Tom, you've nailed it. Based on what I've read, they haven't once checked any records under the existing law. IMO, this "clarification" is just an attempt to make things harder for all of us who actually follow the existing laws. Great, logical thinking, this administration has.

RocHard, you know I love you (more than I can say, 'cause venturi might be lurking) but if (*cough* when) this all goes through - and I believe it will, because it does NOT have to go before Congress...they're not pushing this as a law, but rather as a "clarification" (yeah, right)...you will either have to make your models' info available to webmasters, or expect all your webmasters to pull Lightspeed provided content.

Silver lining? Programs may have to spend more time and effort determining the legitimacy of webmasters.

Don't get me wrong - I am not happy about this. At best, it's going to make my record-keeping duties a living hell. At worst, it will put me out of business. That's a real possibility and I'm not taking it lightly. I'm just trying to look on the bright side for the moment.

I dont want to be flamed for this, but how are these people going to track you down?

They hop on the internet and find something that looks childish images and then do a whois? I mean how will they find out if it is you doing the thumb tgp?

I say get an offshore server to protect yourself from the server company link and then change your whois info to a non existant offshore address.

At best they will do a whois and see your not american and check DNS to see an offshore hosting company and leave you alone. I know at godaddy I can change my whois info at any time with no worries.

At worst they spent a shitload of time trying to track you down... maybe from affilate records of your money trial unless you use a sponser located offshore as well.

I would cover my tracks until I get the paperwork i need, looks like text tgps and cj's and link list will dominate again with text links to sponsers

i guess i was burying my head in the sand on this, i'd heard about this shit and thought they were proposed changes and somebody sane would make this somewhat workable and reasonable. This is a nightmare. Anybody in this industry tells you they are ready for this is a liar because nobody is. You are talking about literally 100's and 100's of man hours to do what's required. What they're attempting to do has little to with protecting children and everything to do with making it so hard for pornographers to do business some will give up and others they'll make examples of and throw in jail.

i bet 90% of the content on anybody's server unless you're a Nasty Dollars type operation with all your own content is now useless if you don't want to risk going to jail. good luck rounding up all the 2257 from all the content providers for all the content you have on your servers - they are requiring you have a database cross-referencing every image you publish. when they come knocking you can't go 'well i have all my 2257 information in this file cabinet or on this hard drive, give me a few hours and I'll trace that photo' - you don't have a system in place and the information ready you're out of luck.

i really think for some people the best thing is either to play russian roulette and ignore it or start over - maybe write a script to find out the name of every jpeg and movie file on a server and replace it all with content you do have 2257 releases for.

i can't believe the ACLU or the Free Speech Coalition hasn't done anything yet, unless somebody gets into court fast this is going down.

Think about the online adult video stores with thousands and thousands of box cover jpegs, some even have screencaps - useless now, can't publish them. i'm not even sure a messageboard like GFY will be able to allow people to post sex pics.

the only good thing i can think of is that content thieves now have something more serious to worry about than a C & D.

IMHO, the only thing to fight is requiring "secondary producers" to have full info on the models and not just reference to the name/address of the primary who does hold it.

Everything else... like actually keeping records on where you got each picture seem sensible to me. :2 cents:

But if there is a "fight" it should be just to make the changes more reasonable. I think on the issues of model privacy, driving $$$ offshore, and impact on small business... We'd be pleasantly suprised to see how many judges or even Senators would see the validity of those arguments.

If you don't give them an inch... they'll just take a mile anyway.

Since the "Big Bad Bush" has shut down... what... ZERO 'egal' adult porn sites so far...(I feel no remorse if he goes after actually kiddie porn of course)...it is hard to know just how much enforcement they have planned.
i.e. Ashhahahahaha has the existing 2257 and hasn't used it yet.

