Dirty Downloads To Go

SEATTLE - In the basement of a West Seattle Home, Ty Gonty is making movies. It's low budget and he's no Steven Spielberg by any means. But Gonty thinks he's got an edge on his competition.

He had been selling his movies over the Internet on DVD, but now he's producing iPod porn.

"It finally gives people the ability to watch porn where ever they want, in privacy and nobody else has got to know" says Gonty.

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the Video iPod on October 12, he had other content in mind. Unlike older iPods, the new Video iPod can hold 150 hours of video.

Apple cut a groundbreaking deal with ABC-TV letting iPod users download first run primetime shows. For two dollars an episode, users can legally download programs like "Desperate Housewives" or "Lost" from Apple's Music Store the day after they've aired.

Apple also offers thousand of music videos and short features formatted specifically for the Video iPod.

"It's just the beginning on what can be made available content wise on platform like this," says Disney Chairman Robert Iger.

But Gonty saw an another opportunity and it wasn't the Disney Channel.

"I've always thought that porn was a little too public. People got to watch it on their TV, you know and I think more and more people want porn in privacy," says Gonty.

So just hours after Apple's unveiling, Gonty reformatted his movies for easy download into the Video iPod

"This week we'll probably beat out our DVD sales with iPod sales" says Gonty. "Overnight, it's basically created a whole new business for porn."

He's not alone. Since the iPod hit the market last month, websites offering movies formatted for the iPod have popped up all over the web.

Internet experts are watching closely at a new video search engine called Guba. The site combs millions of internet newsgroup postings looking for images.

In newsgroups, people post anything they want including copyrighted material. They've been posting tons of pornography. Guba formats all of the videos it finds for easy download into the iPod.

"I think it's going to be a very big problem for parents," says Allen Kush, deputy co-director of WiredSafety.org. His nationally recognized organization tips off parents on how kids access porn on the web. He says there is only one way parents can keep porn from their kids.

"There's no magic bullet that says I'll put this on my computer and my kid will be safe," says Kush. "That's nonsense. It won't happen. It's only parental involvement that this thing can be headed off."

With iPods everywhere, private porn can go very public. It begs the question, can you view porn in public legally. In the state of Washington, that all depends on where you are.

For example, if you're sitting by yourself watching people have sex on your iPod and there's nobody around, that's OK. But if you're watching where people can easily your iPod, and the key word is easily, that's against the law.

"I think that law is unconstitutional," says first amendment attorney Derek Newman.

"I would hope that someday that statue is struck down because it is vague and overbroad and it offends all of our rights even if its dealing with materials that you and I think is desirable," says Newman.

"I think it's going to bring in allot of new business for us" says Goddess Kali, an actress in one of Gonty's Hellhouse Dungeon videos.

Many porn providers like Gonty are also formatting their movies to be downloaded into Sony's Playstation Portable.

The iPod has changed how we listen to our music and maybe how we'll watch our videos. It's also generating new wealth in the business of dirty downloads to go.