2257 & the BIG guys it "may effect".
 

Okay, without getting into a discussion on what could happen, or getting everyones different opinion on what 2257 is all about (because I have read all these posts and it is aparent that more than half the people either didn't read and of it, or don't understad the current regs as is), check this out:

I'm with JasonandAlex.com. Lets say we take our new tranny site for example:

www.sexyshemalesfrombrazil.com

Lets say we have a total of 50 scenes of exclusive content shot for that site, and that site only. I know for a fact we have all the proper documentation to abide to 2257 because we shot it all down in Brazil and our producer was pretty much told, if he didn't come back with the EXACT proper paperwork for any of the models he would not get paid. Period. Luckily, he knows what he was doing (Contact me if you want his name).

So anyway, 50 scenes were shot. Two people per scene, and 4 threesome scenes in there as well for total of 104 releases needing to be signed. This is also 104 copies of government issued IDs. Each release is 6 pages long, plus one page for the highly enlarged copy of their identification card (AGAIN, government issued). This is a total of 728 pages of 2257 documentation for ONE site already.

In addition to that, we scan in every release and 2257 related info and store it digitally as well. This takes approximately 2 days to do properly. The next step is putting everything into a database. Fact of the matter is, we act as if the Feds are coming in to check on this the minute the sight goes live, and they point at our members area at a specific girl and say "I want to see her ID and proof that she is 18 or above."

Now, for us this would take about 15 seconds to pull that up. We have a Master Spreadsheet for all of our sites and content, and we have an additional Master Spreadsheet for each and every site. Simply cross reference the stage name, to the spreadsheet, to the actor/actress real name, flip through the filing cabinet, broken down alphabetically, and yank it out. We have back ups of all of the originals in storage as well. The Master Spreadsheet for one site takes about 1.5 days to finish.

So before we go further, lets go over the cost of all of this up until now:

$450.00 - Legal work regarding documentation
$25.00 - Paper/Ink/Printing cost of original 2257
$25.00 ? Paper/Ink/Printing cost of 2257 backups.
$500.00 ? Payment of $10.00 per scene to producer for proper records and offsite 2257 work.
$700.00 ? Payment for Administrative Assistant to scan, copy, file, and create spreadsheets.

$1,700 ? Total

I know I missed a bunch of stuff as well, but I?m trying to keep this simple. Even if you call it $2,000 per site, it?s a fairly reasonable cost of doing business. No, I am not defending the 2257 rules and regs, just stating a fact.

Here is where it gets really interesting. There is no way in hell, I intend on freely passing out copies of all 2257 for every Joe webmaster that comes along saying he needs it to ?comply?. So don?t ask??

(I?ll come back and finish where I?m going with this: including how it affects TGPs from the programs perspective (both small and large), how it effects webmasters, the implementation of invite only webmasters, the costs associated with it, etc? I gotta get some work done really quick?

I'm interested in reading the rest of this when you get back

This could get real interesting...

Real fast!

I think if these new changes are what we expectthere will be a big change in the industry. Becasue few people are going tobe giving every guy who drives traffic, or says he will drive traffic the IDs of models.

So it will be free hosted galleries or bought content only. Fewer acceptances and less quality traffic from FHGs and not a lot can afford to buy content. Even assuming they can find content to fit the niche.

What this will do to the business is anyones guess.We just put an advert up for students to drive traffic for www.paulmarkamteens.co. Will be interesting to see how well they do. The guy doing it at present spends about 26-18 hours a week and we get about 180 sign ups a month excluding affiliates. Will be very interesting to see what happens.

i knew this type of thing was coming a year+ ago when everyone first saw the proposed regs.

manpower=money

Great point. Totally agree with you. Back, to finishing my point.....

I want to get the address of the brazilian tranny in the tour :)

Ultimately, this could be a good thing though, couldn't it?

For instance, there will be more reliance on hosted galleries. Ok, so now sponsors must, in addition to bearing additional administrative costs, bear additional bandwidth / outsourced :P gallery building costs. This can only lead to lower payouts.

Why is this good?

