Mr. Skin goes Mainstream
Posted in Funny to see this in the New York Times. I guess they figured out Mr. Skin wasn’t porn. Having met Jim McBride I can say he is a very down to earth fellow.
Mr. McBride, 44, a former futures trader, made nude-scene compilations on VHS tapes as a hobby before starting the site in 1999. Today his privately held company has nearly 40 employees, and Mr. McBride, the majority owner, appears frequently on radio shows (including Howard Stern’s) to highlight the naughty bits on new theatrical and DVD releases.
Given that Mr. Skin is in the business of selling access to copyrighted material without permission, it might seem logical that the company would be mired in legal challenges, but it is not. Mr. Skin bills itself as a movie-review site — though one that assesses only starlet nudity — so Mr. McBride argues that the clips can be shown under the fair-use doctrine, which permits excerpting copyrighted material for the purpose of criticism.
That legal defense turns out to be moot, though, because the movie studios not only tolerate Mr. McBride but also court him by sending advance screeners of DVD releases.
“The movie companies aren’t stupid,” Mr. McBride said. “I’m a guest on radio shows at least 300 times a year as the expert on celebrity nudity in film. If I’m on the radio talking about a movie like ‘Ask the Dust,’ and telling guys, ‘You’ve got to check it out: Salma Hayek has a full-frontal at the 33-minute mark,’ it’s going to make guys want to rent or buy the movie.”
Film Net Lifestyle Recreation Video
Popularity: 4% [?]
Yep, Jim Lilig who was involved with MrSkin spoke at Yanik Silver’s Underground seminar a couple of years back.
MrSkin also has the “MrSkin Minute” which is a viral 1min nudie synopsis which is syndicated not only on the net, but by radio stations too.
They have a pretty solid biz model going.
Yes. McBride and their team are a great bunch of people who parlayed a strange talent into an empire- imagine knowing the trivia behind nude scenes in popular films…I can’t remember titles!