WEBVTT - Episode 4: Playboy vs. Rusty and Edie 0:00:15.516 --> 0:00:24.516 Pushkin. Right before we start, we're two Financial Times journalists 0:00:24.836 --> 0:00:28.796 trying to work out who rules the porn industry. So 0:00:29.516 --> 0:00:37.356 this show has adult themes. I want to take you 0:00:37.476 --> 0:00:42.356 to a suburban shopping plaza in Ohio. It's nineteen ninety three. 0:00:42.956 --> 0:00:46.276 We're in the middle of America's rust belt. There's a 0:00:46.316 --> 0:00:51.436 two paced store place selling furniture, and tucked in a corner, 0:00:51.676 --> 0:00:57.476 a little company for interactive computer services. I know it 0:00:57.516 --> 0:01:02.196 sounds ridiculous, but if the Internet has roots, they stretch 0:01:02.276 --> 0:01:06.996 to here, to this modest shopping center in Youngstown, Ohio, 0:01:07.876 --> 0:01:15.836 to that corner business. Every social media website you visit today, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, 0:01:16.716 --> 0:01:20.716 these platforms are able to operate in part thanks to them. 0:01:20.756 --> 0:01:25.676 A family run IT business, A family run IT business 0:01:25.796 --> 0:01:30.036 with what was possibly the biggest stash of digital pawn 0:01:30.836 --> 0:01:35.596 in America. Today's power dynamics and porn came from here, 0:01:36.476 --> 0:01:39.676 straight from that family to the most powerful pornographers of 0:01:39.756 --> 0:01:42.756 the twenty first century, the people we've been talking about 0:01:42.796 --> 0:01:46.116 on this show. And you know we told you in 0:01:46.116 --> 0:01:49.396 previous episodes that the masters of the adult tube sites 0:01:49.436 --> 0:01:51.876 were able to get away with making money from other 0:01:51.916 --> 0:01:56.636 people's content. The answer to how lies here and the 0:01:56.756 --> 0:02:01.236 choices of an Ohio family back in the nineties. This family, 0:02:01.716 --> 0:02:05.476 the Hardenbergs, define what it means to moderate content and 0:02:05.556 --> 0:02:11.676 cyberspace and what happens when you go to far. My 0:02:11.796 --> 0:02:15.116 name is Russell Francis Hardenberg, the fourth and I'm a 0:02:15.116 --> 0:02:17.996 sales manager at a car dealership. Russ is one of 0:02:18.036 --> 0:02:21.196 two sons who worked at the IT business back in 0:02:21.236 --> 0:02:24.036 the day. When I first called him and said I 0:02:24.076 --> 0:02:27.956 was a journalist, he slammed the phone down. I'm so pleased. 0:02:28.076 --> 0:02:33.396 I tried again. After some apologetic mumbling, I said to Russ, 0:02:33.836 --> 0:02:37.556 I want to hear how your family changed the history 0:02:37.716 --> 0:02:42.076 of the Internet, and after a pause, he replied, okay, 0:02:42.636 --> 0:02:45.716 call me after work. The Internet was so new that 0:02:45.916 --> 0:02:49.276 there was some question whether you took a book and 0:02:49.436 --> 0:02:55.116 converted it to text where the copyright laws still would 0:02:55.116 --> 0:02:57.636 that apply to that It was just the wild West 0:02:57.676 --> 0:03:09.116 at first, and that's the difference Russ and his family made. 0:03:09.876 --> 0:03:13.276 Their mistakes helped lay the ground rules for an online world. 0:03:14.276 --> 0:03:17.316 Who owns digital media, who has a right to share it, 0:03:17.356 --> 0:03:21.556 and most importantly, how the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world 0:03:21.596 --> 0:03:24.916 can run online platforms and stay off the hook even 0:03:24.996 --> 0:03:29.196 when illegal content is being shared on their sites. I'm 0:03:29.196 --> 0:03:33.316 Patrician Wilson. I'm Alex Barker from Pushkin Industries and The 0:03:33.356 --> 0:04:07.516 Financial Times. This is Hot Money, Act One, a Shared World. 0:04:12.436 --> 0:04:15.636 Later in this episode, Russ and a stepbrother will tell 0:04:15.716 --> 0:04:19.436 their family story pretty much for the first time. It's 0:04:19.436 --> 0:04:22.076 the story that created the ground rules for the modern 0:04:22.156 --> 0:04:26.516 porn industry. But before then, we want to take you 0:04:26.596 --> 0:04:31.036 further back in history, to the nineteen eighties, the moment 0:04:31.116 --> 0:04:35.316 that online porn first came into being. Let's meet one 0:04:35.396 --> 0:04:40.316 of the world's first digital pronographers. His name is Dan Lewis. 