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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Okay, we're going to start with a warning. This

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Speaker 1: series is full of adult themes and has some graphic

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Speaker 1: sex talk. Now, you know, let's get into it. How

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Speaker 1: did it feel to you to be taken over by

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Speaker 1: a company that no one knew anything about. Well, the

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Speaker 1: deeper I got into it, the more concerned I became

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Speaker 1: about just the general level of secrecy around the company.

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Speaker 1: The money has to move, sometimes from a personal account,

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Speaker 1: sometimes from a business account. That sounded a bit sketchy

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Speaker 1: to me. If you play that fast and loose in

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Speaker 1: that environment, I have to assume that you're playing that

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Speaker 1: fast and loose in every environment. That environment she's talking about,

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Speaker 1: it's pornography. Kelly Holland would know. She's been a fixture

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Speaker 1: of the porn industry since the nineties. She even ran

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Speaker 1: one of its most famous brands, Penthouse that has until

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Speaker 1: she lost it to a mystery investor. And for the

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Speaker 1: industry at large, does it matter that you have these

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Speaker 1: conglomerates that are buying loads of the industry and we

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Speaker 1: don't really know who ownest these companies. I don't think

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Speaker 1: it's healthy. I think it's very problematic. It's healthy for

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Speaker 1: somebody's bottom line and it's healthy for shareholders, but I

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Speaker 1: don't think it's healthy for clients, consumers and the general climate.

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Speaker 1: You know, you can make a choice in business to

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Speaker 1: be friendly competitors, which is the healthiest way to go

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Speaker 1: and the most profitable way to go, or you can

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Speaker 1: be enemies. I'm Patrician Neilson and I'm a reporter for

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Speaker 1: the Financial Times. I write about business. Some days it's

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Speaker 1: a fashion chain, on others it's tobacco or cannabis startup.

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Speaker 1: But recently my job has mainly involved porn. I started

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Speaker 1: writing about the industry about three years ago, but I

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Speaker 1: have to admit this last year it's become an obsession.

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Speaker 1: Business papers don't usually write about the porn industry, even

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Speaker 1: though it basically owns a big corner of the Internet.

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Speaker 1: That in itself made me curious. Why wouldn't we write

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Speaker 1: about porn just like we do with any other legal industry.

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Speaker 1: And I think it's because no one really likes to

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Speaker 1: talk about porn. We're embarrassed to even though most of

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Speaker 1: us have watched it at some point. It's taboo. And

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Speaker 1: so I started where any business reporter would. This is

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Speaker 1: just an industry with companies, right I can normally figure

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Speaker 1: out who the arnests are, how much money they make,

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Speaker 1: how they're regulated, but porn it turned out that porn

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Speaker 1: was whirled apart. The whole industry depends some performers to

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Speaker 1: literally bear it all, but basic information about the businesses

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Speaker 1: who run the industry are kept like a state secret.

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Speaker 1: I kept finding names that weren't names, and companies that

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Speaker 1: weren't companies. It often felt like I was wandering around

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Speaker 1: a maze, you know, that strange sense of never knowing

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Speaker 1: where you're heading or how anything's connected. Turns that lead

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Speaker 1: to unexpected places, like those murky transactions that Kelly Holland

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Speaker 1: talked about. What were they for? What were they hiding?

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Speaker 1: Who or what is behind the business of porn? And

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Speaker 1: you know what, the Financial Times we qual it the ft.

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Speaker 1: They encouraged me to keep going to report this out,

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Speaker 1: and my boss he got sucked into. That's me, Alex Barker.

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Speaker 1: I manage Patricia's team of business reporters, but my main

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Speaker 1: job is writing about the media industry, the Murdocks, Netflix,

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. When Patricia asked to look into pawn,

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Speaker 1: I knew it wasn't exactly the FT's cup of tea.

