As the chart shows, three of the top threats to the old-school Internet porn world are XTube, AEBN, and YouPorn. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, XTube earns "millions" from DVD and streaming video sales. AEBN, despite its lower traffic numbers, annually pulls in around a hundred million dollars from advertising. YouPorn, which faces a copyright infringement suit from Vivid, earns about $120,000 in revenues per month, according to Portfolio.

PornoTube, like YouTube, purports to respect copyright but hides behind the provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which places the burden on copyright holders to report offending material. Vivid's attorney, Paul Cambria, thinks that is unfair: "Vivid should not have to take responsibility for policing PornoTube on a minute-by-minute basis to protect its rights." Viacom makes much the same argument, and won concessions from Google on that point recently.

But Vivid is also making the additional claim that PornoTube is violating the federal Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act. Accusing PornoTube of violating the Child Protection Act is interesting because the requirements PornoTube is alleged to be violating were recently overturned. An appeals court ruled that requiring "secondary producers" of sexual content to record personal information for online video's so-called "performers" was onerous and unconstitutional. However, the judges expressed the view that the requirements could be legal if "secondary producer" was properly defined.

As a primary producer of porn, Vivid already complies with these "2257" requirements. Still, why would any porn operation seek greater regulation of its trade? Perhaps so. Vivid specializes in high-production-values, long-form porn. Anything that makes life harder for amateur competitors may serve the pros well. As for its customers? They just want things harder.