0:04:40.996 --> 0:04:48.436 So around nineteen eighty I bought my first personal computer. 0:04:48.556 --> 0:04:52.396 It was a Radio Shack TRSA D Model one. It 0:04:52.436 --> 0:04:55.196 was pretty pretty exciting at the time. Your storage device 0:04:55.276 --> 0:04:58.556 was a cassette tape recorder. The TRSA D the biggest 0:04:58.636 --> 0:05:03.556 name in little computers only and Radio Shack attending company. 0:05:05.636 --> 0:05:08.556 As far as we can work out, Dan wasn't just 0:05:08.636 --> 0:05:12.516 one of the first online pornographers, he was possibly the 0:05:12.596 --> 0:05:15.556 first one to actually turn a profit from it. He's 0:05:15.596 --> 0:05:18.716 a New Yorker and he looks like a regular boomer. 0:05:19.036 --> 0:05:23.636 Beard classes a friendly uncle type. He wasn't easy to find. 0:05:23.796 --> 0:05:28.276 By the way, Dan Lewis is his cover name. Yes, 0:05:28.836 --> 0:05:32.596 another guy with a cover name. Out of desperation, I 0:05:32.716 --> 0:05:35.876 tried an email address from an advert for something called 0:05:35.876 --> 0:05:39.636 the bulletin board. It was from nineteen ninety four, but 0:05:39.796 --> 0:05:44.756 somehow it worked. You could dial up bulletin boards and 0:05:45.036 --> 0:05:49.876 exchange messages with people and you know, find out some 0:05:49.956 --> 0:05:54.076 technical information. Now he might have heard of arper net 0:05:54.116 --> 0:05:57.956 and usenet, the early ways that academics and military types 0:05:58.196 --> 0:06:02.516 communicated online. Bullets and boards used a similar technology, but 0:06:02.676 --> 0:06:05.796 they were for the private world, not just public institutions. 0:06:06.196 --> 0:06:09.676 Anybody could use them. Dan's computer was in his bedroom 0:06:09.796 --> 0:06:13.836 in Queens. The equipment wasn't cheap, and in Dan's case, 0:06:14.236 --> 0:06:18.116 now university or government was paying the bills. He would 0:06:18.116 --> 0:06:20.516 pick up the chunky telephone handset and plug it into 0:06:20.516 --> 0:06:24.716 an even bigger box the modem. Through the modem, he 0:06:24.716 --> 0:06:27.756 would then dial another computer in some far off places, 0:06:28.276 --> 0:06:31.996 the bulletin Board system or BBS. It was a shared 0:06:32.036 --> 0:06:38.516 world games, basic software, conspiracy theories, bad jokes. If you 0:06:38.596 --> 0:06:41.356 knew which board to dial up and you could master 0:06:41.436 --> 0:06:46.356 the clunky tech, it was all there and young Dan. 0:06:46.756 --> 0:06:49.556 He was in his early twenties. Den he got more 0:06:49.556 --> 0:06:52.796 and more obsessed. He was dialing up at eleven o'clock 0:06:52.796 --> 0:06:55.996 at night to keep his meteoric phone bills down. He 0:06:56.116 --> 0:07:01.116 was broken, barely scraping together money for rent. So I 0:07:01.236 --> 0:07:04.756 started trying to think about is there a way I 0:07:04.876 --> 0:07:10.196 could leverage this and supplement my income? Well, what other 0:07:10.316 --> 0:07:15.596 kinds of BBS related services might people pay for? And 0:07:15.796 --> 0:07:19.196 decided that, you know what, the only thing people will 0:07:19.276 --> 0:07:23.276 pay for is sex. People are horny, people are purian. 0:07:23.436 --> 0:07:28.756 People want to see images of other naked people, or 0:07:28.796 --> 0:07:32.596 they want to see them engage in activities that they 0:07:32.636 --> 0:07:35.756 can't try now, or want it try or have it tried. 0:07:35.756 --> 0:07:39.356 It's just human nature. Back in nineteen eighty four, a 0:07:39.436 --> 0:07:44.076 bulletin board interface just had text bright neon green text, 0:07:44.836 --> 0:07:48.996 but you could download simple images, games, that kind of stuff. 0:07:49.796 --> 0:07:53.756 Dan's idea was to specialize. He wanted to launch a 0:07:53.836 --> 0:07:59.236 BBS dedicated to adult stuff, an erotic platform for the uninhabited. 