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Speaker 1: But it was different and intriguing and only career threatening

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Speaker 1: if we really botched it up. So I said, sure,

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Speaker 1: see what you can find, and bit by bit, this

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Speaker 1: story of the power behind pawn drew me into It

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Speaker 1: started with a routine email from Patricia, a little update

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Speaker 1: on her reporting, with a bombshell buried halfway down. She said,

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Speaker 1: I think I found the secret owner of the world's

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Speaker 1: biggest pawn company, and she had, but it was just

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Speaker 1: the first turn in that maze. Once we started following

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Speaker 1: the leads, we soon realized we weren't just tracking one

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Speaker 1: man or one company, but power. And that's when I

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Speaker 1: really got hooked. Because this industry has outsized influence, truly enormous,

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Speaker 1: over our culture, over the way my kids learn about sex,

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Speaker 1: over almost eight percent of all Internet traffic. So as journalists,

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Speaker 1: we decided to give the subject a time it deserves.

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Speaker 1: We'd report on the business of porn and the kind

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Speaker 1: of way the ft would report on any other industry.

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Speaker 1: We wanted to work out who made online porn what

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Speaker 1: it is today, understand who the real decision makers are,

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Speaker 1: what's driving their choices. Basically, to work out who rules porn.

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Speaker 1: We spent months roving around. We interviewed bankers, porn stars,

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Speaker 1: bankers who became porn stars, even a New York billionaire

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Speaker 1: who helped change the industry with one text message. And

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Speaker 1: after all that, we found some answers away out of

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Speaker 1: a great maze of porn land to a place we

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Speaker 1: definitely didn't expect to an up. This is Hot Money,

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Speaker 1: a show about power and finance from Pushkin Industries and

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Speaker 1: The Financial Times. Act one story's story. We started by

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Speaker 1: setting up a chat with one of the smartest people

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Speaker 1: in porn. I'm a career pornographer. I'm an artist. What's

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Speaker 1: completely normal and an average Tuesday to me is completely

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Speaker 1: fascinating to like the whole rest of the world. This

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Speaker 1: is Jessica. You might know her from her stage name Stayer.

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Speaker 1: We wanted to talk to a Stayer because she's been

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Speaker 1: there for all the big changes that were interested in.

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Speaker 1: Stayers won the equivalent of an adult Oscar. She's been

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Speaker 1: a headline star and a bit of an alternative porn icon.

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Speaker 1: She's written a book, run literary book clubs, and her

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Speaker 1: columns have appeared in The New York Times and Slate.

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Speaker 1: Her fans all over the world have bought thousands of

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Speaker 1: sex toys molded on her vagina. This is my first

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Speaker 1: proper interview with a porn star. I wasn't exactly in

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Speaker 1: my comfort zone, so I started with a softball question

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Speaker 1: just to warm things up. Can you tell me a

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Speaker 1: bit about you know, where you grew up and school family. No,

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Speaker 1: I am here as a porn star, so we don't

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Speaker 1: talk about my life before I turned eighteen. I think

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Speaker 1: it's inappropriate. That's absolutely fine. I didn't realize that, so

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't have asked if I had no worries. But

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Speaker 1: there are some strange people in the world who will

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Speaker 1: fetishize those details and then message me about it, and

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Speaker 1: it makes me feel gross. So I just have a

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Speaker 1: blackout before I turned eighteen. Absolutely, Story is not afraid

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Speaker 1: to speak her mind or step on toes, whether they

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Speaker 1: belong to porn kingpin or a news reporter. At this stage,

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Speaker 1: what we really wanted to speak Story about were her

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Speaker 1: early years in the industry, a time when online video

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Speaker 1: streaming changed the porn industry forever. I started out. First,

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Speaker 1: I was go go dancing, Then I was posing for

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Speaker 1: alternative nude sites, and then I signed a contract to

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Speaker 1: be a performer in hardcore video with a studio called

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Speaker 1: Digital Playground. Hi, I'm Stoya. Now we're gonna very quietly

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Speaker 1: go to hell then have sex on came which sounds

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Speaker 1: like shooting a form, which is not anything I would ever,

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Speaker 1: this is a vacation travel now. Back then, in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and seven, this was a big thing on core

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Speaker 1: studios like Digital Playground shoot graphic sex, but much like

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Speaker 1: the old Hollywood studio system, they had contract stars. The

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Speaker 1: performers were literally paid not to work for anybody else.

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Speaker 1: The fact this happened at all was a sign of

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Speaker 1: the times. The Internet was bringing pawn into millions of homes,

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Speaker 1: but it was mainly images or grainy video, so consumers

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Speaker 1: still wanted the studio stuff. The online business co existed

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Speaker 1: with the old industry. Pawn DVDs were selling by the truckload.

