Addendum: according to at least three separate sources now, this is not the case. I am leaving the original post up, as I don’t have any personal knowledge and as someone posted in the comments it is worth alerting people to. Damn, that’s a bit of a dodgy way to conduct oneself if it is indeed true.
Here is the original post
Today I heard that fellow UK bondage producer Dave Simpson recently took his own life because of the collapse of his business due to piracy. Rob from Rope dreams posted:
This message from one of his models was posted on a forum:
“I was a close,close friend of Dave Simpson for several years. He was responsible for me being introduced to the wonderful world of bondage. Last year we lost touch, He drifted away from me and fell into a state of utter despair as a result of seeing his website business destroyed by the whole nature of the internet stealing everything he’d worked on. In the last months of knowing him I saw him slowly being torn apart by the thieves who thought it was OK to ruin his hard work.
Last week I got a call from his sister who told me he had taken his own life. ”
Nobody goes into the business of producing kink niche erotica for the money; any serious business-person would look at the potential market and go straight into mainstream porn instead. So you can guarantee that anyone running a little bondage website is doing it because it is their passion and their love. And that they are doing it as a tiny cottage industry on razor-thin margins. If there ever were days when bondage websites raked in millions, they’re VERY long gone.
The world has changed in the 15-ish years since Dave Simpson started his sites (and I started mine). Censorship is certainly a threat, but the threat of endless fucking piracy in one we’ve just had to get used to. As I posted recently in my cupcake analogy, stealing porn isn’t a victimless crime. And nor is watching stolen porn. If you like it, pay your fair share to the people who created it, so they can make some more, and pay the rent. And eat.
So thank you again to everyone who has been kind enough to support the community of small cottage industries across the world that is the online bondage community. It is you, the honest people who have made it all possible.
And the pirates? You can fuck right off. R.I.P Dave Simpson.
Hywel
Heard about this from Rob’s post as well and am completely saddened…the world has lost one of it’s visionaries and the people responsible (the pirates) are uncaring at best. :/ I was actually told at a forum board by one of these people that we shouldn’t be able to charge for what we do…it’s just maddening.
I’ll miss Dave greatly; he was a good friend to me.
Shocking news! I’m so very sorry to hear this happened. I am speechless. My thoughts are with his friends and family in this terrible time of loss. He was always such a cordial and nice person, I am just shocked to hear this news. It’s truly tragic and such a loss to the community as well, he was an incredible photographer and someone whom I have always enjoyed following as he made his way through his career. Be in peace…
Jerry and I are both terribly saddened by this sad news. Our hearts go out to Dave’s friends and family. Life is so short and it’s just horrible to think he was in so much pain he had to give it up. A sad day indeed.
Respectfully,
Sharon and Jerry
RIP DAve. Knew Dave at Bungay high school.great guy.hell be missed
Terribly, terribly sad on so many levels.
Sadface.
Don’t know the guy and I’m not sure how familiar I am with his work (inxesse.com ? right??) but I’ve seen enough over the years (mainly on Fetlife) to know he was one of the good guys. Such a shame.
And while I wouldn’t piss on a pirate if he was on fire I tend to think there’s some oversimplification here. I’ve met suicide and learnt that it takes complex, compounded, deep routed and usually hidden-from-all problems to drive someone to such lengths. I remember when I first saw an RE.com image from MY camera illegally posted I was *almost* too mad to fire off a DMCA takedown – I cannot imagine seeing years of my work shared out there it must be horrible but I can’t believe that alone is the cause of someone suicide.
Rest in Peace. Say hi to Gord, Klaw, Mr T and all the other guys..
Name sounds familiar, but which site was his?
Inxesse, and Dave Simpson Bondage
I am very sorry to hear of Dave’s passing. I had read his posts on bondagephotography over the years and he seemed like a very nice fellow. The piracy is destroying the ability to produce new content. There is nothing more detrimental to a producers moral. It’s tough to see years of hard work squandered. R.I.P
That is really sad, and I can relate to how he feels.
My stuff is literally everywhere, I don’t even want to search for it anymore, the amounts I find are very depressing. That goes for all fetish productions (yours too), there literally is no reason anymore for anyone to join a producer’s site except goodwill and support.
As a one-man operation, I don’t have the time to hunt down this content and file take down requests. I consider it a lost battle.