0:08:00.516 --> 0:08:04.436 The cool started rolling in with hindsight. The technology was 0:08:04.596 --> 0:08:10.276 laughably basic. Dance system aislenet was running it one thousand, 0:08:10.476 --> 0:08:15.756 two hundred bits per second, no kill abits, no megabits, 0:08:15.756 --> 0:08:19.996 just bits. So how did it work? Well, you'd sit 0:08:20.036 --> 0:08:23.716 down at your computer, so you'd go to your dialing list. Okay, 0:08:23.716 --> 0:08:25.916 which bbs do I want to call? All right, let's 0:08:25.916 --> 0:08:28.676 call this. When you click on it, and you'll hear 0:08:28.756 --> 0:08:35.916 Procom dialing the modem. Then it'll ring and the modem 0:08:35.956 --> 0:08:38.716 will answer. If you haven't heard what a modem sounds like, 0:08:38.836 --> 0:08:42.556 it sounds a little bit like a fax tone. And 0:08:42.836 --> 0:08:45.556 you're connected. So you'd get a welcome screen, and then 0:08:45.556 --> 0:08:49.436 you might get a list of subcategories of files. It's okay, 0:08:49.476 --> 0:08:53.076 so you click on the adult section, and then you 0:08:53.156 --> 0:08:58.436 might get another sub menu of women, men, women, and men, 0:08:58.836 --> 0:09:02.116 and you pick what you want and it'll download. Now 0:09:02.156 --> 0:09:04.436 the fun begins, ing bing bing, bing bing, and it 0:09:04.516 --> 0:09:07.916 ends up on your computer. Then you get to look 0:09:07.956 --> 0:09:12.156 at your picture. Isn't that easy? You had to be 0:09:12.196 --> 0:09:17.796 patient that bing bing bing took minutes, not seconds, But 0:09:18.356 --> 0:09:22.876 for porn, people were willing to wait and they would 0:09:22.876 --> 0:09:27.676 pay for it. At first, Dan charged ten dollars to subscribers. 0:09:28.276 --> 0:09:31.316 Then I went to forty five a year. The checks 0:09:31.356 --> 0:09:34.636 were being mailed to him in the post. It didn't 0:09:34.676 --> 0:09:37.436 take long until Dan was making as much from his 0:09:37.516 --> 0:09:40.316 adult side as he was from his day job, and 0:09:40.396 --> 0:09:42.916 I mean it was tremendous. Those were the best years. 0:09:43.196 --> 0:09:47.676 Those were absolutely the best years. You know what's really 0:09:47.716 --> 0:09:51.756 striking about that time, pioneers like Dan were on a 0:09:51.836 --> 0:09:55.036 tiny scale revealing what was about to hit us, all 0:09:55.716 --> 0:10:00.276 dirty pictures, software, even the written word. If digital goods 0:10:00.276 --> 0:10:04.196 could be copied, they would be copied NonStop and shared 0:10:04.236 --> 0:10:07.756 far and wide. And the law, well, as we'll tell 0:10:07.796 --> 0:10:11.516 you in a bit, caught up. Yet in this legal 0:10:11.596 --> 0:10:15.236 no man's land, Dan could become a pornographer of sorts, 0:10:15.636 --> 0:10:19.236 all from his bedroom in Queens without ever having taken 0:10:19.236 --> 0:10:22.316 a photo or set foot on a porn set. Even 0:10:22.356 --> 0:10:25.196 in the age of bulletin boards, people were beginning to 0:10:25.236 --> 0:10:30.156 realize the implications. Dan's operation was relatively modest, just a 0:10:30.156 --> 0:10:34.876 few telephone lines. He kept his head down. But some 0:10:34.956 --> 0:10:39.116 other operators were not so shy, operators like Rusty and 0:10:39.436 --> 0:10:43.116 Edie Hardenberg. Rusty and Edy was really big and they 0:10:43.196 --> 0:10:46.156 had I don't even know how many phone lines they had, 0:10:46.236 --> 0:10:50.316 and obviously invested a lot of money and their objective 0:10:50.476 --> 0:10:55.236 clearly was to make their living off this completely Rusty 0:10:55.276 --> 0:10:58.676 and edis bulletin board veterans talk of them with a 0:10:58.716 --> 0:11:02.556 wistful air, and let me give you a clue. Their 0:11:02.556 --> 0:11:06.316 office was in Youngstown, Ohio, in a little strip mall 0:11:06.836 --> 0:11:10.276 next to a two pay stall. Rusty Needy were the 0:11:10.396 --> 0:11:13.756 father and stepmother of Russ, the guy we heard from 0:11:13.796 --> 0:11:17.036 earlier in the show. They were the family who laid 0:11:17.076 --> 0:11:27.236 the rules for the way the internet works today. To 0:11:27.356 --> 0:11:31.756 take a look at this advert I found for Rusty 0:11:31.796 --> 0:11:37.756 and Needs from a magazine in the early nineties. Well, 0:11:37.756 --> 0:11:40.756 so I'm looking at two owls they snuggled up wing 0:11:40.836 --> 0:11:45.076 to wing. Some text here. It says we are the 0:11:45.116 --> 0:11:48.556 friendliest bbs in the world. Our name says at all. 0:11:49.236 --> 0:11:51.316 Ed and I are a couple of burnouts from the 0:11:51.436 --> 0:11:54.836 nineteen sixties. We didn't like rules, Dan, and we don't. 0:11:54.916 --> 0:11:58.316 Now come on in and relax. You'll be among friends. 