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Speaker 1: Studios were producing lots of features and still largely calling

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Speaker 1: the shots. Everyone was busy and working hard. But Stayer's

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Speaker 1: work that took place in her physical body. I did

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Speaker 1: a lot of acting where the pages were being pushed

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Speaker 1: under the door, hot off the printer as I was

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Speaker 1: going through the enema process to be prepared to do

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Speaker 1: my actual sex scene. When you consider the working conditions

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Speaker 1: for the cast and crew, I'm actually quite impressed by

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Speaker 1: what we managed to do. Stoy even starred in one

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Speaker 1: of the most expensive studio porn movies ever made, Pirates

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Speaker 1: two Stignetti's Revenge. It took weeks to shoot on a

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Speaker 1: specially made pirate ship decked out with cannons, a crow's nest,

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Speaker 1: and some suspiciously comfy furniture in the galley. There were

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Speaker 1: dozens of cast and crew, and it reportedly cost millions

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Speaker 1: of dollars. It's not the name that brings a man infamy,

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Speaker 1: it's as infamous deeds that bring infamy to his name. Yes,

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Speaker 1: action much wisdom now, and if Hal's a woman, then right.

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Speaker 1: Stoya hit the height of her career, all of a

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Speaker 1: sudden everything changed. It was around two thousand and nine

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Speaker 1: and the Internet finally took the business model for porn

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Speaker 1: studios and smashed it to bits. There would be no

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Speaker 1: more pirate hip blockbusters for a simple reason. People were

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Speaker 1: no longer buying DVDs. They'd moved to watching porn online

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Speaker 1: for free on what we're called tube sites, basically hardcore

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Speaker 1: versions of streaming sites like YouTube. What's so interesting about

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Speaker 1: Stoya's early career is that the tube sites actually helped

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Speaker 1: make her a star. One of the employees of Digital

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Speaker 1: Playground had maybe one too many drinks at an award show,

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Speaker 1: and they came to me and expressed confusion as to

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Speaker 1: why my first film with them was selling so well.

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Speaker 1: They really, how do people know who you are? And

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Speaker 1: I'm like, well, you know, I've got my little MySpace

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Speaker 1: page with like a couple of thousand people, and there's

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Speaker 1: this video of me with my tampon string hanging out

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Speaker 1: destroying an enormous Teddy Bear while naked. It was called

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Speaker 1: Stoyer Kills the Bear, an early piece of viral pawn

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Speaker 1: that some random person had written from a DVD and

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Speaker 1: posted on a cheap site. That film was pirated, but

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Speaker 1: Stoya says, at that point the publicity was kind of welcome,

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Speaker 1: and people on these tube site things just like really

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Speaker 1: like that video. That was the first effect that the

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Speaker 1: tube sites had on my career, and it was positive.

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Speaker 1: This may be the only time that it was positive.

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Speaker 1: The negative side had a name, a company called Manwin.

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Speaker 1: In January twenty twelve, around five years into Storyer's career,

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Speaker 1: her studio boss decided to sell Digital Playground. He told

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Speaker 1: me that we had been purchased by man Win and

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I am now tied to a

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Speaker 1: company that is literally named man Win. This is awful.

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Speaker 1: I have a reputation for being pedantic and difficult in interviews.

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Speaker 1: Every interview, I'm like, yeah, man Win bought us. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the people who owned porn Hub and browsers. Yeah, think

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Speaker 1: about that. What's happening. They're buying up all these properties.

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Speaker 1: It's weird. Tube sites had broken the old studio model

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Speaker 1: for porn and now the main owner of tube sites, Manwin,

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Speaker 1: was buying up everything that was left, like the conqueror

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Speaker 1: of a vanquished land. Did I mention they're called man Win?

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Speaker 1: Can someone explain this to me? Is it like a

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Speaker 1: German thing where the word is like completely different And

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Speaker 1: it just sounds ominous to me. And it's been a

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Speaker 1: long and complicated relationship since man Win owned free tube

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Speaker 1: sites like Pornhub it had bought Digital Playground. The deal

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Speaker 1: compared head to Disney buying Pixar. It even snaps up

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Speaker 1: digital rights to Playboy. And everyone knows that Brand Stayer,

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Speaker 1: the independently minded artist, was now working for a pawn conglomerate.

