I have been very fortunate during my legal career to have had the opportunity to represent some of the most reputable and trustworthy individuals and businesses in the adult entertainment industry. I’ve gotten to watch and help startup businesses go from small basement operations to some of the most successful and trusted in the adult industry.
Recently I was hired by a client who came to me with a legal problem that became my motivation for writing this article. My client is a hardworking affiliate (yes folks, hard-working successful affiliates are still out there and are far too often under-appreciated) who has been promoting both adult and non-adult digital platforms for almost two decades. My client told me about a platform that owed him a very large sum of money from a revenue sharing relationship that had been in place and honored for more than seven years. I have known about this particular platform and its operators for years and have actually met the platform’s executives on multiple occasions.
Treat your reputation like an irreplaceable asset that is just as, if not more precious, than your intellectual property, tangible holdings and other valuables.
Initially, I assumed that the issue between my client and the platform must be some type of misunderstanding or miscommunication because the platform had an outstanding reputation and its operators were considered some of the most trustworthy and honorable in the digital marketplace. I prepared and served a demand letter on the platform and was surprised that after weeks of waiting I had received nothing but silence in response. As time continued to pass I started hearing rumors of other people complaining about the same platform being delinquent in payment obligations and that the platform was providing various explanations for the delay including a bank account issue, the sudden departure of a key employee, a “backend” issue (whatever that’s supposed to mean) and even the ever-reliable “your payment must have been lost in the mail.” As it turns out, the owners of this particular platform, whose revenue stream had decreased in the past few years, decided that in lieu of taking pay-cuts or less profit, they could sustain their income by “re-adjusting” affiliate payouts. And just like that the reputation, credibility and trustworthiness of this platform and its operators were destroyed after years and years of building trust in the digital marketplace.
Contrary to what some people believe, it takes a very long time for a person to build a good reputation. Being trusted, respected and even admired tends to come about by the cumulative behavior and actions of a person. Demonstrating humility and unselfishness and showing a genuine interest in others are all qualities that build a person’s positive reputation. Just to be clear, it isn’t a single act of any of the qualities I just mentioned that create a person’s positive reputation, but rather it is demonstrating repeated instances of these qualities over an extended period of time (sometimes years) that builds a positive reputation.
Unlike the extended period of time that it takes to be trusted and build a positive reputation, a person can destroy that reputation in a single instant of selfishness, greed, disrespect or stupidity. The best way to illustrate this point is to use some examples. Who didn’t love Lance Armstrong before he was exposed as a cheater? Lance was an Olympic hero, a cancer survivor and a devoted charitable contributor, but now he is only known as a cheater and a liar. The fact that Lance Armstrong won cycling competitions all over the world and motivated millions of people to help fight cancer is now all but forgotten. How about former President Bill Clinton, can anyone honestly say that the first thing they think about Bill Clinton isn’t his extramarital scandals? More recently, there is the case of Donald Sterling. The former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers was one of the most respected business owners in the United States and managed to get himself banned for life by the National Basketball Association (“NBA”) when a recording leaked of him making racially inappropriate statements. I suspect that after 80 years of life and building a successful legal practice, real estate empire and sports franchise, Mr. Sterling wasn’t planning to be forced to sell his professional basketball team and have to hide in shame for the rest of his life. Since I’ve stumbled onto the topic, please don’t forget that every single person is walking around with a smartphone that has a camera, microphone and wireless modem to instantly share a picture, video, email, text message or voice recording with the rest of the world.
Courtesy of Google, Facebook, Yelp, Yahoo, Twitter, Angie’s List and the thousands of review platforms in existence, everyone you encounter in your daily personal and professional life is a potential critic. So, if you think that you can simply ignore an unhappy customer think again. Ever hear of a small site called the Rip Off Report? They say that once you are on Rip Off Report, you never get off. Reputation Management Services are no longer just for people and businesses trying to have bad reviews removed, but are considered business necessities.
Getting back to greed and dishonesty, in my client’s situation that I described above, will the digital platform’s operators ever be trusted again now that they have been exposed to have put their own greed and selfishness above paying their hard-working affiliates? Absolutely not. Although my client will never know the answer, he often speculates on just how long ago the platform’s operators decided that they were planning on screwing over the affiliates for their own financial gain. Here’s another great example, even though it’s a little extreme: Bernie Madoff was able to get people to invest $65 billion dollars in his Ponzi scheme. $65 Billion dollars is an astonishing amount of money and now, Bernie can’t borrow 30 cents or two cigarettes from another inmate to buy a toothbrush.
Treat your reputation like an irreplaceable asset that is just as, if not more precious, than your intellectual property, tangible holdings and other valuables. Take the time to consider how your personal and business decisions will not just impact yourself but also your family, friends, employees, etc. When in doubt, don’t be afraid to have someone whose character you respect and admire weigh in on something that you are questioning doing or saying.
People naively think that a bad reputation will be forgotten as time passes and that they can always move on to something else with a clean slate. That is not reality. Nine times out of ten a person with a bad reputation is remembered more than a person with a good reputation.
In case you skimmed this article, then please take this one lesson with you — it is very difficult, if not impossible, to regain lost trust or rebuild a bad reputation. Think before you act.
This article does not constitute legal advice and is provided for your information only and should not be relied upon in lieu of consultation with legal advisors in your own jurisdiction. It may not be current as the laws in this area change frequently. Transmission of the information contained in this article is not intended to create, and the receipt does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship between sender and receiver.
Corey D. Silverstein is the managing and founding member of the Law Offices of Corey D. Silverstein, P.C. His practice focuses on representing all areas of the adult industry and his clientele includes hosting companies, affiliate programs, content producers, processors, designers, developers, operators and more. He is licensed in numerous jurisdictions including Michigan, Arizona, the District of Colombia, Georgia and New York. Contact him at MyAdultAttorney.com, corey@silversteinlegal.com and (248) 290-0655.
