I am writing this on the eve of the last day before mandatory compliance with the new regulations under 18 USC 2257. For those of you outside the adult industry 18 USC 2257 is just one more law you never heard about; there are so many.
To those in the adult industry it is a mine field. The law was enacted in 1990 and was designed to prevent underage people from doing pornography; a noble goal that few except pedophiles would disagree with.
The law was unfortunately flawed. First and foremost it allows the producer of pornography to rely upon the ID presented by the performer. This means that Traci Lords, the 15 year old porn star that triggered the legislation would have still been able to do porn since she had what appeared to be valid ID.
The law remained dormant with few exceptions until this year. In 2004 the US DOJ published proposed regulations under the law and took comments on those proposals. One month ago they published their approved regulations and made most of them retroactive 10 years and added now requirements in record keeping from June 23 2005 forward.
The law and regulations seem fair on the first reading, however if read and think about them again there are a few MAJOR issues.
1. The regulations make record keeping very difficult, every image published, it's location online and the models in it must be stored, indexed and locatable. A monumental database task and only 30 days to do it.
2. It creates a need for publishers to list their addresses and names online for the world to see. This innocuous bit means amateur girls who post on the Internet must either put their address out for every stalker to find or rent office space and be there for regular business hours; for their hobby.
3. During regular business hours law enforcement may make unannounced warrantless searches of those records and the premises in general. No notice, no warrant! Producers of adult materials now have fewer rights than terror suspects.
4. If a record keeping error is discovered there is jail time, up to 5 years for the first offense. This is NOT if an underage model is discovered, this is if an error in records for any image the owner can go to Federal Prison
What is the real effect of 18 USC 2257? A chilling effect on pornography on the Internet originating in the United States. The Bush DOJ now has a tool to drive pornography, a huge industry offshore. The pornography will not go away, pedophiles and child pornography will not be stopped but a multibillion dollar US industry will slowing, moving or closing.
If you like having adult material on the Internet speak out! Of course you won't speak out because you don't want your wife, priest, pastor or children to know. Sad how your rights will be taken one at a time without an effort to say NO!
http://www.sex3.com/blogs/?p=65
To those in the adult industry it is a mine field. The law was enacted in 1990 and was designed to prevent underage people from doing pornography; a noble goal that few except pedophiles would disagree with.
The law was unfortunately flawed. First and foremost it allows the producer of pornography to rely upon the ID presented by the performer. This means that Traci Lords, the 15 year old porn star that triggered the legislation would have still been able to do porn since she had what appeared to be valid ID.
The law remained dormant with few exceptions until this year. In 2004 the US DOJ published proposed regulations under the law and took comments on those proposals. One month ago they published their approved regulations and made most of them retroactive 10 years and added now requirements in record keeping from June 23 2005 forward.
The law and regulations seem fair on the first reading, however if read and think about them again there are a few MAJOR issues.
1. The regulations make record keeping very difficult, every image published, it's location online and the models in it must be stored, indexed and locatable. A monumental database task and only 30 days to do it.
2. It creates a need for publishers to list their addresses and names online for the world to see. This innocuous bit means amateur girls who post on the Internet must either put their address out for every stalker to find or rent office space and be there for regular business hours; for their hobby.
3. During regular business hours law enforcement may make unannounced warrantless searches of those records and the premises in general. No notice, no warrant! Producers of adult materials now have fewer rights than terror suspects.
4. If a record keeping error is discovered there is jail time, up to 5 years for the first offense. This is NOT if an underage model is discovered, this is if an error in records for any image the owner can go to Federal Prison
What is the real effect of 18 USC 2257? A chilling effect on pornography on the Internet originating in the United States. The Bush DOJ now has a tool to drive pornography, a huge industry offshore. The pornography will not go away, pedophiles and child pornography will not be stopped but a multibillion dollar US industry will slowing, moving or closing.
If you like having adult material on the Internet speak out! Of course you won't speak out because you don't want your wife, priest, pastor or children to know. Sad how your rights will be taken one at a time without an effort to say NO!
http://www.sex3.com/blogs/?p=65
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