Do the esteemed experts here think the intent is to scare off 90% of the websites with legal/paperwork requirements....
Or do they have their eye on a certain offending site(s) and want the biggest stick to go beat them with??

ps. Anyone call John Kerry? Just wondering if he'd come out publicy against it? :1orglaugh Yep. that would really make NOW and the soccer moms happy.

i say 95% of people will bury their heads in the sand and hope for some court to throw this crap out in the near future or there's never a knock at their door. the odds are pretty large against it happening to you - 1 out 3 people get cancer from cigarette smoking yet millions still do, these odds are like 10,000 to one, maybe more, unless Ashhahahahaha has some nazi like plan in place for mass enforcement of this. how many webmasters do you know that have been investigated ever? not many.

the regulations will result the following imho:
1. USA losing huge amounts of $$$ because of webmasters moving their business to offshores
2. The whole industry efficency increase. Gallery submitting procedure becomes tougher => less minor webmasters post galleries (kinda Darwin's natural selection) => storng become stronger and gets more revenue

But there's no doubt the regulation will bring concern to everybody involved

I think that if this law goes into effect, it will effectively wipe out small webmasters.. why? Not because they don't want to be in the industry, but because those producing the images won't want to risk their lifeblood (their models) that way. They will likely stop distributing content in a general way and keep with exclusive, larger clients that can be held accountable for misuse of the model's information. That, and a lot of affiliate programs will effectively go the way of the wind as big sponsors will want to remove the headaches of tracking affiliate content and just do their promotion themselves.

is this also for brick and mortar video stores? is a video store that sells/rents adult movies going to have to have a database of every performer with documentation linked to what movies on the shelves she's in?

Look, lets call a spade a spade here........

the new regulations are an invasion of privacy, that is clear........it has less of a chance making it than COPA did, and look what happened to COPA.........

all i can say is fuck Bush and his kissing ass of his religious nut supporters in this, an election year. its part of their ongoing war against us.

we'll be partying in November as Kerry is leading in the major swing states such as Ohio, etc

Alot of people have it very wrong

1. ACLU is not going to go to court to protect adult webmasters. They went to court about COPA not to protect you and what we do is not protected speech anyway. They went to court to protect sexuality sites, female sites, artist sites where adult matters could be discussed or viewed but werent pornographic . With COPA they were lumped in withus so they fought for those people.

2. Model privacy get this out of your heads , they dont care. THey will say if you cant give full releases to your affiliiates then you are not filtering your people well enough.Thats your problem not ours. This will also discourage girls from doing porn they have probably thought of this too.

3. You just cant move everything offshore unless you plan to move with it
If money comes into the USA they can find you. Dont assume they are stupid they are not. During the meese commission one of the ways they got porn people was for tax evasion.

4. The sponsor program model is going to change , its going to have go inhouse if they truly want protect models . That or they they will have to get to know people before they let them sign up to be affiliates.

5. Brandon is a great guy but until his new product is approved by the justice department. You have to keep records your self.

It comes down to .5% thats your chance of them knocking on your door. Do you want to take the risk?

These rules are stupid and idiotic, they are so unclear that if they ever try to enforce them, they'll get locked in legal crap for YEARS. And 75.2 ii (3) is so unclear that its just funny. They keep going back and forth about when one needs to update the records and when not, and that a secondary producer has to just get a copy of the records when they get the content, they do not even have to extend the records if they put the stuff on certain urls, at least it is not clear, I mean the webmaster only has a COPY of the docs, how can you edit a copy?

dosen't matter, they can not violate someone's rights in order to protect someone else.

Well, it looks a mess for sure. From reading the last few weeks and such, it looks like what I'll personally do is eliminate everything I ever had that was considered to be in the "teen" niche. Frankly, there's far too many people trying to push that niche anyway, and for me it's never, ever, been profitable.

Lets stay realistic here, the premise of the whole thing isn't to make every producer an excellent record keeper. It's so that if the authorities see a picture or video and they think the girl or guy is not old enough to give consent, they have another weapon in the arsenal to go after the people hosting it, serving it, producing it, profiting from it.