0:11:59.076 --> 0:12:02.516 It's a great copy, isn't it. It's fantastic. You know, 0:12:02.676 --> 0:12:06.636 this was the Rusty and Edy brand. It was great marketing. 0:12:06.876 --> 0:12:10.196 It worked. I mean they were the Ben and Jerry's 0:12:10.476 --> 0:12:15.236 of nineteen eighties home computing. You reached their bulletin board 0:12:15.516 --> 0:12:20.716 and there was in big green letters, first rule, have fun, 0:12:21.036 --> 0:12:25.356 second rule, no more rules and exactly and you know 0:12:25.436 --> 0:12:29.396 they would not have thought of themselves as pornographers, not 0:12:29.436 --> 0:12:34.556 for a second, but almost by accident, they helped define 0:12:34.956 --> 0:12:39.716 what paun would become in an online age. So did 0:12:39.716 --> 0:12:43.476 you manage to speak to them? Rusty passed a few 0:12:43.556 --> 0:12:46.236 years ago, and I would loved to have spoken to him, 0:12:46.716 --> 0:12:50.236 but I did reach Ed and we had an amazing conversation. 0:12:50.276 --> 0:12:53.756 But talking about Rusty and Ed's it just brought back 0:12:53.796 --> 0:12:57.916 too many memories for her, so she didn't want to 0:12:57.916 --> 0:13:00.476 talk on tape, and instead she put me in touch 0:13:00.516 --> 0:13:04.916 with her son, Sean McFarland, and he's an Army vet. 0:13:05.436 --> 0:13:09.756 He runs a chain of convenience stores, and we spoke 0:13:09.796 --> 0:13:13.556 to him from a garage that looked more like an 0:13:13.596 --> 0:13:17.636 aircraft hanger. Have you got a helicopter, just a little one? Yeah? Yeah, 0:13:17.836 --> 0:13:20.756 that's quite dead in the army. So my son and 0:13:20.796 --> 0:13:23.396 I like to fly around, go have a burger and 0:13:23.476 --> 0:13:27.516 a pot. Sean didn't always run convenience stores and zip 0:13:27.516 --> 0:13:31.276 around in a helicopter growing up. He helps his family 0:13:31.436 --> 0:13:37.276 run their business. I built the computers in I networked 0:13:37.316 --> 0:13:41.836 and made him talk to each other. He remembers his stepfather, Rusty, 0:13:41.916 --> 0:13:46.396 as a man of outsized passions. Any hobby would become industry. 0:13:46.876 --> 0:13:50.316 Their house would fill with cigars or fish tanks. There 0:13:50.316 --> 0:13:54.916 were fifteen at one point, or big bulky computers, dozens 0:13:54.956 --> 0:13:59.116 of them. Rusty actually wasn't an old, burned out hippie. 0:13:59.676 --> 0:14:03.556 He was a retired insurance manager and a lifelong libertarian. 0:14:05.196 --> 0:14:09.116 He hated being told what to do, not just by government, 0:14:09.516 --> 0:14:13.916 but by anyone. Frankly, so when he started visiting bulletin boards. 0:14:14.036 --> 0:14:17.916 You can guess what happened next. So he goes, why 0:14:17.916 --> 0:14:21.676 don't I start my own with no rules? So he 0:14:21.796 --> 0:14:25.316 wanted no rolls are free for all, do whatever you 0:14:25.356 --> 0:14:28.996 wanted to do. He wasn't the only one. A lot 0:14:29.036 --> 0:14:31.676 of bulletin board folks were making up rules on the go. 0:14:33.076 --> 0:14:36.716 Nobody really knew who owned a digital copy of a 0:14:36.716 --> 0:14:40.396 physical image or a piece of text. A lot of 0:14:40.396 --> 0:14:45.476 them didn't care. Now, Russ, the hardenburg Son who I 0:14:45.556 --> 0:14:47.796 talked to at the beginning of the show, the one 0:14:47.836 --> 0:14:50.956 who put the phone down on me. Russ was helping 0:14:50.956 --> 0:14:54.276 his father Rusty on the software side and handling the 0:14:54.316 --> 0:14:59.596 fallout from having no rules. When did adult materials start right? 