IPOD market expected to face flood of porn

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Internet's treasure trove of television shows, pirated movies and explicit adult material is about to become iPod-friendly.

Guba, a subscription search engine, plans to begin converting video files from the Internet's thousands of newsgroups so they can be played on the video iPod that Apple Computer (AAPL) recently unveiled.

"Guba.com has built a strong and profitable business over the last seven years by providing our subscribers with the best in rich media search," said Thomas McInerney, the company's chief executive, in a news release. He said it indexes 300,000 files a day and converts them to standard formats that can be viewed by streaming or downloaded as a file. "We can kid ourselves, but in the end it's probably porn that people want," McInerney told Wired News.

However, published reports about Guba's plans prompted it to stop doing business on Thursday. "Due to the overwhelming response to features in recent press, Guba is unable to process transactions at this time. Please rest assured that we are doing everything in our power to solve these issues as quickly as possible," said a notice on its Web site.

McInerney said Guba will remove content if the copyright owner makes a request. He also said the search service blocks MP3 music files, "because there has been so much litigation about music." By constrast, television programs like Comedy Central's "Daily Show" and ABC's "Desperate Housewives" are offered "because the TV guys seem to understand the Internet," he noted.