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Originally Posted by allanuk
Do you think that the new 2257 will in fact be enforceable?
I suspect that as the 2257 law is over the top and in truth is going to catch many USA webmasters out. As these cases go to court I suspect webmasters will simply lie, such as saying that the content was shot in 1980 and so the 2257 law does not apply to them.
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Hi Allan
OK.. Some bits!
(a) Webmasters who are US citizens are the main folks with problems mainly because, even if they move/live outside the US, - the US makes claims on em in several areas. (This is not the norm with 99% of countries). Example... they commit an offense in another jurisdiction (albeit that offense may not actually be an offense in the foreign jurisdiction, but one that is an offense within the US) - they will and do hunt em down. The simplified example of that is re tax issues in the US - irrespective of where a US citizen lives in the world, as long as they remain to hold citizenship - they pay taxes to the US and if not, there can be problems.
(b) Webmasters who have nada hosting and neither live or have US citizenship - this law simply does not apply. Wherever they do live on the planet is where they gotta comply with the laws and obviously are not subject to the laws of any other country. In that respect 2257 is not enforceable.
Having said that, in the instance of 2257, - the US are perfectly within their rights to block foreign servers. The flip side of that is... widening.... and other issues outside the adult biz come into play if they did, in fact, start blocking servers. Not that this is probable, but we could get into a tit for tat stupid retaliation scenario with other countries.
(c) You are correct re privacy acts in other countries regarding model data disclosure. The US DOJ response to this is along the lines of ... "if a country hides behind their data protection laws we will have to consider blocking servers..." This kinda statement is just sheer arrogance sprewing from the DOJ if they think any country really cares, especially when they expect other nations to drop their privacy laws because they say so. It will be VERY doubtful that any nation would do this - hence unenforceable.
(d) Since the US DOJ never saw fit to instigate one action under USC 2257 since it was introduced in the 90's - it's hard to give credence to their claims of protecting children. Who knows, it remains to be seen whether this time around they are going to do inspections in the US - but probably will since Gonzales has a brief to report to the legislature on the numbers of inspections and the outcome of them.
Bottom line, yea, it will be enforceable if they care to do this - and it looks that way at the moment.
Regarding action outside the US - na - the law simply does not apply. BUT!:-) If there was a genuine case of child abuse/pedo stuff and where that is an offense in another country (normal), and, if the offender committed these crimes at some time within US territory, - most countries have extradiction agreements in place and that person would probably be extradicted to the US for trial. The prospect of extradiction for offenses (they are predefined offenses and 2257 ain't one of em) in connection with lack of record-keeping under 2257 just don't exist - so, in that instance 2257 is unenforceable.
The main concern would be for webmasters within the US - the DOJ is likely to take a sampling, - the track record is grab a few "small fry" and get easy convictions to set precedents, - then head for "bigger fish".