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Speaker 1: What she'd witnessed was the birth of the modern pawn industry,

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Speaker 1: back too the tubes that made pawn free. In the

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Speaker 1: words of the musical avenue Q, the Internet was made

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Speaker 1: for porn. Internet is really really great. Four porn got

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Speaker 1: a bus connection, and so I don't have to we

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Speaker 1: four porn. There's always some loose sight for porn. Eyebrows

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Speaker 1: all day and night. For porn, it's like I'm surfing

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Speaker 1: at the speed of light. The Internet brought more images

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Speaker 1: of sex to more people than ever before. Anyone with

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Speaker 1: an Internet connection could watch porn and the privacy of

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Speaker 1: their own home, with no need for any awkward visits

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Speaker 1: to the local sex shop, and it was free. The

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Speaker 1: old world of porn had been a close knit community

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Speaker 1: where everybody knew each other, but there was no sense

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Speaker 1: even in the industry of who was behind the tube sites,

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Speaker 1: or for that matter, how they were getting away with

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Speaker 1: becoming overnight millionaires with pirate who content to find out

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Speaker 1: who rules the porn industry today, we need to dig

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Speaker 1: in here at the moment when power of a porn

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Speaker 1: first changed hands, and that led us to Curtis Potech.

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Speaker 1: He was there running one of the first big porn

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Speaker 1: tube sites, pretty much by accident. Back in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and six, when Stoyers started her career, Curtis was working

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Speaker 1: as a strip club DJ. He needed a day job,

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Speaker 1: so he answered an ad to work on a support desk.

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Speaker 1: That was probably one of the most unique interviews of

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Speaker 1: my life. He threw down some terms in front of me,

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Speaker 1: some pretty vulgar sexual related terms, some racy terms, because

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Speaker 1: you can't control what people say, so you know, they

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Speaker 1: just wanted to prepare me. I guess for the worst.

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Speaker 1: The website turned out to be called x Tube. It

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Speaker 1: was part of Boom and these cool online platforms that

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Speaker 1: allowed people to upload stuff online and want to go viral.

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Speaker 1: But the tube sides, well, they were different from the

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Speaker 1: likes of YouTube because they allowed porn. It was user

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Speaker 1: generated content, all provided by webmasters. Are just nerral people

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Speaker 1: like you here myself. Curtis was one of many who

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Speaker 1: were swept up in the wild rise of the tube sites.

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Speaker 1: It was online anarchy. Nobody in the old porn industry

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Speaker 1: knew who was in charge. All Curtis knew was that

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Speaker 1: the shoestring operation at x tube was mainly funded by

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Speaker 1: a mysterious Chinese businessman. They called him mister X. The

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Speaker 1: early days of x tube were chaotic, but there was

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Speaker 1: a basic goal get as many people visiting the site

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Speaker 1: as possible and hope the advertising money followed. Curtis says

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Speaker 1: it started off slow, but eventually XTube found its niche

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Speaker 1: in gay porn, and his clips went viral and worked

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Speaker 1: their magic. Things took off once the word of mouth

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Speaker 1: got out there. We went from two hundred thousand users

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Speaker 1: over half a million users in about a week. XTube

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Speaker 1: took off at a crazy rate, but it wasn't problem free.

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Speaker 1: One of the founders left, leaving Curtis in charge of

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Speaker 1: the site, and he started to hear from people who

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Speaker 1: were less than happy. Producers were seeing their videos uploaded

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Speaker 1: to the site and XTube hadn't paid a penny for them.

