In the case of the AVS's, they were charging for access to material they didn't own.

In this case, the sponsor's gallery remains freely available. You're charging the surfer for providing him with a link. You own the link. It's like selling a directory.

There's no legal issue, but of course you'd want to talk to the sponsors first and do it in a way that benefitted them, and would grow sustainably.

First: I still doubt if surfers would be paying to view a sponsor gallery (coming back to my initial reply!), but they would for some rather exclusive content in nice large images/movies.

Don't forget: there are still a few old-fashioned webmasters left who are actually buying content to make into TGP/LL galleries! And who says that then the gallery should be still limited to 16 or 20 pictures, 4 or 6 movies... A submitter could make a little larger teaser particularly for this system - I certainly wouldn't mind the traffic as long as it is not double charged (meaning; me as a submitter and the surfer to see it - you can milk a cow only so long). Should probably be better quality traffic.

I would think from the legal point of view the TGP/LL is rather charging for their service, not the content as such... And otherwise the TGP/LL owner could maybe pay a percentage TO the submitter as a sub-license fee! Now that would be a lovely new concept: get finally paid for submitting! I always thought that would be only fair!!!
(It certainly wasn't such a minefield when I used a micro-payment with my own galleries - since the content was licensed to me.)

Greenguy good point!

Just getting back into this biz, but here goes a knee jerk reaction -

1- Free porn won't go away, period, as of course this biz grew the internet.
2 - Sponsor(s) and their content has grown exponentially, a very very bad thing in my view.
3 - LL/TGP owners would like to get paid for the countless hours of reviews, costs of cheater script programming...

Tommy not knocking your idea, but just for a minute think of moving the left hand to right hand.
What IF??
LL/tgps required SPONSORS pay to get listed on your LL for promoting them?
Given a sliding scale fee (to be determined, PPC?), as some LL obviously can't produce hits like others.

Tommy - what would you charge BangBros to list a single link/gallery that will be seen by how many thousands, REGARDLESS of the other WM link codes??

If you're a sponsor, then you're a sponsor and you must be willing to forgo capital to promote your product. It's called Advertising Dollars.. quicken has a category for it.
If I link to a free site with your content or banners then I'm promoting YOUR product, not mine.
My product is MY Link List, my product is the ad views that I can deliver.

If Ford underwrites a series for Fox... do you think Ford would allow any other car company to advertise on this series??

Basically I'm saying that instead of surfers to pay, it might be time for Sponsors to Pay for results, like any other business model on the planet except, so far, the adult biz.

Would this be a pain in the ass for them? Hell yes. But I don't feel a damn thing for them I've been sending them free traffic for years.
If I send them 50khits through the galleries and my own traffic, that should be worth something.
(and in your case tommy, gg x ??)

Play this thought for a bit -

Hundreds/thousands of CCbill type, no investment sponsors go out of biz. (and chargebacks go away too)
Millions and millions of gallery pages no longer link to anything, oh well.
True big time sponsors would have to hire a full time - LL/tgp coordinator. (like a real biz would do)
Less Free content, less banned urls, easier workload for us.

You can't suck blood from a turnip, go for the deep pockects! (isn't that a lawyers creed or something)

Surfers, are surfers, and they always will be... don't charge them, ever.. (just keep your hook sharp)

Just my thoughts...

As a follow up -
Who ran through Millions and Millions in the past 18 months??
GG??
Tommy??
the Hun??
OR
Sponsors??
OR
Surfers????

But the quality of that traffic would be much better... When revenues drop enough, some of the bigger sites will try this.

Dare - ya hit on a point thats been on my mind for a long time - and that is that the sponsors expect that their sites get advertised for free by us - by linking the submitters sites - we dont get jack for that service - and for that matter the submitter never gets really whats due them but thats another thread.
Im sure someone will bring up the argument that without the submitters, we wouldnt have sites to link to - we all know thats not true - between the sponsors giving away hosted free sites and galleries we have more than enough to load a well run TGP or LL - added of course to the pool of LL/TGP owners own free sites and galleries - hell - thats why most TGPs dont need submits from outside - they get enough to list everyday just from their trusted friends that run other TGPs.
The rampant explosion of sponsors lately has been due to the fact that they dont have to budget for advertising, other than to drag more WMs to their programs on boards like this - which is why theyve been able to cut way back on their staffing - the people that used to do the pushing of sites to the public for them arent needed right now.
Theyve about driven some of the best content companies out of the biz with their free giveaways - WMs dont need to buy content anymore for their own advertising.

I totally agree that the people with the traffic need to start getting back to the old model of advertising - some still do it with certain banner placements on som LLs and TGPs, but that is definitely becoming a minority. Its time for sponsors to meet the real world.

One point I left out - Im still of the firm belief that the sponsors should be the ones paying for the submitters to be able to submit to places that now charge - why should a hard-working WM have to pay for the traffic thats going to the sponsor and hope that this weeks ratios might give them a sale - after scrubbing and other things that the sponsors might do

HMM I would love to get my submit pass in the ars rewards store

I was going to ask Karen if I could buy a submit pass with points. Either way you get paid, and it's a chance to get your traffic to their sites as well. You should contact them.

Linkster, this is not quite a true statement. As I stated above, the sponsors are paying for advertising - revenuse share or pay per signup. I agree that if you don't list hosted sites from the sponsor that you 'don't get jack'. Unless the sponsor is submitting directly to you, they are paying for advertising either to you for listing the hosted site or to the submitter for building and submitting to you.

And again as I stated above, I agree 'the submitter never gets really whats due them'

I am pretty sure the owners of pk, worldsex, AND the hun are already millionaires. Do you know how much they make in just ad revenue alone? Including affiliate payouts, the owners of those sites are already millionaires. I would bet money on that.

