The Japanese adult film industry has received a shot in the arm from Sony. The industry will sidestep homegrown restrictions on porn by moving it to Taiwan.

Back in January it looked like Sony was about to hurt Blu-ray’s chances by disallowing pornography.

When the founder of a porn production company was interviewed at an awards show in Las Vegas last January, he said his company, Digital Playgrounds, had been restricted from Blu-ray disc authoring tools by Sony. Many felt it didn’t bode well for Blu-ray. 

Porn is used as a barometer for the competing high-def media disc format’s chances of survival. When porn appeared on VHS back in the 1980s, it turned out to be the nail in Beta’s coffin. Sony’s competing videocassette format couldn’t compete with porn on VHS.

But applying the porn barometer only to HD DVD or Blu-ray is flawed.

Back in the 1980s there was no Internet porn industry. Whether pornography is available on HD DVD or Blu-ray is probably not going to help either format.

Internet downloads are far and away going to exceed both HD format disc sales, at least for porn. We’re probably only a few years away from Internet downloads making a tangible dent in the mainstream film industry.

Not wanting to take any chances this time around, Sony is not only allowing porn on Blu-ray but supporting it.

At the recent Adult Treasure Expo 2007 in Tokyo, Sony revealed it has sold all the gear a certain Taiwanese company needs to make Japanese porn discs offshore. Sony has verified that it will indeed offer technical support to any filmmaker working with the Blu-ray format.