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Speaker 1: I've got very used to hearing the words I'm going

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Speaker 1: to sue you. I was like the subpoena king of

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Speaker 1: the universe. I had a fax machine right beside me

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Speaker 1: at my desk and it was just pumping out subpoenas

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Speaker 1: at one point. So Curtis, the strip club DJ turned

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Speaker 1: tech bro, ended up becoming the subpoena king An. XTube

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Speaker 1: wasn't the only company winding up producers. Things were getting nasty,

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Speaker 1: almost godfather. Now, another popular tube site called upawn got

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Speaker 1: sent a bullet in the post, an actual bullet with

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Speaker 1: the word upawn etched into the side. XTube almost folded

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Speaker 1: when it had to pay half a million dollars to

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Speaker 1: a pawn producer who sued them for hosting pirated videos,

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Speaker 1: but it survived by two thousand and eight. They charged

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Speaker 1: a million dollars just for the ad slot across the

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Speaker 1: top of the site. Throughout all of this, Curtis was

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Speaker 1: the one in the firing line. Mister X and the

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Speaker 1: other owners they preferred a different approach, hiding why didn't

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Speaker 1: they want to be the face of xcube Because they

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Speaker 1: were older than smarter than I was. And some people

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Speaker 1: will put their face to a business, like an adult

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Speaker 1: business like that, but they won't put their name, their

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Speaker 1: real name, and I did. Both of those used my

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Speaker 1: real name, and I used my face. I was the

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Speaker 1: main profile that if you had any issues on the site,

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Speaker 1: there was my ugly mug plastered up in the corner.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I was starting to get depressed. I was

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Speaker 1: having a bit of issues with drugs, just to kind

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Speaker 1: of like cope with what was happening in my life.

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Speaker 1: Curtis was used to calls from people who hated him

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Speaker 1: and what he did, but every now and then he

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Speaker 1: would also hear from people who realized how much money

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Speaker 1: do it was to make on free porn, people who

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Speaker 1: realized there was value in all that traffic. He remembers

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Speaker 1: the last of those calls he evergot. The guy on

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Speaker 1: the phone was adamant. Just give me a number, he said.

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Speaker 1: So Curtis walked over to the desk of one of

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Speaker 1: the owners and asked him, if you're going to sell

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Speaker 1: xt you for whatever you wanted to, just give me

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Speaker 1: that number right now. And he goes, thirty five million.

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Speaker 1: He said, all right, And I walked back and I

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Speaker 1: picked up the phone. I said, he you're not gonna

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Speaker 1: like this, So I told him thirty five million. He goes, sure,

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Speaker 1: I'll be there next week. If there was a year'sy

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Speaker 1: right for the industry, this was probably it two thousand

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Speaker 1: and six, when a bunch of renegade tech guys like

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Speaker 1: Curtis started platforms where you could share stolen videos. They

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Speaker 1: were just the folks storming the bastile. What really mattered

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Speaker 1: was what came a few years later, when someone emerged

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Speaker 1: from all the chaos to seize control. When Curtis took

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Speaker 1: that call, he had no clue he'd witnessed the moment

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Speaker 1: that started to happen. Before long, the new owner of

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Speaker 1: x tube showed up in his office, a German software

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Speaker 1: engineer called Fabian Tilman. Fabian used to like lie on

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Speaker 1: the floor in front of my desk after it is

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Speaker 1: a very long flight. And what was Fabian's for all?

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Speaker 1: I believe they were just setting up the Basically the

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Speaker 1: takeover of the nut industry. X Tube was just an

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Speaker 1: appetizer for Fabian. Remember that name, Fabian Tilman, because there

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Speaker 1: aren't many that are more important in the history of

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Speaker 1: online porn. Act three Stoyer. In a change landscape, there

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Speaker 1: was a merciless side to tube sites like x tube, uporn,

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Speaker 1: and porn Hub. Consumers love them for the obvious reasons,

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Speaker 1: but all the free porn was tearing apart the business

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Speaker 1: model of the old porn studios that were making all

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Speaker 1: the videos in the first place. Hollywood and the music

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Speaker 1: industry were also under attack from piracy, but they were

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Speaker 1: well funded and powerful and could hit back with lawsuits

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Speaker 1: and lobbying with porn well, who was going to stick

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Speaker 1: up for porn producers and performance Like Stoya, they were

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Speaker 1: even more vulnerable. How would you break down the negative

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Speaker 1: consequences that the arrival of chief sites like porn hub

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Speaker 1: and upawn had. They gave the general porn watching public

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Speaker 1: an immense sense of titlement, and when there are more

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Speaker 1: hours of free pornography available than one person could ever

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Speaker 1: watch in their lifetime, it becomes much more difficult to

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Speaker 1: get them to pay for pornographic work. The next thing

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Speaker 1: was that when you have people who have stolen your

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Speaker 1: content and illegally uploaded it to a tube site, you

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Speaker 1: can imagine what the descriptions sound like. They're not very nice,

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Speaker 1: creepy things. I am simultaneously too fat and concerningly anorexic,

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Speaker 1: and I don't like having that kind of body shaming

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Speaker 1: posted on my work. So there was a personal toll

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Speaker 1: from giving away stolen poem. Two, How could cheap sites

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00:23:07,196 --> 00:23:10,236
Speaker 1: get away with not policing what was upload The answer

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Speaker 1: is pretty ugly. We'll get into how in a later episode.

