Charged magazine talks about the growth of adult content as a significant source of revenue for the mobile industry. CARTT has a story this week that refers to TELUS offering adult content.

Traditionally, one of the least talked about drivers of new consumer technologies has been pornography: VCRs, pay-per-view, CD-ROMs, DVDs, internet commerce all whisper a begrudged acknowledgement toward the contribution of the adult entertainment industry.

It is no accident that the Consumer Electronics Show and the Adult Entertainment Expo are scheduled to coincide each year.

For some reason, the mobile industry has not exploited the power of porn within its walled garden of restricted access to applications. Until now.

The current issue of Charged speaks about the a global mobile adult content market to generate $1.4B this year, rising to $3.3B over 5 years. It is a slower growth rate than mobile music and games, but the article refers to this as

one of the most heavily regulated and constrained content genres.

Rather than constrained content, I’d blame the reduced growth rate on the constrained nature of the mobile platform itself. No longer limited by slow download speeds and monochrome screens, more because of carriers retaining control of the mobile devices’ desktop.

Adult content: wallpapers, graphics, ringtones, video clips and games. Just who is going to watch and play on a mobile phone, versus their computer? When does a client choose one device versus another?

And what happens if a colleague glances over at your display screen as you scroll a little too far on the menu into that special zone?

It will probably make them think twice about asking you to turn your phone to silent mode.

Technorati Tags:
Charge, TELUS, mobile, porn, CES, AEE

In late December, George Gilder’s blog had an excerpt from his January Gilder Report: “Law Number One of the Telecosm“. to assist those who aren’t subscribers of Gilder, Forbes published all ten of Gilder’s laws.

I liked Gilder’s citation of Claude Shannon, who defined information in terms of surprise – the change from the normal state. Of course, when you stop to think about it, that is precidely the principle behind compression algorithms.

Gilder extends this to say that in networking, the carrier needs to be predictable to permit the information to be distinguished from noise.

The heart of capitalism is creativity. Creativity, as Albert Hirshmann of Princeton once wrote, always comes as a surprise to us. If it didn’t we would not need it. Socialism would work. But the upside surprises of creativity require a low entropy environment of predictable property rights, taxes and other business laws ultimately based on trust in a moral order. All these conditions are essential to an entrepreneurial economy.

An interesting article – with observations certain to provide fodder for coffee-time chats this week.

Technorati Tags:
Gilder, Forbes, Shannon

Over the weekend, the Globe and Mail carried a piece about copyright piracy and the movies. The article stimulated discussion from Michael Geist and Rob Hyndman.

I’ll leave it to you to skip to their pieces. My contribution would be to also steer you to an interesting copyright case involving chocolate. It seems that Kraft has been using its Canadian rights to the artwork on a label as a means to restrict a Quebec company that has been importing the same chocolate on its own and undercutting Kraft’s price.

Can Kraft limit the ability of a company to sell chocolate that it has legally purchased in another country and imported it to Canada? Implications for DVDs, music, TVs, watches.

It is another twist to add to the intellectual property debate. Globalization and free markets – what are reasonable limits?

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Update: [January 15, 9:15 am]
There is a report that Swedish firm The Pirate Bay is considering purchasing its own country in order to escape international copyright agreements. The owner of Sealand, a former military platform 7 miles off the coast of England, declared independence in 1967 and won a favorable court ruling that Britain could not claim sovereignty.

Technorati Tags:
Michael Geist, Rob Hyndman, Kraft