anyone read Larry Walters article on Obscenety on Ynot news???
 

How serious is this Pornography crackdown?
I mean they are talking about fetish being obscene and almost every other genre being obscene or having ramnifications of million years in prison.

How serious do people in adult believe this is or are the lawyers just loving the fearfactor they are able to place in us by writing these heavy articles?

Are we in deep shit ?

Please give your serious replies with no B.S.
as this is a serious matter for the thousands of people on these boards.

Say hello to your new home.

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~artin/Pi...20a%20cell.jpg

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Get out while you still can... wait... did you hear that knock on the door? Don't answer it, it could be the Feds!

Hello, and thanks for the comment on the YNOT article. This is just my opinion as a Webmaster who follows the legal news with interest, so please take it only as such.

I believe that essentially the Bush administration will sick the JD on a few Webmasters and offer them up as sacraficial lambs to the conservative anti-porn groups for the sake of riling up the conservative base of voters. Everything is in place, the JD has held sessions to train obscenity prosecutors, funding and the "go ahead" was obtained from Congress, they've been talking to the press about their upcoming attack... I'd bet it's safe to assume that they didn't go to all that work for nothing. How big will it be? That's anyone's guess. Maybe just a few people, maybe a whole bunch. If Kerry is elected, however, the JD changes hands and all of the people poised to attack the industry are likely looking for another job. I know, whenever someone mentions politics some conservative minded person will invariably start preaching using intimidating jests like "the sky is falling," but politicis has always had a play when it comes to censorship of adult content. It's irresponsible, I think, to ignore that fact.

Small Webmasters have the benefit of not being a highly visible target... school of fish. So I'd have to think that any one individual Webmaster's risk is still pretty low. Also, even though the JD is saying that they're targeting all hardcore content, it will be difficult for them to win any convictions on plain vanilla sex content, so the more "normal" your content is, the safer you are. If you offer fetish content, your risk is certainly higher. That's the unfortunate nature of obscenity laws.

So the bottom line is that yes, this is a serious risk and should be taken seriously. Nobody knows for certain what will ultimately happen... all you can do is look at the evidence, and so far all signs point to a pretty significant obscenity offensive before the November election. The prison sentencing guidelines in Larry's article are accurate... unfortunately it shows the state of hysteria coming from the Right concerning adult entertainment.

larry is one of the attornies who represent me and he knows the scoop on things, seen it many times

I've been in the adult business since 1991 and started my first adult company in 1994.

Every so often ( mainly during elections ) they have a little crack down. One or two names get thrown in court with very few convictions on porn, mostly taxes and and other issues are exploited.

This does seem a little different concidering the can-spam thing and a few other laws being passed. However, if you have all you i's dotted and t's crossed you should be just fine.

In a perfect world, yes.

It's all really about minimizing risk IMO

Doc911,

The problem is that there's no way to dot the i's and corss the t's in this business... the law is set up in such a way that everyone who sells hardcore is at some kind of risk, no matter how great their business approach.

Your listed 1994 as your first business date... that was after Clinton took office, and history shows he left adult entertainment alone. The only people doing obscenity battles were local guys, and that's a much lesser offense than federal charges. Back in the late 1980's under Reagan and Bush I, federal obscenity battles didn't just involve a couple of guys... they were huge. The old time video guys can tell you about it. The question is, are we on the verge of returning to the Reagan/Bush policies of the 1980's? There is STRONG evidence to support claims that we are indeed headed that way. Time will tell.

I agree with Jay... it's all about risk management. There are plenty of things concerned Webamsters can do to lower their risks and play it safe... or, if a Webmaster isn't concerned at all, well then they can just keep doing what they're doing.

well, the war on smut is partially politically motivated.

but a lot of it has to do with actions by irresponsible webmasters who foist their shit on ordinary people who do not want it (unsolicited email porn, misleading domains, no filtering on websites, etc.) you can thank these asswipes for much of the impetus of the so-called "war on pornography".

my opinion is that IF you handle only mainstream type stuff it will be VERY difficult to convict for obscenity in front of a jury composed of anyone with a college education or a young person (MTV generation). and the rule of peremptory challenges will make it difficult for the government to get a jury composed entirely of southern baptists and high school dropouts.

while many people will say they don't like porn, it is pretty obvious from sales statistics that lots of folks do like porn---they just may not tell a pollster that they like it. check into a Marriott hotel in the USA---nice place to stay. order room service, it will come on a silver platter---and choose from a smorgasbord of smut where you can see people fucking and sucking on your TV in the Marriott hotel.

same for direcTV, spice channel, etc. LOTS OF HARDCORE EVERYWHERE IN AMERICA. my point being, mainstream hardcore will be very difficult to convict if you can watch it on the TV at the Marriott.

Canadian cultural values are very similar to those of the USA---if anything Canada as a whole is slightly more conservative than American culture.

the US DOJ should look carefully at the recent acquital of the Sweets for material that is much edgier than mainstream smut.

and IF the "war on pornography" is a tool to win votes in november this current administration may be in for a surprise.

while many folks may actually find porn offensive, these same folks do not want a government telling them what they can see or read or do in their own homes or bedrooms---they will find that MORE offensive.

There was never a time when webmasters shouldn't be concerned, and doing their best to minimize risk. But I do believe the heat is up.

Concern is positive... it keeps you from doing stupid things and putting yourself in needless risk. Fear is not positive. I'd be concerned, but not afraid.