Page 26 - AVN March 2018

FEATURE | INTERNEXT
FEATURE | By Dan Miller
At right, seminars on cryptocurrency (top) and cannabis (middle) were among the educational seminars during the day at Internext. At night came the parties, including the Internext and GayVN Welcome Party. Photos by JFK/FUBARWebmasters.com.
Mining Crypto, Clips & Cannabis
The next day, it took less than 10 minutes for the first cryptocurrency panelists
ever at Internext to answer what many were wondering: Am I too late?
“If anything, it’s still a little early,” said Bryan Larkin, the founder and CEO of
Skylab Technology and an early investor in digital assets.
Larkin joined seven other featured speakers January 21 at the much-anticipated
seminar, that without question was one of the hottest topics of the 18th annual
Internext Expo, as Day 2 unfolded at the largest webmaster conference in
North America.
The group reached a general consensus that webmasters should be accepting
cryptocurrency as a form of payment if they are not already.
“It’s really a no-brainer,” Larkin said. “Get on the bandwagon now. Do it now,
before you end up with high merchant fees.”
Moderator Corey Silverstein, the Michigan-based adult industry attorney, led a
spirited discussion about the surging global phenomenon.
Stuart Duncan (Vice Token), Leah Callon-Butler (Intimate), Markus Steffen
(Eroiy), Lawrence Walters (Walters Law Group), Mike Ackerman (Actually
Helping) and Lauren MacEwen (7 Veils) also took the seminar stage, sponsored
by CamBuilder, in front of a standing-room crowd at Festival Hall C inside the
Paradise Tower.
Larkin pointed out that another practical reason to begin accepting
cryptocurrency is that age verification is on the blockchain, creating an identifiable
record that the people viewing your content are over 18.
MacEwen, who runs a social media firm and is a crypto investor, noted, “Every
coin has a purpose; every coin is trying to solve some kind of problem. Ask
yourself, what is the technology? What is this trying to fix?”
Duncan, meanwhile, who has started some of the top adult brands in broadcast
and cable, said he considers his market for Vice Token “everybody in the world
using a tube site or using a website.
“I think my market is 750 million people worldwide,” Duncan added, noting he
sees big potential in countries such as Japan, Korea and India.
Indeed, the opening round of Internext 2018 seminars reflected some of the
biggest trends in adult entertainment as additional sessions focused on custom
clips, the pot & porn connection and age verification each packed the conference
hall.
Meanwhile, four heavyweight attorneys gave attendees the latest information
about the most pressing legal issues facing the industry today; and the essential
guide to payment processing rounded out a full afternoon of education.
A dream team of lawyers—Paul Cambria, Greg Piccionelli, Lawrence Walters
and Corey Silverstein—offered insights into the current legal climate as well as
recommended best practices.
Cambria said adult business transactions deserve the same level of attention to
detail as non-adult ones, emphasizing that copyrights, trademarks, contracts and
model releases are important to cover yourself.
Piccionelli, keeping with one of the topics of the day, suggested “the industry
should move as quickly possible to cryptocurrency because of what’s going to
happen” with the conservative U.S. Justice Department in place. He said, “I see
cryptocurrencies as kind of an insurance policy for the business.”
As more adult talent takes control of their brands by creating custom content,
clip sites have made a profound impact on the market. So one of the most
anticipated panels of the afternoon was the “Clips Nation” session that took a deep
dive into benefits of mastering your clip game.
The all-star panel included Jay Phillips (iWantEmpire), Bratty Nikki
(iWantEmpire), Dariusz (Clips4Sale), Andrea Fioriniello (ModelCentro) and Lexi
Sindel (FemDomEmpire); Jay Kopita (YNOT) moderated the group.
Dariusz said it’s important to “be original” and not copy others with your
content.
“The beauty of our clip site is you will learn very quickly if you’re producing
what people want,” Dariusz said. “The biggest problem I see people do is you
release 10 movies and you sit back and wait for money to come.”
26 | AVN.com | 3.18