A: sponsors can get back to building tamer galleries w/ less content leaving the surfer hard so he'll have to signup to spank one off. So though PPS payouts and probably even revshare payouts will be less, I would think that conversion ratios would more than make up for it.

Just thinking out loud here...

Okay, now continuing from before, lets use A TGP like Mark?s Bookmarks (because it?s a great TGP and Mike is a good guy).

Affiliate Joe comes to us and say ?Hey, I like your new Brazil site and I want to push it?. Our response would be, ?Hey that is great, glad to have you aboard. Just a few questions before we get you approved.

1. How long have you been in this business?
2. What references do you have?
3. Would you like free hosting?
4. What type of promoting do you do?
5. You understand we don?t allow mail, correct?
6. How much traffic do you see yourself sending?

Essentially we start doing a background check on them. Why? Because if his answer to number 3 above is NO for what ever reason, then I essentially have to send him copies of all the 2257 info for the site he is pushing. God forbid he wants to promote 10 sites of ours without free hosting, then I am sending him literally over 7,000 pages of information. And that is one affiliate. So 1,000 affiliates in a program (we have more than that, but keeping the numbers simple, imagine what nasty dollars has?lol) at that point costs me 7,000,000 pieces of paper. That paper needs to be printed on, and someone needs to be paid to do it. I?m not even going to guess what that costs, but essentially, we are no longer a porn company, WE ARE A PUBLISHING company.

No way can a program send this to every affiliate, sure if you are throwing 10 joins a day to us, I?ll pop for all of it (postage on that would be a bitch and I doubt webmasters would want scanned copies that THEY have to print out.

What happens if this webmaster is Joe webmaster THE STALKER?. Thus a reason why background checks help. He starts harassing a model cause he has their information, driving by her house, ?..I don?t want to further than that, cause it pisses me off, but we all know there are sick sick fucks out there that don?t care and would do some very bad things that could essentially bring down this entire industry if models started getting stalked. Nobody would want to model anymore, and something tell me our 80s porn wouldn?t retain to well.

Back to the TGPs, Joe webmaster want to submit to Mark?s Bookmarks with the content for our sites. Now Luckily, mark?s happen to be mainly text links with only 4 banners at the top, and I don?t even want to get into what banners will do with 2257 proposed, but lets pretend they are not there. Who here thinks Mark would have to have a copy of the 2257?

Back to work?.be back again to talk about whats going to happen to the webmasters??give me 15 minutes?

Hey soul..... see the part above about "sick sick fucks". LOL....just messing with ya :)

A valid point that I plan on covering...

If you look at prosecutions and regulatory changes before the internet boom I'd rather be a big player than a little player. At least a big fish has a financially viable option of moving the business out of the country.

The only problem I really see for the larger program owners is helping their affiliates become compliant. How many are even willing to take a stab at this has yet to be seen.

The only way I can see sponsors lowering payouts is if they do it on a case by case basis.

Foreign webmasters that don't need to comply will have their pick of the litter and be able to demand quite a bit from sponsors courting their business and loyalty. These people are no way in hell going to accept reduced payouts.

On the other end of the spectrum you'll have Joe Webmaster from Middleton,OH who sends 7 sign-ups per pay period and needs to use free content and has to comply with all the 2257 regs... these guys unfortunately will almost have to take a cut in pay if they don't want to risk the sponsor dropping them completely.

What's 2257? I keep seeing people refer to it.

Does it have something to do with pictures of models holding all their ID's next to their face or something?

This is all assuming that he wants to use your content to promote the site, not his own content, right?

If promoters dont get the what they need to promote, they move on to someone else that gives it, and/or are more profitable.
supply/demand :pimp

Exactly, switching to softcore ads, text links and making webmasters purchase their own content seems like a much easier solution.

The exception might be the very big sites, like Mark's, where it is worth it to the sponsor to do the extra work approving their user of the content.

And then when chargebacks start going up because the content that was featured on the gallery that sold the member is not in the members area.....?

This is true

I don't use sponsor content and have never had a sponsor complain about increased charge-backs on my account for the past 8 or 9 years.