As far as charging surfers to access content that is not your own, truly and really is, copyright infringement and a number of other legal things. I mean...it's an interesting idea..but it's not a good one.

I disagree on the legal side as I know of plenty of major portals for usenet posts that require you to pay for their listings - you are not requiring them to pay for the content - you are collecting money for your work of putting the links together - cataloging them.
If you want to talk about copyright infringement - I would suggest looking at the cached results that Google and Yahooo serve from their servers - plain copies of your work - thats a little closer to being true infringement but still wouldnt hold up in court

I guess Im still out of the loop here - the revshare or pay per sale is paid to the submitter (sometimes) wheras I dont get anything for sending that traffic to the submitters site and eventually to the sponsor - leave the advertising that is done on the linklist or tgp out of the loop for a minute as that is an entirely different issue that we've kinda lumped together here (I did it too)
Dependant on the submitters selling ability, the sponsor is giving them something - not very much when you compare it to mainstream advertising even on the main side of the web.
The work of the linklist or tgp owner is totally free to both the sponsor - and currently the submitter in most places - I think the overall idea here is that we can charge the submitter (which in my mind has always been the last option) or charge the sponsor for clicks delivered to the submitter - then its up to the sponsor to really help the submitter improve his sale ratios like they used to :)

Even Greenguy said it, it just doesn't seem legal. Just my opinion and a few others. You have a point though, Linkster.


I suppose the only person who would REALLY know the answer is a lawyer with specialization in this sort of area.

But you get the traffic due to the content infested sites being built and submitted by free site builders. There is an important relationship here that everyone is missing. Submitters/builders can't make a dime without link list and TGP traffic. But the link lists and TGPs only have traffic due to years of good sites and galleries being built and submitted. Sure, you could go ahead and stop accepting submissions and list only FHGs and HFSs, but you know that that will kill your search engine traffic due to the lack of back linking and decrease bookmarkers because of the lack of quality.

The loop is closing.

Exactally, either to the sumitter or you as the LL owner if you list the hosted sites. Regarless, of who the sponsors pays the revshare or PPS, it is part of the sponsors' advertising budget.

Now don't tell me that in your brick and motar business that your adverising makes up 50+% of your total budget.

True, unless you are using the sponsors' HFS/Galleries and/or charging the submitter for listing. Tommy has stated that the 'submit charge' was successful.

This tread started as being a discussion on charging the surfer. Just assume these things - LLs and TGPs charge a submit fee paid by the submitter; they charge the surfers to view the submits including HFS/Galleries and as stated the sponsor is paying thru revshare/PPS. Who is not getting compensated? You can not charge the sponsors for PPC and expect them to pay revshare/PPS to the submitter.

When I started my little program, I asked Dr B if he rather me pay his charge for submitting or would it be better on him to list the hosted galleries. He stated that let him list the hosted galleries - that way if we made in sales he would be happy and I would also. My point is that we were both gambling - me that he would list the hosted galleries and him as to where I could convert the traffic he sent me to sales.

Repeating myself from another post in this tread, this biz has three groups that need to be in sync - LL/TGP owners, submitters and sponsors. I think Tommy's orginal thought implies and I agree - the surfers are the one that is getting the free ride.

You nailed it. Greed will kill all three groups.

ya know I use to think that FHG killed your Se Chances but in the last 6 months I have found that not to be true

Tommy, I think that google and don't really care what you list, as long as you list a variety. Smarter programs are using real URLs on their galleries, while others are still using "dailygallery.cig?gallery=20585" which isn't such a good idea.

For a TGP, I think that premade sponsor galleries are a great thing, to a point. When everyone has the exact same things listed, it is pointless.

Alex

This idea was brought up on GFY a few months ago & the guy got crucified for this very reason. A lot of exclusive content producers were not too happy with his idea to use their content in his own quasi-paysite.

Personally, I'd submit anywhere with pre-qualified traffic like that. |headbang|

So is anyone gonna test this out? The pre-qualified traffic would definately be a marketers wet dream. :D

It'd also be smart to get the sponsors onboard instead of hoping they're OK with it. Come up with some additional incentives for them, like feature their different paysites everywhere inside for a week/month, etc. |pink

Most of us with well-established links lists have nice Google-rankings. It would have to hurt to put your list behind security.

there are 3 different models to do this (i admit, i was thinking to do this with some of my sites in the past):

1. you charge for access to your linklist: this should not be a problem at all as submitters must agree to your tos anyway. the content and everything is hosted on the "free" site as normal. What you will get is very high quality traffic from submissions and the ll/tgp owner probably will loose a lot of traffic.

2. you keep your site as usual, but use a gateway between the link and the free site/gallery. here you charge for gallery access. this should not be a problem if you use a textlink. but it probably can be a problem if you are using thumb previews. However, what you will get is that the linklist will not loose as much traffic as in (1.) and you could use clever marketing like tgfind who let you see 3 samples and then asked for email (in 2001) or payment (after 2001). this is probably the sort of thing most of you are thinking of as a good model.

3. (not a real option) you load the content from your site or in frames like some tgps/lls do. this is a problem anyway whether surfers pay for access or not.

yes, this is what i consider the avs model.

the access to the galleries/free sites could be managed by each ll/tgp individually or by a 3rd party system, which would be 4rth party processing then (eg the system was using ccbill).


CLICK HERE TO ADD YOUR LL TO OUR LINKLIST SYSTEM ;)


however, if established it would not have serious consequences for free porn.

This makes me think of an AVS.

The people who actually pay the fee are much more easier to upsell to because they've already pulled the card out and paid for porn