lies or the part where you make
no money from them?"
Luke: "Neither. I enjoy the most when I believe I have written something
important and accurate."
Scott: "You add 'and accurate' as an afterthought. What you really crave
is notoriety. The truth of what you publish comes a distant second to
how much notoriety you are going to gain from publishing it. Your principles
aren't principles like those with a man of integrity. Your principles
are as bendable as the reeds because you don't care about anything except
attention. The reason you haven't made any money is that you have been
more interested in getting attention for yourself than in making money."
Luke: "A lot of people who know me would agree with you."
Scott: "Funny that. You're more of a slimeball than the worst slimeball
tabloid journalists."
I emailed Ron Levi the interview and he replied: "No comment."
Hans Burger says Scott Phillips is a liar. Hans
emailed me 7/25/05 that he caught Scott stealing his content.
ZZZ says: "Duc, your Vietnamese family should be proud. This interview
should earn you an extra scoop of rice. That was a masterpiece. For
a guy who hates you, he sure gave you nuggets of great information.
Ron Levi, JoeE, RB, Serge have never given you such good scoop. The
stuff about IBill was deadly accurate. Nobody has ever sat you down
and told you how it works like that.
"How did you get him on the phone? He sponsors your site? Sextraffic.com.
Oy ve! You slam him. He wants to beat you down. After reading this interview,
I want to go work for him. I like him. Show me somebody who's sane in
this business. Kidnapping, torture? He knows he can't get prosecuted.
If you had that mentality, you'd be a criminal too.
"Some people met up with Seth Warshavsky in Indonesia and stomped him
like a grape. He screwed over some audiotext guys in Indonesia. They
found him, beat the crap out of him and kicked him out of the country.
He'll never come back again. He's now in Thailand in phone sex.
"Were they taunting you? It was horrific? You loved it right, you masochist.
It's a great story."
Mutt writes on Oprano.com: That is great stuff, except the parts where
ScottPB tells Luke he's going to stomp his ass. The merchant account
thing is good information. Anybody know how accurate his info is about
each chargeback costing VISA 50 bucks. He figures that VISA, not the
banks, actually LOSES money handling porn transactions. I can't see
that being true, they'd have cut off adult completely if that was the
case. They'd score public relations points if they did, not sure if
there are any legal ramifications though.
A Letter From Scott Phillips
2003-04-13 08:38:35
I emailed him four months ago about the allegation
that he indulged at the last AVN show in January 2003 in Las Vegas.
Scott Phillips replies:
Well actually that’s not true –
my employees used a lot of everything, I picked up the tab. I’ve used
everything at one time or another when I was young and dumb, but I myself
rarely touch drugs or alcohol while I’m trying to get back to professional
fighting fitness (although I admit I overate like pig when I was in
your adopted country and I came back a fat f-ck) If you even intimate
that I’m a drug user in public I make the most sincere promise that
on my next trip to the US I will track you down and we we will have
that reckoning I have given you your temporary reprieve on.
As you well know I am facing five life sentences for torture, grevious
bodily harm, kidnapping, armed robbery, amongst 28 other felony charges.You
probably don’t remember or care but I came within 4/5’s of a fly's foreskin
of being denied bail and spending the last year and the next 2 languishing
in prison. After hearing the police prosecutor opposing my bail read
out the extensive and knowingly untrue things you wrote about me if
I was a judge I would have denied me bail myself. Don’t think I’ve forgotten
about that, you owe me, and you owe me big time. For nearly contributing
to the complete f-cking of my whole life, you will owe me until I tell
you otherwise. Anyway, glad to see you honored our agreement to get
my permission before writing anything about me. Perhaps there is hope
for your soulless, bottom feeding subsistence yet ;-)
I’m going to jail for either a very long (8+ years) or a tolerably short
time (3-6 months) anyways (for what I still believe was a morally correct
act) and trying to make as much money as possible to provide for my
family before that happens. My sentence will be one or the other, no
inbetween, and it might well turn on whether the judge views me as an
upstanding honest businessman in an innovative industry or a drug addled
repeat psychopath who enjoys torture even more than normal violence,
and thus deserves his success taken away. Luke, you know me, you come
from Brisbane, you know I’m one of only a handful of truly honest (and
not pretend fair weather honest businessmen) In this whole industry.
I even sponsor your crappy website for f-cks sake. Why do you constantly
write things about me that you know are untrue when the real truth is
certainly colorful enough? I’m trying to keep my total sentence below
10 years, which is the magic number here because the judge has the option
of suspending part of it, and you don’t get classified as a serious
repeat violent offender (what me only 14 times before this court on
violent matters before this current lot???) which means that I serve
80% of my sentence before parole instead of about 40%. And I serve it
in max security instead of a prison farm. As you might appreciate, this
issue is of concern to me, and I was most unimpressed to hear your unsubstantiated
anonymous tabloid factoids read as *fact* by a f-cking prosecutor! I’m
happy to send you the transcript so you can truly appreciate how your
irreseponsible rumormongering almost got me denied bail.
[DUC], I’m a private person, my controversial past unfortunately is
a matter of public record. However there isn’t a person on this planet
who can question my complete and total honesty in this business since
1996. Don’t write about me, please. And any person who tells you gossip
about me, forget your journalistic integrity crap which you have none
of anyway, you f-cking tell me *straight* away who is starting sh-t
about me. Sextraffic is a great program now. We don’t shave, we have
4 merchants to shuffle traffic behind, I take spam traffic, and my sites
convert so well they even make me vomit.
7/27/05
A source writes:
I just saw a story on Australia's 'A
Current Affair' dealing with a loan sharking operation in Brisbane
called 3 Point Finance. It dealt with the usual idiots, in over their
heads and looking for any loan possible, then taking the worst possible
option. I wasn't really paying much attention, the details I did glean
were the company wouldn't settle loans and tried to string out the
payments until the customer was in at over 100% in interest. It said
some Brisbane lawyer ran the company but then what piqued my interest
and made me pay attention was the name Scott Phillips as someone else
involved in the company. One of those in debt was a young mother with
5 children and the lawyer involved (didn't get his name) made the
threat, when the loan wouldn't be settled, that he knew where her
children went to school. Scott Phillips was named as making millions
from internet porn, it showed an air shot of his Brisbane mansion
then also mentioned he was facing only 12 charges including deprivation
of liberty, kidnapping and torture. And claimed he was now hiding
out in a bungalow in Bali. The only shot of Phillips was a slow mo
take of him striding down a city street.
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