0:14:59.636 --> 0:15:02.876 From the get go, so at first it was just 0:15:03.716 --> 0:15:08.316 grany scanned photographs, and then they came up with short 0:15:08.436 --> 0:15:15.036 little which were thirty second mini movies. Did RUSS have 0:15:15.076 --> 0:15:19.956 any qualms about having adult content on the system, Not really. 0:15:20.116 --> 0:15:23.276 I mean it's a libertarian yet we're not hurting anybody. 0:15:23.276 --> 0:15:27.636 There are adults. Some came for the game's sex chat 0:15:27.676 --> 0:15:31.156 and dating. Edy told us that a few people got 0:15:31.196 --> 0:15:34.636 married after meeting in their forums, but for others well. 0:15:35.636 --> 0:15:39.396 Rusty and Edy amassed one of the world's biggest collections 0:15:39.476 --> 0:15:43.276 of digital porn. By nineteen ninety three, Rusty and Needy 0:15:43.316 --> 0:15:46.436 had hosted roughly three and a half million calls in total, 0:15:46.756 --> 0:15:50.636 around four thousand on any given day. Calls came in 0:15:50.716 --> 0:15:55.156 from all over the world, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and 0:15:55.196 --> 0:15:57.876 as the business grew, Rusty and Needy had to find 0:15:57.916 --> 0:16:02.116 space for dozens of computers. First the equipment filled the 0:16:02.156 --> 0:16:06.236 bedroom of Rusty's two room apartment, then the hall, then 0:16:06.276 --> 0:16:10.476 the entire basement of their new home. The servers produced 0:16:10.556 --> 0:16:14.276 so much heat Rusty installed a four ton air conditioner 0:16:14.756 --> 0:16:17.076 and it was still like a sauna. We had working 0:16:17.116 --> 0:16:18.956 even in a winner in shorts and a fu shirt. 0:16:19.356 --> 0:16:23.036 It was just hot. I mean he was a good businessman. 0:16:23.436 --> 0:16:24.756 I mean did he make a lot of money out 0:16:24.796 --> 0:16:29.596 of this? Oh? Yeah, he did very well. Those overheated 0:16:29.636 --> 0:16:34.476 servers hosted around nineteen gigabytes of data. These days you 0:16:34.556 --> 0:16:37.436 carry ten times that data in your pocket. But back 0:16:37.436 --> 0:16:41.956 then this was like Aladdin's Cave. It was getting attention. 0:16:42.716 --> 0:16:47.076 Some commercial software makers got upset, as did some porn barrens, 0:16:47.316 --> 0:16:58.196 and then there was the FBI Act too, the dangers 0:16:58.316 --> 0:17:03.476 of moderation. So far, the Rusty and Needy story is 0:17:03.476 --> 0:17:08.236 a sort of libertarian dream. An entrepreneurial family creates an 0:17:08.236 --> 0:17:11.996 online space with no rules and builds it into a 0:17:12.036 --> 0:17:16.756 successful family business. Now we come to the part of 0:17:16.756 --> 0:17:20.596 the story where the government strikes back. It's a moment 0:17:20.716 --> 0:17:25.396 so dramatic that even three decades later, Edie couldn't bear 0:17:25.476 --> 0:17:29.116 to talk about it. The night at the raid, it 0:17:29.196 --> 0:17:33.316 was my sister's wedding day, and I think they planned 0:17:33.316 --> 0:17:35.676 it that way. So we went at be home. We 0:17:35.676 --> 0:17:39.636 were all at the reception and my stepbrother Sean had 0:17:39.676 --> 0:17:41.556 to go back to the house to get something. I 0:17:41.676 --> 0:17:45.236 was coming home with my girlfriend. I like pulling the 0:17:45.316 --> 0:17:47.916 driver and I go, WHOA, what's all these cards still 0:17:47.956 --> 0:17:50.316 in here? And then I walked up to the garage 0:17:50.356 --> 0:17:53.276 and bunch of guys with the FBI jacket song came 0:17:53.316 --> 0:17:55.716 and asked me who I was. They kicked the door 0:17:55.836 --> 0:18:00.236 in and they came in all different directions. Was gigantic. 0:18:00.316 --> 0:18:03.996 They had guns and they seized everything. They took every computer, 0:18:04.156 --> 0:18:07.596 every server, everything out of the house. They took all 0:18:07.596 --> 0:18:10.156 our records, everything we had, they took it all. My 0:18:10.236 --> 0:18:14.996 father was terrified. They weren't alleged they had legally distributed 0:18:15.036 --> 0:18:18.516 software without permission of the copyright owners, but there was 0:18:18.556 --> 0:18:22.316 more to it than that. By the early nineties, Congress 0:18:22.316 --> 0:18:25.036 and the FBI had woken up to the digital economy. 