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Speaker 1: All you need to know for now is that tube

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Speaker 1: sites prospered using the same legal loophole as social media platforms.

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Speaker 1: For the most part, they're not responsible for what gets

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Speaker 1: uploaded to their sites. They just have to deal with

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Speaker 1: the complaints. Work was just being stolen and put on

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Speaker 1: the tube sites. And the tube sites we're putting their

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Speaker 1: hands in the air saying we just let users upload

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Speaker 1: things and if you want something taken down, you can

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Speaker 1: contact us. Around the same time, porn hub was going

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Speaker 1: to production companies and saying, hey, if you just like

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Speaker 1: work with us and send us trailers and then we'll

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Speaker 1: help you take down your content and we'll send you traffic,

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Speaker 1: which other people in the adult industry have described as

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Speaker 1: a gun to the head situation. Tube sites and porn

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Speaker 1: studios did be a kind of uneasy truth. Students would

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Speaker 1: buy ads or post short clips like you know, teasers.

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Speaker 1: This hypothetically would get people to click through and pay

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Speaker 1: to watch the rest of the video, but the problem

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00:24:24,156 --> 00:24:27,676
Speaker 1: was the money was never as good. There is a

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Speaker 1: universal law of online porn visits. The tube sides last

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Speaker 1: an average of eight minutes, and there aren't that many

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Speaker 1: people who will feel the need to buy the whole

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Speaker 1: video after they finished their business. The other problem was

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Speaker 1: that in the end, these tube sides just didn't have

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Speaker 1: a good enough reason to police the content. That was

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Speaker 1: true for stolen movies, but it was also true for

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Speaker 1: other material, illegal abuse, or what's known as revenge porn.

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Speaker 1: Just think of it this way. If your video was

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Speaker 1: on one of the sides and you didn't want it there,

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Speaker 1: you had a problem, not the tube sides. The respect

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Speaker 1: in our time ay that I worked for years to

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Speaker 1: establish and is now completely out the window. I have

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Speaker 1: no idea who these people are. They look like a

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Speaker 1: large business. They're named man when and none of this

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Speaker 1: makes me happy, But still I had a job to do.

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Speaker 1: Over the course of your career, we've seen a lot

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Speaker 1: of the owners of these sites really recede into the background.

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00:25:35,276 --> 00:25:38,916
Speaker 1: They do a lot to hide their identity. How does

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Speaker 1: that make you feel? You really want my feeling? So

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Speaker 1: I can't post a snapshot without a tabloid reporting on it.

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Speaker 1: Even in the COVID era where I'm wearing a mask,

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Speaker 1: people recognize me by my eyes and eyebrows. I am

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Speaker 1: so exposed. And the people who really own these tube

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00:26:05,916 --> 00:26:12,796
Speaker 1: sites get to be inclusive and not publicly held to account.

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Speaker 1: That is so unfair. I don't like it. Supporters of

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Speaker 1: the owners might say they're just protecting themselves from the

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Speaker 1: stigma of being involved in the adult industry. Pornography made

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00:26:24,636 --> 00:26:28,836
Speaker 1: by consenting adults is legal, so what's our business knowing

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00:26:28,836 --> 00:26:33,036
Speaker 1: who the owners are. Stoyer was not impressed, but the

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00:26:33,276 --> 00:26:37,836
Speaker 1: argument it's not fair at all. It's not fair at all.

