Internet Porn Law Is Overturned
 

The good news is they said a credit card is acceptable proof that someone is a adult, the rest is not good.

Internet Porn Law Is Overturned






RICHMOND, Va. - In a major court decision that frees online adult restrictions in Virginia and elsewhere, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that a law limiting the online display of sexually explicit material to minors violates the U.S. Constitution.
Nearly 20 businesses and organizations, including Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and companies that provide content over the Web, challenged a statute that made it illegal "to knowingly display" commercial materials harmful to juveniles "in a manner whereby juveniles may examine and peruse" them. The law was written in 1985 but was amended in 1999 and 2000 to take in consideration online activity.

A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit agreed with the U.S. District Court in Charlottesville that the law, while seeking to restrict juveniles' access to indecent material on the Internet, imposes an unconstitutional burden on protected adult speech.

?The content of the Internet is analogous to the content of the night sky,? Judge James R. Spencer wrote for the majority of the panel. ?One state simply cannot block a constellation from the view of its own citizens without blocking or affecting the view of the citizens of other states.

?Unlike sexually explicit materials disseminated in brick and mortar space, electronic materials are not distributed piecemeal,? he wrote. ?The Internet uniformly and simultaneously distributes its content worldwide.?

The panel said that several courts have struck down general bans and blanket restrictions on Internet speech deemed harmful to juveniles as unconstitutionally overbroad.

?The Commonwealth suggests that we interpret [the law] as regulating only Internet speech occurring within the Commonwealth of Virginia. However, other statutes with that same geographic restriction have been struck down as impermissibly chilling to protected speech,? the court said. ?Attempting to localize Internet regulation is extremely problematic because the Internet by its nature has no local areas.?

Virginia offered several measures that would have restricted juveniles' access to pornography but allowed it for adults, the court said. Adult zones can be created by using credit cards, passwords, personal identification numbers, adult verification services and website self-identification.

?It is assumed only adults will have credit cards because only adults are contractually obligated to pay back credit card charges,? the court wrote.

Plaintiffs in the case against Virginia included PSINet Inc., whose U.S. operations were purchased out of bankruptcy by Washington, D.C.-based Cogent Communications Group Inc. the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund; Portico Publications Ltd., publisher of the Charlottesville Weekly; and the U.S. Internet Service Provider Association, which includes Earthlink Inc., MCI Communications Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. as members. The case is 01-2352.

Carrie Cantrell, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Attorney General?s office, said no decision has been made on appealing the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

I don't see the "bad" part.. that ruling seems like a good thing for us.

Enlighten me as to the problem areas..

I'm sorry... but aren't a bunch of people going to junp in here and blame Bush for something?

I don't either...

I guess your right, jumped too fast. It would end alot of free porn and I am in paid porn so its all good . Sorry its getting late lol

damn im only 40 mins from richmond and didnt know this lmao



HEY LOOK IM ON TOP OF THE WORLD MA


TOM

They must be busy providing valuable comedy in other threads at the moment.

Yes it all seems good to me and a lot of common sense, how can one State block what people view on the Internet?

I will just say its not the paysites or avs sites that are the problem, those have warnings. My friend told me that he was looking at 50 billion free pages of porn and that he didnt need to sign up because he saw everything he wanted. He said he will never need to pay for porn and to tell all of you who overdo it thank you soo much.

nothing that is news to me

SexPicturesPass Adult Verification Service

good luck finding the rare specialized niches that convert 1:20 all fuckin day:Graucho Not teen bullshit

Ok, I'll take a swag at it.

Bush allowed the supreme court to waste millions of dollars and time by promoting an atmosphere where people became fucking stupid enough to challenge free speech in the courts. :Graucho

Porn is here to stay.

The average surfer isnt looking for rare specialized niches. They are looking for teen bullshit

woo hoo

:GFYBand

I think thast the most important part to me, does that mean that in the courts eyes self rating yourself with the ICRA and whatever is a valid forms of 'keeping content from minors'?

Regardless, there are surfers looking for specialized niches. And by catering to them, you'll make a lot more money.

If you were to start a teen paysite and a proper BBW site, you'd make more with the BBW site.

