'Rolling Stone' Profiles Greg Lansky

LOS ANGELES—The cult of personality surrounding three-time AVN Director of the Year Greg Lansky attains another stratum of mainstream notoriety with an extensive profile published today by revered cultural journal Rolling Stone. The piece traces Lansky's career from his beginning teaming up with high school buddy Mike Adriano to break into the business by the seat of their pants (with a little help from established star Steve Holmes), through his stints with New Sensations and Reality Kings, leading to the creation of his current empire comprised of sister studios Vixen, Blacked, Blacked Raw and Tushy. Detailing how Vixen's monthly crowning of a new Vixen Angel (writer Jennifer Swann was on hand to witness Abella Danger receive the honor) is part of Lansky's ultimate mission to create a perception of the label as "not just a porn company, but as a lifestyle brand with mainstream appeal," the article touts his approach to porn as "high art," even noting that he hopes to someday display his Vixen Angel portraits in a gallery. In short, as it goes on to say, his goal is "changing the culture's perception of porn." "The gold, the lifestyle, the nice car, the Versace, all that shit, the nice watch, it's kind of like, that's how you hook people," Lanksy explains. Later, he adds that he upped the glitz of his façade after his acceptance speech the first time he won AVN's Director of the Year award got cut from the show's broadcast. "You want me to play the shiny adult producer role? I can play that. It's fine," he quips. "First of all, I love Versace shirts, and I shamelessly love them. People didn't fucking notice me before. Now they do." The story also discusses the trouble Lansky's studios still combat with piracy, despite the philosophy upon which he founded them, that "people would pay for a good product." As it relays, "David Robertson, the co-founder of the copyright enforcement agency XTakedowns.com, estimates that six percent of all adult piracy—what he calls a 'ridiculous number' considering there are thousands of content studios—is related to Vixen, Tushy, and Blacked. He says he's handled more than 12.6 million copyright infringements, or what he calls 'an unfortunate compliment' for Lansky's content." Read the full Rolling Stone profile here. Photo by Brian Guido for RollingStone.com.