In other words in my humble opinion, if you have a cluster of teen sites and focus on the teen niche, you can have every record in 100% perfect order and still be much more likely to be looked at very closely.

Also, since this isn't retroactive in 99% of cases (I think), I believe I'll explore more and more no-content ways of getting traffic. After all, the idea of a affiliate (which is all I am), using content is as samples to get the surfer to the paysite so I can make some money.

So in response to the original thread question, what I think I'll do is eliminate what I believe is the highest-risk niche(s), and reduce or eliminate any NEW image content from my promotions (dont use video anyway). I can pump out 1000's of new ads using old content anyway ad-infinitum if need be.

You dont seem to understand , asking for secondary producers have full model records doesnt violate anyone's rights. Please understand this, that argument wont work. I have a friend who shoots for many many adult mags, when he sells the pics they get full model releases. That is common practice in the print world . The problem with our world is it has to grow up. No more hidding behind nicknames and paypal accounts. Sponsors wil lhave to have full info on a affiliate , full name , id showing this affiliate is of age , a social security number or tax id number, a real address not a po box and a phone number that works. A interview process of some type, thats the way the business world works.Thats why everyone doesnt want to give that info out , they dont know who the fuck their affiliates are. lol

That's like saying McDonald's needs to have contact info, on every employee that works for Coca Cola Because they sell coke at Micky D's. It violates every sense of the word privacy for the model. It's like Roc hard said there is no way in hell any company is going to hand over their models address and phone number.

If that's what they are trying to do, it will hold up in a court of law about as well as John Asscraft at a boy scout camp.

There is no its not fair clause in the law. Did you didnt read what I wrote it happens now in print all the time. One of Rocs big affiliates gets arrested and all the others go bye bye. Everyone talks strong til the first gets clipped.Then the crying will start. Most of them rolled on the fight with Acacia you think they are going to fight the federal government in court thats funny . lol

It goes to court the court will say if you dont filter the people you do business with carefully enough its not the court problem. These arent surfers these are afiliates that these companies go into a agreement with to be in business together.

The purpose of the upcoming regulation is very simple and obvious:
Their goal is to get the adult industry out of US. By "criminalize" part of, and actors (prim and secondary producers), in the industry, they force administration that many can't handle or afford.

I'm european affiliate, but know it will affect us all. As non-us affiliate, what will happen? We will probably avoid US adult programs, since the requirements to affiliates about all this documentation shit, and the work and time spent on it, will not be worth it...compared to income. No matter how selective the paysites are, about their affiliates, they may loose many good ones = less money. And of course 1st priority is to protect the models privacy, which means less promotion content will be offered.

CC companies and US billing processor companies might bend over for the new regulations, forced to be more strict about their partners. This may shut down many programs, especially smaller ones who can't manage their own processor system. Will we also see lots of payout holdbacks in the end of this year, as a result?

The US server hosts, have to become more strict, and they may loose customers to oversea hosters. Freehosts may be 100 % out of business, and TGPs will be filled with the same "safe" hosted galleries from some major big paysites. And who wanna trade traffic with a site that is identical?

And the worst part of all;
The same people they now will target, are mostly the same people who "fight" CP, by bringing legal content to surfers. By "criminalize" those webmasters, they open a new market, in "illegal" countries.
It's the same story again and again...let's dump the trash elsewhere. In the name of God, let's seduce the people and gain some votes :321GFY

I have posted this a 1000s times it seems, but everybody seems to ignore it. 2257 applies to only actual sexually explicit images. The definition of sexually explicit is spelled out in 2256:
Then you have to hop back to 2257 which says only actual and to leave off part E. Granted there is a little wiggle room. For example if you have a shot of a gal with her legs open and her hand is on her cooch is she masturbating or covering up? That would be a jury question. The simple solution is to be very careful and don?t use material where the hand is near the cooch. For programs like Lightspeed the easy solution is to not provide affiliates with sexually explicit content. IMO 90% of their content isn?t sexually explicit so it is just a matter of keeping that other 10% away form affiliates.