[QUOTE=Nate-MM2]
Foreign webmasters that don't need to comply will have their pick of the litter and be able to demand quite a bit from sponsors courting their business and loyalty.QUOTE]

You couldn't be more wrong. The COMPANY will share some liability. Mark my words. Who do you think the feds go after for SPAM....

end of point

Yeah, but using his own content to promote our sites will SIGNIFICANTLY lower his convertion rate. People end up on the tour because the liked the content that sent them there. When they see its not there on the tour, or worse when then sign up none of it in the members area......

THEY leave.

No rebills. This doesn't just harm revshare...PPS can pay high payouts without rebills coming in...

TONS of people use purchased content to promote PPS paysites, and that content isn't in the members area.

I agree that retention is much better when what they saw on the gallery is in the members area, but it's not a chargeback issue IMO.

try jail/no jail :2 cents:

You're assuming (possibly incorrectly) that the affiliate program is subject to US laws.

US affiliates need the documents from all sponsors regardless of where they are based, non-US affiliates don't need any documents.

Sponsors also have no way of checking affiliate 2257 compliance so culling affiliate DB's based on the compliance is a moot point in this discussion.

If the affiliate program owner shares some of the liability then EVERYBODY will be exposed, there is no way for anybody to protect themselves if they are US-based.

It only becomes a chargeback issue if the affiliate tries to fool the surfer into thinking that the content he has on his gallery or free site can be found in the members' area.

Yes - if you dont deliver the required documents he could go to jail. Thats why he move on to another sponsor. Thats supply/demand.

I know for a fact that this contributes to chargeback issues.

Truth be told, I have sold a lot of content because people bought some sets from me then used it to promote other sites. Then the site owners have contacted me to license the same sets and more to avoid chargebacks.

It's better for them to spend a few buck to buy the content rather than take a chance on pissing off a good affiliate by telling them that their chargebacks are out of line.

HUH?

WTF do you think the surfer is assuming? Of course they assume the same content is in the members area.

This may be the norm for TGP galleries and maybe free sites but for other methods of sending traffic like AVS sites for example, this would be the exception rather than the rule.

Considering most large AVS's don't even allow watermarked sponsor content it is a pretty big pool of traffic that you would consider a chargeback risk... I've never heard these concerns from any affiliate program owners.

Well, now you have. :glugglug

Perhaps you need to think about marketing and what people really should be doing with free sites.

Free sites are all about giving the surfer something to look at while telling him the better stuff can be found at the sponsor. That's the secret to marketing a sponsor via free sites and it always has been.

How do you think people made sales before the industry become flooded with sponsor content?

And if you don't believe me go ask your buddy Raven.

if the program creates the database and places a few collection fields in their members areas. we could just input when and where we are using the content. No need to send me a pile of documents. It states they need to be available and the point being central locations. This would solve a lot of issues and is just memory and some scripting.

Sponsor content on TGP galleries and free sites is a relatively new thing for this business. At least in the sense that everyone is doing it now.
It's only been in the last 1-2 years that the major PPS companies started shooting their own content that they COULD give out to affiliates for promotion.

Of course, the 1% rule is a relatively new thing also.....so there's both sides.

The one constant is change.

:winkwink:

Repsonse to earlier comment: Big AVS's allow watermarked content.

I meant CANT

I'll be damned if you think a US program would allow its webmaster to do as they please if it knows it shares a global responsibility to comply. All these foreign webmasters that think this won't affect them have another thing coming.

This is a great thread...You have some very interesting points.

I only have one...This reg is part of the Childrens Protection Act...Does any of this actually do anything to fight child pornography? Not a chance!! Does it keep kids from seeing sexually expicit images? Nah they can just go in to dad's bathroom to see an issue of Penthouse

I specifically said that assuming the sponsor is US-based was incorrect, but for argument's sake let's talk about US-based affiliate programs...

How do you propose an affiliate program owner checks compliance of foreign webmasters?

It's impossible from a logistics standpoint. Nobody has the bankroll to do it and remain profitable.