Sony has
confirmed that it will not be supporting the production or
replication of pornography on Blu-ray discs, closing off a
potentially lucrative market.
The Japanese electronics giant said last week that it had a long
standing policy against the use of its media to distribute
pornography.
Many adult movie studios have now announced that they are
standardising on HD-DVD, which offers slightly reduced storage and
picture quality but at a much lower cost per unit than
Blu-ray.
Sony has had a run-in with the pornography industry in previous
format wars. The decision by the adult industry to standardise on
the VHS format over Sony's Betamax has been seen as one of the
deciding factors in the success of VHS.
Industry trade publication Adult Video News said that the pornography
industry generated $12.92bn last year, and that video and DVD
distribution accounted for around a third of that total at
$3.6bn.
However, the adult industry may not be so quick to move to high
definition as some commentators believe.
Internet distribution now takes up a sizeable proportion of the
pornography business, and some in the industry are worried that
high definition will reveal too much.
"The biggest problem is razor burn," said Stormy Daniels, a porn
actress, writer and director told the New York Times. "I am not 100
per cent sure why anyone would want to see their porn in
HD."