0:18:25.876 --> 0:18:30.516 The press was raising alarm about cyber porn. The FBI 0:18:30.596 --> 0:18:35.636 wanted to set some boundaries. The government seize the business 0:18:35.676 --> 0:18:39.116 just because they wanted to look around and see if 0:18:39.116 --> 0:18:42.116 we were doing anything wrong. For two and a half years, 0:18:42.116 --> 0:18:46.076 they took a man's business, all his hardware. You can 0:18:46.116 --> 0:18:49.836 probably tell from Russ's voice the memories are still raw 0:18:49.956 --> 0:18:53.276 for the family. It's the reason Edie wouldn't speak to us. 0:18:53.516 --> 0:18:56.276 Just thinking back to that day gave her sleepless nights. 0:18:56.356 --> 0:18:57.836 It was a little point in her life too. I 0:18:57.876 --> 0:19:01.276 mean they literally thought they were going to prison. And 0:19:01.356 --> 0:19:02.956 I mean, I don't care how much money you have, 0:19:03.836 --> 0:19:08.676 you can't fight Uncle Sam. He's got endless money. Somehow, 0:19:08.796 --> 0:19:11.596 Russ Do you Need's bulletin Board got back online after 0:19:11.636 --> 0:19:15.156 the FBI swooped. They had backups, they bought new computers, 0:19:15.476 --> 0:19:18.476 and they had the shopping plaza office. The thing is, 0:19:19.116 --> 0:19:22.316 there was a second punch, another crisis for the family, 0:19:23.156 --> 0:19:26.076 one that actually helped create the internet we have today. 0:19:26.716 --> 0:19:29.676 It came a few months after the raid, a lawsuit 0:19:30.076 --> 0:19:34.596 straight from Hugh Hefner's mansion. The Playboy founder had realized 0:19:34.636 --> 0:19:38.636 that his pictures were being shared online digital copies, and 0:19:38.756 --> 0:19:42.356 he wasn't being paid, so the he decided to fight back. 0:19:43.436 --> 0:19:46.876 He sent a female staffer on an undercover mission. She 0:19:47.036 --> 0:19:49.996 signed up to Rusty's bulletin Board under a fake name, 0:19:50.636 --> 0:19:54.596 Bob Campbell, and don't we love fake names on this podcast. 0:19:55.476 --> 0:20:01.356 Her mission to hunt down copied Playboy picks. You gotta remember, 0:20:01.396 --> 0:20:04.956 we had maybe one hundred to two hundred thousand images 0:20:04.996 --> 0:20:09.356 on our servers, and I think they found five. Remember 0:20:09.396 --> 0:20:14.196 which pictures they were? They said, Bo Derek. Playboy actually 0:20:14.276 --> 0:20:17.036 presented around twenty images to the court, but it was 0:20:17.076 --> 0:20:20.676 still a tiny fraction of the pictures available. I like 0:20:20.836 --> 0:20:23.596 to think they were all of bow Derek. She was 0:20:23.636 --> 0:20:26.396 the actress from the movie ten cast in the role 0:20:26.436 --> 0:20:29.556 of the Perfect Woman. Dudley Moore dreamed of her bouncing 0:20:29.596 --> 0:20:33.396 towards him on a beach. Now. Even before the lawsuit, 0:20:33.836 --> 0:20:37.636 Rusty had a hunch Playboy in particular would come for 0:20:37.756 --> 0:20:41.436 him someday, so he made his son Russ, screen every 0:20:41.556 --> 0:20:44.596 uploaded image. He was a gatekeeper, one of the first 0:20:44.636 --> 0:20:48.436 online moderators, and he told him to keep a particular 0:20:48.476 --> 0:20:52.836 eye out for Playboy images. Rusty even commissioned software to 0:20:52.876 --> 0:20:55.956 find Playboy picks and take them down. For the pictures 0:20:55.956 --> 0:21:01.436 of bow Derek, they somehow slipped through. Rusty's case settled. 0:21:01.796 --> 0:21:06.196 His insurance company covered the settlement amount, but this case 0:21:06.836 --> 0:21:12.076 was remembered for something else. No would digitalized information. Did 0:21:12.076 --> 0:21:15.556 the copyrights still stand for print information? That was a 0:21:15.596 --> 0:21:20.076 gray area, but the Playboy ruling kind of started the 0:21:20.836 --> 0:21:25.836 if it's digitalized, it's still under copyright rule. The judge 0:21:25.956 --> 0:21:29.556 ruled against Rusty precisely because he had asked his son 0:21:29.636 --> 0:21:34.036 to moderate the uploads by being responsible. By screening every file, 0:21:34.596 --> 0:21:38.636 Rusty became liable. Suddenly he was a publisher, not just 0:21:38.676 --> 0:21:41.516 a bulletin board. The thing Rusty did to protect the 0:21:41.556 --> 0:21:46.476 family business actually left them exposed. We didn't think that 0:21:46.876 --> 0:21:49.396 we would lose because the one thing my father was 0:21:49.796 --> 0:21:54.276 against was having any pictures of Playboy on our bbs. 0:21:54.316 --> 0:22:01.396 That was specifically tried for years to keep anything they 0:22:01.436 --> 0:22:04.716 had to do with Playboy off of our bbs. That's 0:22:04.796 --> 0:22:08.076 the funny thing about it. Anyway, I guess it's funny. 