Hotlinking and 2257

The average idiot does not even understand how their PC even sees a webpage, nor that their PC asks for it and downloads it. Now imagine an inspector who is hell bent on getting his name in the papers with a child protection law violation bust, and you trying to fast talk and explain iframes. Now then also imagine a jury full of such mental midgets decided if your technically correct.

hmm.... but is it LEGAL? If the images aren't on my machine how would it even get to a court situation?

A couple of other people have posted their thoughts on this, so I'm just paraphrasing a good explanation:

Regardless of where the image lives, you physically sourced it / sourced a reference to it on your page that you published to the internet.

Dunno, but to me it sounds like you'd be responsible.

would you like to go to court and find out?

ask a lawyer.

Good point about the inspector that is trying to make a name for himself.

Who decides if it is legal ussually? (ussually some people who could not get out of being there)

Yet lets side with that is somewhat is (is but is not tested).

Inspector arrives, he thinks it is illegal and siezes stuff, makes arrest.
Arrest is public record, does not mean your guilty though.
Newspaper and TV news has cover story. Local man arrested for breaking child pornography protection laws at 11!
You = guilt in public but still actually innocent.
Next day your lawyer gets you out on bail awaiting a hearing.
More News - Pornographer out on bail, tonight we take a deeper look at protecting your kids from online predetors. More at 11!.
Goes on and on. Your lawyer eventually shows that yes it was legal.

Ok who won?

at the end of the day, you are deciding what is on the web page and you control it on a domain owned by you. if its your server, your domain and your web page - why do you think the DOJ is going to listen to an argument like "yeah, but i am using iframes and/or hotlinking images to circumvent the law"

I still don't know, I guess when someone finally DOES goto court for violating 2257 we will see what limitations exist during the hearing.

It doesn't matter from here the image is physically hosted. If you are responsible for and have control over the web site where the image is being displayed, then according to the regs, you are a secondary producer and must have the records available at your place of business.
As an initial matter, I adopt the holding in Sundance and contend that there is no such thing as a "secondary producer." Second, making the records "available" at your place of business does not mean that the records have to be physically located there. (Hey! Gonzales! Ever heard of the Internet???? Doh!)
The only arguments that I have heard from my breatheren justifying why they believe the records must be located at the secondary's place of business are based on their comments that, "Hey! The feds might want to seize them!" (Right. And I'm going to advise my clients to send copies of all of their records to their affiliates' offices just about the time monkeys fly out of my ass and start break dancing!).

What if they do the moonwalk?