Music plays vital role for porn maven Stagliano

BILLBOARD: HOW IS THE PORN INDUSTRY DEALING WITH AND COMBATING PIRACY?

Stagliano: It's gotten bad for my company. I'm involved in two legal cases right now. There is a guy in Canada who is distributing good quality copies of 55 of my DVD titles. While the Canadian case is on hold for now, we have gained jurisdiction for this action in the U.S., as (the company) also does business here. We could still pursue something in Canada after the U.S. case is resolved. There's also a guy in Germany, who we were selling to, but who was duping a lot more. This is a criminal case that we are helping to prosecute. The owner of the company, Paradise Films, is free on bail. I have no information on dates for the further prosecution of this company.

BILLBOARD: HOW DO YOU KEEP GROWING YOUR MARKET?

Stagliano: I'm not sure! Pure lunacy, probably. Seriously, I can grow because I'm successful. When you're successful, opportunities open up for you. I can grow by inviting other producers to be part of Evil Angel. I can also grow by finding more ways of getting revenue for the producers I already have. I do both. We're putting a lot of money into the Internet now. Though it's not yet common with porn sites on the Internet, we're encoding everything so that all the content is full-screened. Also, we're creating niche sites from the product we already have. This is the way things are best sold on the Internet.

BILLBOARD: WHAT DO YOU ATTRIBUTE EVIL ANGEL'S SUCCESS TO?

Stagliano: I focus on maintaining a consistent quality, which was lacking in the porno business. Equally important, though, is how I've organized my company. The gross sales of my own movies are a very small percentage of the total gross sales of Evil Angel. But I have 12 other directors in the Evil Angel fold, including Joey Silvera, John Leslie and Rocco Siffredi. I helped them own their own product. I only keep a percentage of the gross sales, which no one in the porn industry was offering directors before.

BILLBOARD: WHAT PROMPTED YOU TO TAKE THAT BUSINESS APPROACH?

Stagliano: I was interested in what motivates people to do a good job. So, when I started my own company, I wanted to create a situation for director friends of mine who would be rewarded for doing a better job, for putting extra effort into the movie -- rather than just being paid a little fee. Jules Jordan is a great example. Before joining Evil Angel, he was working for Pleasure Productions where, as a director, he was making $2,000 per movie. He recently left Evil Angel to start his own business. At the time he left my company, he was making one movie a month. Between his catalog sales and new titles, he got over $100,000 a month. By developing a solid reputation, his old movies continued to sell. Because he cared about the value of his name, how he marketed his name and shaped his product, Jules had greater potential for future rewards. He owns these movies. If you have physical ownership of something, you will put more work into it.

BILLBOARD: SO, WHAT'S THE BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION PEOPLE HAVE ABOUT YOUR JOB?

Stagliano: That I'm getting laid all the time. It's work. It's a business. People may think there are porn girls walking in and out of here. But they're not ... There's no casting couch in my facility.