US porn barons appeal for $5bn bailout
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Thursday 8 January 2009 10.32 GMT
Larry Flynt is hoping to bring off one of the more bizarre PR coups of the credit crunch by asking the US government for a $5bn (£3bn) rescue package to firm up America's limp pornographic industry.
Flynt, founder of Hustler magazine, and Joe Francis, the man behind the Girls Gone Wild video series, are seeking Congress's help in propping up the porn market, which, they say, has become the latest victim of the global economic downturn.
At the end of last year the US government pumped $23.4bn into the US's struggling car industry after Ford, General Motors and Chrysler began to feel the effects of the recession.
Flynt and Francis, who say that adult DVD sales have dived 22% over the last year, argue that they, too, deserve a helping hand.
"Congress seems willing to help shore up our nation's most important businesses [and] we feel we deserve the same consideration," Francis said in a statement.
"In difficult economic times Americans turn to entertainment for relief. More and more, the kind of entertainment they turn to is adult entertainment."
Owen Moogan, a spokesman for Flynt, told CNN: "The take here is that everyone and their mother want to be bailed out, from the banks to the big three.
"The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5bn. Is it the most serious thing in the world? Is it going to make the lives of Americans better if it happens? It is not for them to determine."
The joint request for Congress to "rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America", which coincides with this week's Adult Video Network Expo 2009 in Las Vegas, has not met with any official response.
It has also emerged that Flynt is suing two of his nephews for using the family name to sell their own range of adult movies.
The 66-year-old publisher said that he had filed a lawsuit in the US district court on Monday accusing Jimmy Flynt II and Dustin Flynt of turning out pornographic films that are "inferior products" and "knockoff goods".
"To come into the adult entertainment business and use my name not only confuses people who buy my products, but if they're not maintaining a certain quality, it could also hurt my name," Flynt told the Los Angeles Times.
Jimmy Flynt II and Dustin Flynt worked for their uncle for more than a decade before he fired them about a year ago. The brothers said they were trying to break into the business and had a right to use their family name.
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I think Larry Flynt is a Business Genius!
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you watch .... the japanese are gonna take over the american porn industry the way they kicked the detroit big three's ass .....
but it's their own fault for producing lousy products ...