And Yes, I agree this is hideous. IMO the industry shouldn?t be so passive. They should have a lawsuit ready the day this thing becomes effective and ask for an immediate injunction to keep this from being enforced until the legal issues surrounding this can be sorted out. But alas the industry will sit on its ass and wait for people to be arrested.

Im curious....i have not seen anything in these regs that says anything about having to supply The address and any other personal info except the models name and date of birth and shoot date. (which is what we do now).

Am i missing this somewhere?

I think these easiest Constitutional grounds to get this overturned on is that rather than treating the Internet like just another medium -- they are applying rules that don't apply
to magazines.

i.e. the "mere distribution" clauses that say your mailman or 7-11 or porn store don't need to have full model releases on file for magazines they bring you, because they are only selling and delivering... They did not take the pictures and didn't print the magazine.

Until then, best we can hope for is to keep our records in
excruciating detail... and maybe SHG will expand to everyone hot-linking to sponsor-hosted banners, thumbnails, etc. Just to be safe. This will reduce affiliates to being just traffic sources and less in any kind of editing/cropping/layout/design aspect, which is is a facet behind being called a "producer" instead of "mere distribution".

I just hope it doesn't get twisted retroactive and make any content I already license become worthless because the provider won't give me full releases.
(Sounds like something you go to a massage parlor for... :winkwink: )

Less competition is never a bad thing :glugglug

Some should and will probally take this to court and get an injunction like COPA.

Think about it this way, if I go to a porno shop and rent a movie does the porno shop have to keep 2257 records? Hell no. Well what is the difference then between them and me running a TGP? NONE.

If HBO shows a softcore porno at 2 AM do they have to have 2257 records? Hell no, once again.

And what about Google Images? According to this new law they will be required to gather 2257 records for every image they have. I seriously doubt they will do that nor do I think they will get rid of Google Images.

Good points.

It's because theres a myth out there in mainstream land that websites SEND you information, whether you've asked for it or not.

I recently saw a news piece on CNN and the reporter was trying to describe how "surfing" works. He said in effect that the server is *sending* information that you may or may not wish to see.

As we know, thats pure shit on so many levels, but it's the prevailing mis-understanding out there in the "real" world.

Someone needs to have a court case that defines how the 'net really works. The browser *literally* is requesting a webpage. A server merely listens for a request, and if the page is found, it's served.

But to listen to media, you'd think it's as if a porn store was coming to your home and forcing porno under your door.

Pretty fucked up.

This is quite ridiculous. They can safely assume noone will be compliant. Hell, even if I was operating in the States, I wouldn't have all that info for myself! What about all the TGP galleries I've made? And the promo packs I've given out to countless sites? I don't know where they've put which pictures, or if they're still using them at all!

And what about my hard goods? I have to list each file name that on an archive CD or in a slideshow in my DVDs? Or would it be enough to just have a copy of the CD on hand? Arg!

What about the surfers?
If they surf on an "illegal" site, are they in fact doing something illegal? Uuuhh...if they download a picture, we have to tell them to download a document too?

And how about voyeur sites? It makes no sense anymore :1orglaugh

Or all models saying "hi, I am 18/19", when the truth is that they are older? They can't lie anymore, without beeing "cought".. :waaaaahh

here it is plain and simple. GW and Ahshahahahaha don't REALLY want you to comply with this law they want you to go out of business. PERIOD. they think these laws will stop porn. I can't wait until Ashhahahahaha decides to go after the hun.

Ashhahahahaha : "We need to get this HUN guy he's not following the new rules and perverting the minds of innocent Americans. let's nail his ass to the wall guys"

Assistant : "Um sir the Hun is from the Netherlands"

Ashhahahahaha: "So?"