0:22:08.116 --> 0:22:11.036 But we thought we had done our due diligence. But 0:22:11.916 --> 0:22:16.276 evidently the courts start differently. The moderation was their downfall. 0:22:16.676 --> 0:22:19.756 If Rusty hadn't checked a thing the people uploading Boat 0:22:19.756 --> 0:22:22.636 Derek pictures, they would have been on the hook to Playboy, 0:22:23.076 --> 0:22:27.356 not Rusty. This became an important ruling for digital media. 0:22:27.516 --> 0:22:30.116 Who owns it, who has a right to share it? 0:22:30.756 --> 0:22:35.116 Most importantly, can the person running the platform be held liable? 0:22:36.316 --> 0:22:39.676 When A and M Records and half the US music 0:22:39.716 --> 0:22:44.796 industry sued file sharing site Napster in two thousand, lawyers 0:22:44.796 --> 0:22:49.796 in that courtroom reciting Playboy versus Russ Hardenburg, the case 0:22:49.836 --> 0:22:54.956 against rusty and edy. It's so strange to think that 0:22:54.996 --> 0:22:57.796 the road rules of the Internet were partly laid down 0:22:57.996 --> 0:23:01.196 in a hot basement in suburban Ohio, a hot basement 0:23:01.316 --> 0:23:05.556 stacked full the computers, tangled cables, and grainy gifts of pawn. 0:23:07.276 --> 0:23:09.836 These road rules would be one hell of an important 0:23:09.916 --> 0:23:13.556 lesson for the next generation of Internet entrepreneurs, for Mark 0:23:13.636 --> 0:23:18.756 Zuckerberg or Jack Dusey, but also online pornographers like Fabian 0:23:18.796 --> 0:23:21.316 Tilman and Bernt berg Meyer. If it was not for 0:23:21.436 --> 0:23:25.596 rusty and needy, Pornhub might be run very differently. You 0:23:25.636 --> 0:23:28.636 can hear the same debate today. You might have heard 0:23:28.636 --> 0:23:32.276 of big text favorite laws to Digital Millennium Copyright Act 0:23:32.356 --> 0:23:36.516 and Section two thirty of the Communications Decency Act. Together 0:23:37.036 --> 0:23:40.196 they effectively give immunity to platforms like Google or Facebook. 0:23:40.356 --> 0:23:42.436 It is a tiny law that's had a huge impact 0:23:42.436 --> 0:23:44.556 on the Internet, as we know at Section two thirty 0:23:44.596 --> 0:23:47.596 of the Communications Decency Act. Lawmakers on both sides of 0:23:47.596 --> 0:23:49.356 the I want to change the way the law works, 0:23:49.476 --> 0:23:53.836 affecting how content is moderated online. Companies aren't liable for 0:23:53.916 --> 0:23:57.436 what people say or share on their sites, even if 0:23:57.436 --> 0:24:00.556 it is illegal. Some critics of the law say that 0:24:00.636 --> 0:24:05.556 it leaves social media free to ignore lies, hoaxes, and 0:24:05.716 --> 0:24:09.636 slander that can wreck the lives of innocent people. In 0:24:09.716 --> 0:24:12.996 the Playboy case against Rusty and Needy, it paved a 0:24:13.076 --> 0:24:17.596 way for that protection on screening and moderation. It's set 0:24:17.636 --> 0:24:23.076 the legal standard for online media. The big lesson don't 0:24:23.076 --> 0:24:27.076 screen content rigorously. It leaves you on the hook. Just 0:24:27.196 --> 0:24:33.236 deal with the complaints. Rusty's family still feels pretty sore. 0:24:33.676 --> 0:24:38.316 They were raided, dragged through the courts, punished for moderating. 0:24:38.956 --> 0:24:43.396 The whole FBI ordeal lasted two years without a charge 0:24:43.596 --> 0:24:47.676 being filed. And all those boderic pictures you can find 0:24:47.676 --> 0:24:53.516 them on countless sites these days. So I did it work? Basically, 0:24:53.596 --> 0:24:57.316 you can get right now everything we had on there. 