I’m very fortunate to have enough supporting members to be able to continue my work, but the future remains very uncertain.
R.I.P. Dave
Very sad to read this.
The Pirates and Thieves just don’t ‘get it’ – ‘I just found it on the Internet…..’. Right. I doubt even something like this would change their behaviour. Which is sad and shameful.
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I tried to check out his site a few days ago and it was offline, now I know why. Very sad indeed. As for the piracy issue I don’t know that there is a solution. It is also true that many photographers/site don’t help themselves. Many a time I have found an image/video uploaded to facebook/imagefap/devientart etc and have actively tried to find the originating site to purchase the set/video or even a longer term membership but there is nothing to identify the medias origin. I know it won’t stop piracy but for those of us who appreciate what goes into a site it introduces us to new sites that we might not otherwise be aware of.
Hi Paul,
Most likely the original photographer had a watermark on the photo and some metadata in the image. The pirates like to deny us any credit by cropping out the URL and wiping the meta-data. Nice of them, huh? I often find RE material pirated and someone has gone to the trouble to crop every damn photo to make absolutely sure there’s no way of us getting even a hint of credit for it 🙁
So shocked to hear about Dave. I thorougly enjoyed my time working with him. Rip Dave xxxx
Just read this! So shocked and so sad for his family. RIP Dave you were a lovely genuine person xx
OMG this sounds like me in the music biz. I tried to off myself around the same time! Same reason! What happened to Rosanna? Will she work for you?
Dave is not dead. He’s living on the Wirral and working at Wallasey motorcycles. I saw him there last week. I don’t know why he’s tried to make out he’s dead.
Hmm. You’re the second person who’s said something similar to me. I’m leaving my original post up for now but have added a comment.
I’m an ex of Daves and can confirm that he is not dead. I live in Halesworth where Dave was brought up. Unfortunately I can’t agree that he’s a really genuine guy and a great person. That was not my view from knowing him. This fake suicide only confirms that I am right.
It is public information that Dave was involved with Inxesse and Dave Simpson Bondage. On the Companies House Beta website (can be googled) you can search for Inxesse. Click on Inxesse Limited and then click on People. Here you can find Daves real name. This is public information so I am not breaking any data laws.
If you afterward go to Facebook and search using the name you found at the Companies House website (without the middle name and using Dave not David) you will find that Dave has 2 accounts on Facebook. You will also see that he has been posting since he “committed suicide”. If you need to know what Dave looks like search Dave Simpson Bondage in Google image search and you will see pictures of Dave. On one Facebook account he has a gray scooter for his main picture and on the other their is a picture of him with misstrussed.
On one of his Facebook profiles there is a photo of two pairs of legs. In the comments section for this photo Dave is laughing about the people who have offered condolences.
Suicide? – Scam.
I think it’s worth leaving this thread here to show people what Dave is like.
Thank you for posting. Multiple people have now said this. I have left the thread up as suggested, with a warning at the top.
Hywel Phillips
Addendum – my mistake, the picture where there are two pairs of legs is on X fb profile, not Daves. But there is a comment from Dave about the photo.
I now this is off-topic but do you have any information at all about one of his models that went by the name of Sarah/Sara and looked a little like Winona Ryder? I know I’m grasping at straws here but any information at all would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
No idea, sorry
Someone called Dave Simpson is advertizing as a bondage photographer on purpleport.com They joined last month and are using Dave Simpson bondage Also saying that he has 27 years experience doing bondage photography but not done any last 10 years It can’t be Dave can it?
Using Dave Simpson bondage pics
Wow, back from the dead.
I’ve reported the account to PP, it’s pretty shady either way, thank you.
Now on deviantart a profile called davesimpsonisback
Sigh. Got him taken down from PP, not sure there’s much one can do about it on DA if there’s not a model safety issue.
dave simpson now on boundhub saying hes “rumoured to be permanently retired”. says hes based in chester. i thought he was dead. what a fraud.
Yup, definitely a fraud. Avoid.
I have reported this person to boundhub as he is saying that he is making new videos. He is either breaking copyright or he is Dave Simpson and has lied about killing himself! Either way this is someone not to be trusted.
My thoughts exactly. Either this is an imitator stealing identity in the most distasteful way, or, more likely given the evidence, the whole killing himself thing was a scam and the guy is a grade A scum-bag. Either way, he should not be trusted either to tie people up or with customers money.