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Speaker 1: These people have come into sex work exploited as much

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Speaker 1: as possible the industry, and they don't want to deal

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Speaker 1: with the shame or the stigma, Like sorry, babe, that

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00:26:54,596 --> 00:26:58,916
Speaker 1: comes with the package. So what are the questions that

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00:26:59,036 --> 00:27:04,956
Speaker 1: you would want answered? So I'm personally very curious why

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00:27:06,076 --> 00:27:11,596
Speaker 1: they're using all these like shell corporations in places that

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00:27:11,756 --> 00:27:16,636
Speaker 1: shady people do business, and like, maybe that's because it's porn,

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00:27:16,716 --> 00:27:19,556
Speaker 1: so that's all they have access to because porn is

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00:27:19,636 --> 00:27:25,396
Speaker 1: largely shut out of normal business infrastructure. But I would

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00:27:25,436 --> 00:27:31,556
Speaker 1: really like to know why. So they built these tube sites,

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00:27:31,756 --> 00:27:35,116
Speaker 1: and whether they intended to or not, they devalued the

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00:27:35,316 --> 00:27:39,716
Speaker 1: entire market and then they started buying up production studios.

401
00:27:40,556 --> 00:27:44,036
Speaker 1: And I've thought about this a lot, and I can't

402
00:27:44,156 --> 00:27:49,436
Speaker 1: figure out how giving everything away for free and acclimating

403
00:27:49,516 --> 00:27:53,676
Speaker 1: people to a porn is something you can have whenever

404
00:27:53,756 --> 00:27:58,396
Speaker 1: you want without paying for it results in a viable

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00:27:58,516 --> 00:28:02,636
Speaker 1: business once the dust has settled. We ask plenty of

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00:28:02,636 --> 00:28:05,956
Speaker 1: people this question, and it was because we were torn.

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00:28:07,276 --> 00:28:09,316
Speaker 1: We met a lot of happy people in porn who

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00:28:09,356 --> 00:28:13,756
Speaker 1: love their jobs. We also came across stories of exploitation.

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00:28:14,436 --> 00:28:17,076
Speaker 1: Some of them are heartbreaking stories with real victims and

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00:28:17,276 --> 00:28:20,236
Speaker 1: real villains. At the back of her mind was always

411
00:28:20,276 --> 00:28:24,556
Speaker 1: the question, shouldn't we be exposing all that the bad guys?

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Speaker 1: Talking to Stoya helped us realize that if you care

413
00:28:28,756 --> 00:28:32,676
Speaker 1: about porn, how even the most hardcore kind became free

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00:28:32,716 --> 00:28:35,036
Speaker 1: to watch at the click of a button. How the

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00:28:35,036 --> 00:28:38,556
Speaker 1: biggest platforms are not held accountable if bad things are

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00:28:38,716 --> 00:28:43,436
Speaker 1: uploaded to their sides, things like revenge porn or child pornography.

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00:28:44,436 --> 00:28:46,516
Speaker 1: How many sex workers are still denied a voice to

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00:28:46,556 --> 00:28:49,476
Speaker 1: speak out if bad things happen to them. Then you

419
00:28:49,476 --> 00:28:53,796
Speaker 1: need to understand how this business works, who profits from it,

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00:28:54,516 --> 00:28:59,596
Speaker 1: who calls the shots, who is really in control. So

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00:29:00,516 --> 00:29:05,636
Speaker 1: if you try to make a podcast that's about all

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00:29:05,676 --> 00:29:09,316
Speaker 1: of porn, it's going to be scattered and messy and

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00:29:09,476 --> 00:29:14,036
Speaker 1: not make sense. You are the financial times, I suggest

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00:29:14,076 --> 00:29:17,996
Speaker 1: you stay in your lane. You focus on the business aspect,

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00:29:18,636 --> 00:29:22,996
Speaker 1: you focus on the finances. You focus on who got

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00:29:23,076 --> 00:29:27,236
Speaker 1: what investment money, who's in how much debt, how much

427
00:29:27,316 --> 00:29:33,996
Speaker 1: profit is actually happening, and what the legal standing of

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00:29:34,036 --> 00:29:46,676
Speaker 1: these free tube sites should be. So that's what we've done.

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00:29:47,276 --> 00:29:51,396
Speaker 1: We stayed in our lane and followed the money. Patricia

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00:29:51,476 --> 00:29:53,796
Speaker 1: and I were given six months off our normal day

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00:29:53,876 --> 00:29:57,316
Speaker 1: jobs time to focus just on the world of pawn.