Assistant: "Well he's not American so we can't enforce American laws on him"

Ashhahahahaha: "The Netherland out our allies the will hand him over to us. get me Netherlands on the phone. Hello netherlans we want to extridite the Hun""

Netherlands: "Why?"

Ashhahahahaha "He's breaking our porn laws. He needs to be punished"

Netherlands: "Is it child porn?"

Ashhahahahaha: "No it not but we in America want to ban ALL porn thus he is breaking US law so hand him over."

Nertherlands: ( laughing heard in background ) "Um no and maybe you need to get laid more. No don't bother us with anymore of your stupid laws. Goodbye!"

Ashhahahahaha: "Damn we can't go after porn that's not from the US or from Americans. How much of this evil porn is non-US?"

Assistant: "At least 30-50% maybe more."

Ashhahahahaha: "Well then these new laws are just kind of stupid and pointless aren't they?"

Meanwhile as Ashhahahahaha is busy going after adult webmasters a plane is crossing into Whitehouse air space. An explosion is soon heard.............

:1orglaugh

You have hit the nail on the head, I believe! But the question remains: now what do we do?

Run Forrest! Run!

Go softcore ? Only give out softcore images and video to affiliates, keep the hardcore in the members area

That sounds fine to me. I hate giving out hardcore stuff. But I still have to keep records of each and every hardcore pic in my collection, both online and in hard goods. Ugh.

Filing a lawsuit is the only real way to stop it, but I am sure the industry will just sit on its collective ass instead. Then what you will have is some small time webmasters getting busted to make an example of. They won?t have the money to take it to trial, they will get offered some plea bargain and then they will plead guilty which will legitimize the law.

If you have the records, make a url inside the picture among with the watermarks. That would make it easier for promotion.

Yep ! Its gonna be a pain in the ass for you US webmasters :2 cents:

I'm in Canada, but we may choose to follow suit if the new regulations "work" as they hope.

Either comply with the new laws or go with all links. And not link to anything you have hosted. I aint hosting crap anymore. I assume all my sponsors will have the 2257 info on their hosted galleries and since I'm not hosting them that's their problem. I'll link to them and that's about it I guess. Or I supose to could just promote anime. However I feel that somehow Ashhahahahaha is just stupid enough to request 2257 info on a cartoon.

Everyone ( well at least Americans ) needs to tell surfers what is going on on make them realize the GW wants to ban porn. Tell them that it's BUSH'S fault you have removed pics from your site.

Now I'm not saying we can convince anyone that loves the taste of Bush's dick to vote otherwise but maybe we can get a small % of people that might not vote or that maybe are undecided to vote for Kerry. Florida was won by less than 600 votes, 7 other states were won by fewer than 8000 votes. Every vote does count and this is SERIOUS. We reach tens of millions of Americans everday how many will see our sites and galleries over the next 3 1/2 months. All it takes is just a small % of those people to NOT vote for Bush and we can get this country back.

Well, that's very well and good. What about people who actually run the paysites though?

My bad :) My only concern is that I'm currently hosted with a US company, I don't promote sites using hardcore content though so I doubt I should have a problem.

You are so right and its sad, now if they were smart the big players would get together and say. We all have to throw in and if they go after a little guy , we send a lawyer because if the little guy loses we all loses but they wont. They will say thank god it was them and not us lol.
And porn on the net is pushed in peoples faces I get at least 5 graphic spam every day. Girls faces covered in cu m, fisting and its all USA companies. They are targetting our industry because its like the wild west ,we dont self regulate.. Most feel fuck the law I can do whatever I want. So now they will come in and clean it up. They wont end US online porn but there will be alot less of it.

You mean like sponsors well they'll have no choice but to follow the new rules. And you may think this doesn't effect you if your not a US webmaster but if your sponsor is US based I'm 100% sure that thay'll require ALL webmasters to comply with this law if you want to use them as a sponsor.