I think this decision is great and the night sky analogy is great. Nice to know not all the judges have their heads in their asses.

I agree, there will always be porn :thumbsup

Have a look at Germany - they try!

This is par for the US govt. Last year was spent eliminating Adult Verification Services and declaring that a credit card was by no means an effective means of age verification and now this year the govt. thinks it's a great idea to have Adult Verification Services and that a credit card is a means of age verification.:1orglaugh

I don't think that last year the issues with AVS were inspired by the US government.
It seems to me like in fact, although for the CC companies online porn brings lots of problems ( fraud, charge backs etc ), in reality there is no government pressure towards the CC companies to ban porn.
The US government only wants to stop the disrtribution of hardcore materials whereas Visa mostly wants to reduce fraud.
The US government has always declared that adult sites *should* require access with credit cards.
If Visa and / or Mastercard suddenly stopped processing for adult, it would be bad since that would in fact mean more free porn in the eyes of the government and the voters.

The realy issue is now not to allow the nex .xxx extension, since there is a danger that if i will be created, soon it will become mandatory.

Yeah but tell me how you're gonna get people to buy memberships to your paysites when they have only a vague idea of what's inside and all the TGP operators have put up competition because they can't run their TGPs anymore. Granted many will simply perish.. but I think most of the successful operators will suck it up and invest in paysites if they haven't already.

TGP is a double edged sword. I agree there's too much free porn out there. I'm stuck doing TGP right now, though I am very anxious to get into the world of paysites. My bandwidth bill is proof enough that giving away porn for free isn't the best business model. But it does result in sign-ups. And while you may bitch now, keep in mind that the grass isn't always greener on the other site. With no more TGP to promote your paysites would profits honestly go up?

Yep... all the SPAMMERS here indescrimately pumping out hardcore porn into the mailboxes of children will undoubtably blame Bush

the responsible adult webmaster will shield minors and others not interested in smut by listing his websites with ICRA. it's free and easy, and can actually improve business.

then parents can setup filtering in their web browser and their kids don't get to see the dirty pix.

foisting smut on the unwary or underage through trickery, or sneaking unsolicited porn email into kids' and grandmothers' email boxes ain't cool.

it's immoral, and bad business.

Bush is Jesus.

bush will ___ the next election! (win/lose)! =D

Have you ever heard of reviewers sites, tops and link lists with voting scripts and links exchange?

I've heard of these sites because I used to own at least one of each type. USED TOO!!!!!!!! There must be some reason why I don't own them anymore. Think about it.

yes he is :thumbsup

where do you come up with this stuff?

I have been saying the entire time that a credit card is a valid form of proving age for the simple reason that you can not enter into a contract with a minor, ergo a bank debit card, and a credit card are not the same thing.

But the government never said a credit card was not a valid way of proving someone was over 18, that was VISA.

how do you think we did it before there was TGP?

Hum.. I do believe it is a very good thing :)

Y aright, but i do think many here haven,t known the good ol' years...

Xpics @ 25 cents per unique.. :)

Did somebody knows what happened to Mario Carmona ? :winkwink:

the government cannot control porn. it is simply too huge now. they are such fucking hypocrits trying to stop this anyhow...

It is a good thing in my view:thumbsup

I have to tell you when we got rid of the naked pics in our tour and the number of pics. Sales went up dramatically, so much I was able to leave my day job. Quality will be the key, not using the same tired bought content everyone else uses. Getting a rep for offering quality among surfers and treating them well. My wife will be talking to a member(they have access to her im name) and for no reason she will ask him for his address and send him a autographed pic. He thinks she is the greatest thing since sliced bread and it cost us maybe $3. TGP as a marketing tool has been poor.

wow that is great customer service, thanks for the idea :)

i had debit/credit card before i was 18

I totally agree with that and we are taking that advice and signing up asap I think it is the responsible thing to do

I'm pretty sure this halfwit missed this part:
The law was written in 1985 but was amended in 1999 and 2000 to take in consideration online activity.

Lets see what happens when the Supreme court gets it.

dont care what they do porn will always be here in some form