Documentary or Porn?

One thing that has always fascinated me about porn is the notion that is is “documentary” as opposed to “staged.”

Henri Pachard said in a roundtable discussion AVN had a number of years ago that he thought the internal pop-shot craze was (I’m paraphrasing) insane due to the inherent health risks when it could be faked so easily.  I believe he boasted that — with a little pina colada mix – he could make the best creampie video you ever saw.

I ponder this now as I read on AVN that Reality Kings is being sued by both Warner Brothers and their insurance company due to the presence of background music in their videos.  Audio, that I believe would be considered “wild” — which is to say, not laid in during post-production.

I am at odds with content creators who put their material out in the world, but if it happens to pervade the world so much it gets picked up in our  records of our everyday lives that there is some sort of grounds for an infringement claim.  In the grand sceme of Jeffersonian intellectual property, is the inclusion of their work into the greater society its own reward?

We see this fear everywhere — the digitally blurred logo on someone’s shirt during an interview; the wholesale re-shooting of an interview found on the Twin Peaks DVD set because there was a poster behind the people giving the intervew… is it just me that finds this nutty?

Photo Credit: Mission 24: Gear up by lucianvenutian, on Flickr