Gawker: valleywag, joe francis

Girls Gone Wild's Joe Francis pleads for support on YouTube

Jackson West — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Joe Francis, the creepy smutrepreneur who teased us all with promises of Ashley Alexandra Dupré footage, has taken to the Internet to demand his rights under the Constitution. Seems a judge and prosecutors in Panama City, FL abused Francis in all sorts of illegal and unethical ways. The sad thing is that I have to support Francis on this issue. And if you like your porn cheap and freely available, you probably should, too.

Ashley Alexandre Dupré drops suit, Joe Francis to take his cut

Jackson West — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:40:00 EDT

Well after the Eliot Spitzer scandal has subsided and bronzed call girl Ashley Dupré no longer makes headlines, she's dropped her case against Girls Gone Wild's entrepreneurial ex-con Joe Francis over the online release of a video characteristic of Francis's oeuvre. We can only hope the young Dupré, pictured here in her high school yearbook, walked away with not just a settlement up front but points on the back end. Sadly, the market cap on her performance can have only been diminished by the wait — I can imagine a band manager-type, buoyed by well-bankrolled rap videos, holding out for mainstream money.

Not to mention the lawyers along the way happy to take 40 percent, knowing all along that at best a confidential deal would be struck so that Francis could get on with the business of spooning out the dozens of hours of Dupré footage to horny Web gossips. But then maybe waiting to settle was the smart economic move — the GGW site no longer features Dupré as a come-on, and if I were Francis I'd sign whatever it took to restore my sagging search rank.

Why can't Joe Francis get it up for Ashley Dupre?

Jackson West — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:20:37 EDT

The video Joe Francis has promised would be on the Girls Gone Wild homepage yesterday evening was finally posted this afternoon, but reveals nothing beyond what's in the stills. The Associated Press has more footage than Francis's customers, who can claim deceptive advertising if their Dupré-motivated signups don't deliver on the naughty bits. There's nothing in the members' area, the site is slow to respond, and support emails remain unanswered. Francis could be playing the tease and building anticipation. Or perhaps he's worried that after an explosive burst of traffic, the site would go down. Which is surprising, because commenter Dweezil tells us Francis's backend is fully scalable.

Girls Gone Wild tests online video's mass appeal with Ashley Dupre

Jackson West — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 03:38:30 EDT

Leave it to skeevy softcore baron Joe Francis to prove, irrefutably the commercial merits of digital video and online distribution. Until the advent of cheap cameras, storage and a timely way to get the footage to the masses with little fear of censorship, Francis's Girls Gone Wild cameramen would never have shot seven hours of a then-unknown Ashley Alexandra Dupré shaking her rump, gettin' nekkid and kissing other teens. The Internet makes everything cheaper: Francis had offered Dupré $1 million to appear in a video, until he discovered she was already in his archives. Which means he's getting her for the price of beer and a bus ticket.

Dupré's R&B track has netted her six figures so far. But imagine how many $29.95 signups Francis will see from the video excerpted above — not to mention continued monthly billings to lazy horndogs who forget to cancel their accounts. Guess who else won't be cashing in? Hustler, Vivid, Skinemax or any other old-media video distributor. In less than 48 hours, any footage he posts will be on file sharing networks for free. That's why Francis knows he has to move this product fast.

A lesson to young women: Protect your long tails. Don't sign on the dotted line without a lawyer or agent present, and make sure you hold onto the source footage. It might just be worth something, and Valleywag would rather see you cash in than Francis any day.

(Still and clip from Girls Gone Wild)