How One Woman's Love Song Ended Up In Porn

Musician Natalie Riccio was shocked when her song, the romantic ballad “Show You My Love,” showed up as the soundtrack to a porn movie. More strange is the saga of how it all happened.

Riccio (pictured above) first learned that her song was used in a porn film when a journalist contacted her about it. But it’s not hard to come across reference to the film — a YouTube video of the song includes numerous comments like, “ahahah porn brought us all to this song!” and “holy shit this song is amazing to listen when making sex!” The (NSFW, obviously) movie, also titled “Show You My Love,” is available for purchase at the (also NSFW) site X-Art.com or for free at YouJizz. Below is a representative clip in which you can hear Riccio’s song (once again, this is NSFW).

Riccio initially thought her song might have been stolen by X-Art, but when we contacted them, they told us, “We have licensed and downloaded the song directly from Getty, they list the artist as ‘Round Sky Music/Studio Unicorn’. The song is 100% licensed for use on X-Art.com.” A quick check revealed that indeed, the song is available on stock music site Getty Music, under that artist listing. Riccio told us that she had recorded the song at Studio Unicorn, but had later stopped working with them. She said that as far as she knew, she hadn’t authorized Round Sky or Studio Unicorn to license “Show You My Love.”

When I asked Paul Avgerinos at Round Sky, he too was surprised to hear that the song had ended up in a porn movie. But he told me that he and Riccio had made a “verbal agreement” when they worked together that he could license her songs. He also said that, should he receive money from X-Art through Getty for use of the song, Riccio would get a cut of that. In response to this, Riccio told me,

I had one conversation with Paul about publishing in which he said that he would pass along my music to a person at the publishing company which licenses his music, and maybe they would want to add my music to their library. He never contacted me about it again, so I assumed that they weren’t interested in my music. I did not have a verbal agreement with him in the least. I certainly have never signed a licensing contract with either him, or whoever his publishing company is. I had never heard of Getty Music until you mentioned them to me.

She added, “I have not received a penny from Paul.” At least three of her other songs — “Slow Ride,” “Fishbowl,” and “Ode to Marshall” — appear to have been licensed to Getty by Round Sky. Riccio is quite upset about the fate of “Show You My Love.” She told me,

When I first read the email that said there was a porn movie, I kind of chuckled to myself […] but when I actually saw the film, I just didn’t really find it funny at all. It really did make me feel like the song had been degraded. All of a sudden every lyric in that song just became some sort of pun for a blowjob.

She’s currently considering legal action. Whatever happens, her story is a reminder of how fast content can travel in the age of Internet porn, and how easily the creators of that content can become famous in ways they never intended.