0:24:57.716 --> 0:25:01.156 If you log in a major search engine and hit image, 0:25:01.196 --> 0:25:03.516 you can get the same thing. Now, now are they 0:25:03.556 --> 0:25:08.756 suing them? The BBS era didn't last for long. By 0:25:08.836 --> 0:25:12.436 nine ninety five, it had been pretty much blown away 0:25:12.516 --> 0:25:16.796 by the popularity of AOL and the Worldwide Web. That 0:25:17.316 --> 0:25:21.036 opened a truly libertine era for the Internet and porn, 0:25:21.756 --> 0:25:26.356 the Great Digital Awakening. After the Break, We'll meet one 0:25:26.396 --> 0:25:37.676 of its stars. Act three, A web of wonder. Meet 0:25:37.876 --> 0:25:42.676 Madeline Altman. She's talking from her home in Massachusetts, designed 0:25:42.716 --> 0:25:46.156 by the founder of the Bauhaus movement. Out of the window, 0:25:46.196 --> 0:25:49.316 I can see fields rolling into the distance. It's a 0:25:49.356 --> 0:25:54.876 picture of New England tranquility. Was it very intimate? I mean, 0:25:54.916 --> 0:25:56.996 oh my god, I can sometimes I came like five 0:25:57.076 --> 0:25:59.876 six times a day. I swearked to god, Alex was 0:25:59.956 --> 0:26:03.436 so hot hot. You're in a private booth and the 0:26:03.436 --> 0:26:05.636 guys are telling you how gorgeous they are and how 0:26:05.796 --> 0:26:10.556 sexy you are, and you're like, great, loving this, you know. 0:26:11.116 --> 0:26:14.796 Madeline is in her late fifties. She has two master's degrees, 0:26:15.116 --> 0:26:18.316 she speaks five languages, and back in nineteen ninety five, 0:26:18.836 --> 0:26:21.556 she was one of the first people to create, host 0:26:21.676 --> 0:26:25.516 and run a live video conferencing site. It just happens 0:26:25.556 --> 0:26:30.356 she did it while performing nude. Live video is something 0:26:30.436 --> 0:26:32.556 many of us use every day for work. It's one 0:26:32.556 --> 0:26:35.396 of the wonders of the Internet. Madeline's business was the 0:26:35.636 --> 0:26:39.036 not safe for work kind. Today they're called cam sites 0:26:39.076 --> 0:26:42.036 and they're a great money spinner for pawn. Live video 0:26:42.116 --> 0:26:45.636 is an experience that can't be copied and shared. Madeline 0:26:45.676 --> 0:26:48.196 stands out because she was doing this. In nineteen ninety five, 0:26:48.916 --> 0:26:51.596 the World Wide Web had launched, but none of the 0:26:51.676 --> 0:26:55.316 things we take for granted online were there. Search engines, 0:26:55.596 --> 0:27:00.996 video streaming, online payments. Everything was an experiment. Nobody had 0:27:01.036 --> 0:27:03.996 worked out what the Internet was for or how it 0:27:04.036 --> 0:27:08.116 could be turned into serious money. In other words, nobody 0:27:08.236 --> 0:27:12.476 ruled cyberspe And this is where porn had its moment, 0:27:13.236 --> 0:27:16.516 when people like Madeline became the first colonizers of this 0:27:16.676 --> 0:27:20.476 online world. To understand Madeleine's journey, you have to start 0:27:20.516 --> 0:27:25.716 with a television series, Madeline's Variety TV Envy TV. We 0:27:25.756 --> 0:27:29.436 have a hot show for you tonight. It's Breast Maintenance Day. 0:27:29.716 --> 0:27:32.916 Does a bra a day help the Sago away? You 0:27:32.956 --> 0:27:34.636 know what I mean? Should you? I read once when 0:27:34.676 --> 0:27:36.276 I was young that you should wear a bra every days? 0:27:36.396 --> 0:27:39.076 Is true? Or that's what the other day? What do 0:27:39.076 --> 0:27:41.436 you think about this? Do you wear a brano? Not 0:27:41.596 --> 0:27:46.196 every day? Inspired by anarchists, it aired in San Francisco 0:27:46.516 --> 0:27:50.236 on the Community Access Channel in the late eighties. MVTV 0:27:50.356 --> 0:27:52.636 is really really sexy, right because San Francisco is really 0:27:52.676 --> 0:27:54.516 really sexy. So we get really wild, you know, like 0:27:54.556 --> 0:27:57.956 putting wrestling, lesbians having sex on the American flag, and 0:27:58.076 --> 0:28:00.676 you know when you're immersed in this world. San Francisco 0:28:00.676 --> 0:28:04.116 in the late eighties and early nineties was a heavily 0:28:04.196 --> 0:28:08.316