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00:29:58,476 --> 00:30:00,636
Speaker 1: Over the course of eight episodes, we're going to tell

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00:30:00,676 --> 00:30:05,276
Speaker 1: you what we found. We met pornographers, adult performers, and directors.

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00:30:05,676 --> 00:30:09,356
Speaker 1: It was who's got the largest penis here? I'm a

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00:30:09,396 --> 00:30:13,356
Speaker 1: thing and they hate each other. We lost have our followers,

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00:30:13,596 --> 00:30:16,476
Speaker 1: which means we also lost half of our income. Tech

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00:30:16,596 --> 00:30:20,796
Speaker 1: pioneers who almost accidentally shape today's Internet. The guy doesn't

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00:30:20,876 --> 00:30:25,876
Speaker 1: give a shit about anything other than himself, hedge fund

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00:30:25,916 --> 00:30:30,716
Speaker 1: guys and money men. What this spot on was discriminentary

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00:30:30,876 --> 00:30:34,996
Speaker 1: policies within the banking system. I'll even tell you how

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00:30:35,076 --> 00:30:38,396
Speaker 1: I uncovered the secret owner of the world's best known

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00:30:38,436 --> 00:30:41,516
Speaker 1: porn sites. And let me tell you we were surprised

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00:30:41,516 --> 00:30:52,236
Speaker 1: by who is really in charge. Next time on Hot Money,

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00:30:54,196 --> 00:30:58,076
Speaker 1: Fabian Tilman, the guy who built man Win, A man

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00:30:58,196 --> 00:31:02,756
Speaker 1: with more power than any pornographer before him. I guess

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00:31:02,756 --> 00:31:05,436
Speaker 1: someone has to be the bad guy, right, because it

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00:31:05,476 --> 00:31:07,836
Speaker 1: doesn't work without the bad guy in the end. Change

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00:31:07,956 --> 00:31:13,756
Speaker 1: it doesn't. It was always a bad guy. Hot Money

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00:31:13,916 --> 00:31:16,716
Speaker 1: is a production of The Financial Times and Pushkin Industries.

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00:31:17,036 --> 00:31:19,916
Speaker 1: It was written and reported by Me, Patricia Neilson and

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00:31:20,076 --> 00:31:24,276
Speaker 1: me Alex Barker. Peter Sale is our lead producer and

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00:31:24,396 --> 00:31:28,876
Speaker 1: sound designer. Edith Russolo is our associate producer. Our editor

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00:31:29,316 --> 00:31:34,356
Speaker 1: is Karen Shakerjie Amanda ka Wong is our engineer. Music

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00:31:34,396 --> 00:31:39,676
Speaker 1: composition by Pascal Wise, fact checking by Andrea Lopez Kusado.

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00:31:40,196 --> 00:31:44,836
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Cheryl Brumley and Jacob Goldstein. Special

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00:31:44,876 --> 00:31:47,596
Speaker 1: thanks to Renee Kaplan and Ruler Kalov for The Financial

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00:31:47,636 --> 00:31:52,996
Speaker 1: Times and Mia Lobel, lital Molad, Justine Lang, Julia Barton

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00:31:53,356 --> 00:31:57,556
Speaker 1: and Jacob Weisberg at Pushkin Industries. Thank you to similar

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00:31:57,556 --> 00:32:01,756
Speaker 1: Web for providing our web traffic data. If you liked

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00:32:01,796 --> 00:32:05,876
Speaker 1: this show, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus, offering bonus content

461
00:32:05,916 --> 00:32:08,596
Speaker 1: and ad free listening across our network for four dollars

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00:32:08,716 --> 00:32:11,196
Speaker 1: ninety nine in a month. Look for the Pushkin Plus

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00:32:11,276 --> 00:32:17,476
Speaker 1: channel on Apple podcasts or at pushkin dot fm. If

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00:32:17,556 --> 00:32:20,396
Speaker 1: you want more from the FT, try our new app

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00:32:20,516 --> 00:32:25,836
Speaker 1: featuring eight essential stories every weekday. Search FT Edit in

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00:32:25,876 --> 00:32:29,116
Speaker 1: the iPhone app store. Your first month is free, and

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00:32:29,196 --> 00:32:32,516
Speaker 1: it's ninety nine cents a month for six months after that.