Content Providers and 2257
 

In the spirit of the 2257 discussions going on, I'd like to ask other content providers some things. These are honest questions and I'm not trying to crawl up anyones ass or anything. I've seen these issues pop up in other threads and I think they deserve a thread of their own.

To those advertising that their docs comply with the new regs: Do you include all the assumed names, aliases, maiden names and nicknames with the compliance info, as required by the new regs?

To all content providers: Are you willing and/or able (based on your local laws) to include this information?

To all content providers: Do you feel that a revised model release would be the best way to handle the issue of names and assumed names?

To all content providers: Will you still focus on serving the US market, or will you do as some have said they will and say "screw this, I can sell to the rest of the world."?

To all content providers: Will you be giving out IDs and Model Releases in the future?

To all content providers: Will you be removing the models contact information?

To all content providers: What will you be doing to fulfill the new 2257 law?

Not trying to piss anyone off or scare people, but I think it's important.

what I love about all this...is my wife used her drivers license and social security card for her two forms of ID....

puts a whole new twist on identity theft

all my personal content is being pulled
fuck that shit - had my share of stalkers - why would I want to give away all my personal info now I have a family? :2 cents:

paul's questions are VERY fucking important. so far, most sponsors and content providers who didn't provide any documents still don't - and they all say they're considering the situation or talking to their lawyers.

well, guys, the clock is ticking here. your customers and affiliates don't want to go to jail. sorry, but there isn't really any more time to think about it - make your move.

Uh...New regs? Those are the requirements of the current regs. If you are going to ask questions about the new regs then perhaps you could start by sticking with the new stuff rather than asking about the old.

From my recent discussions with multiple content providers and clients it has been mentioned that most of them are not familiar enough with the current laws to have included that in the first place. Nice huh? :)

Of course. But only with regard to what the law requires, not what a clients thinks the law says based on the inaccurate ramblings of others who don't have clue one WTF they are talking about.

No, the model release is no bodies business other than the model and myself. There is no current or proposed law or regulation that requires a release in the first place. You would have to be a fool not to get a signed release but again, no law says there has to be one and therefore there is no law that says I am required to give one to my clients.

My content business will continue to focus on all of my clients. Their location is not any concern of mine as long as their local laws do not conflict with what they are doing...And that's on them, not me.

ID's yes...See above for the model release question.

That depends on how the final regulations come out. If I am allowed to then yes, it will be removed. If not then no.

I will be sharing that information with other content providers as I see fit. That does not include a public forum at this time.

our customers get everything, including model releases.

some companies send us their own model releases on the advice of their lawyers.

if i was buying exclusive content i'd demand the model release - what happens in 5 years when some model sees her pics on a site and she's now married and a born again Christian and she's got a well to do husband she's told she 'only posed for one photographer and it was private ' - you dont have a model release to prove otherwise - now you are at the mercy of the content provider hoping he is still around and reachable and has the model release.

i know people who've had this very problem.

I provide the release and id as they are.

I use the same release as I do for the magazines, and I also use the girls real first name at the shop.
They sign the release saying that they agree to be published under their own, or a fictive name, and if they don't provide a stage name then theres only one left.


We don't have contact info at the id's, so that's no problem.

The info I provide it okay for the biggest magazines, so I thing it's okay for the internet too.

Good post Aaron.

How do you propose proving the girl agreed to the shoot, for the content to be sold on the Internet, the date of the shoot, and listing her nick names and aliases?

Will you be giving out models IDs with the contact details on to your clients for them to give to their affiliates?

The proposed changes are extreme and unrealistic! if they go through we will all have serious headaches!

I can't speak for other content providers, but I know what we're doing and can fill you in on that.

We comply with the law as it is right now. These changes are proposed changes, and are not law yet.

However, we are ready to comply with these changes if they occur just as proposed. We are working on this as we speak and will be ready long before the deadline.

I'd like to point out something if I might..

These new regs are somewhat flawed.. and this proposal may not even go into law until these flaws are corrected, and new proposals made.

However let me say again.. we are prepared, and plan to comply with whatever is decided, as we have all of the 2257 documents for our models.

I understand the stress that many of you are feeling, but we're all in this together, and if you've bought content or plan to buy content from us you can know that we aren't going anywhere, and are ready for the changes.

I would advise that we not let panic alter what up until now has been a lucrative industry, and see the facts for what they are. The facts? Well.. we don't know what they are yet.. but with this new proposal, we know the worst scenerio at least, and we at Midnight Digital are taking this very seriously, and will act accordingly.

michael what id's do you provide the magazines now? these new regs are specific about what constitutes acceptable forms of ID. well there is some vagueness about foreign passports.

Good post, I think Brad Shaw is now in court over the same thing about content he bought from David Lace.

We had a model threaten to sue a client of ours, until the client faxed over the model release the girl signed.

But again what will you do in the future with regards to clients giving out content to affiliates?

This to me is the biggest change that effects us content providers, are we selling the girls contact details to people who will frelly distribute it?

I'd like to suggest that you content providers get together and challenge this law, I think you would get good support from most of the adult industry.

The law is challengeable on many levels and I suspect getting a judge to issue an injunction preventing enforcement until it's had its day in court would be rather easy.

the specific issues are the models right to privacy and diligence to prevent identity theft, innocence until proven guilty, undue administrative work that is not enforced on other industries, like mainstream movies, and the right not to incriminate yourself or have your property searched without probable cause and a search warrant.

Personally I think I am in compliance but its much easier for me, I have exclusive content and do not sell as a content provider. I will shoot custom content but all the paperwork goes to the buyer and I dont resell it.

I don't believe the Record Keeping Act, it its proposed form would survive a constitutional challenge on any one of those levels much less all of them.

BUT I'm not an attorney....

Thanks for the info Captain Obvious :thumbsup

Let's break this down....

"How do you propose proving the girl agreed to the shoot, for the content to be sold on the Internet"

That's why you would have to be a fool to not get a signed release if you are a content provider.

"the date of the shoot, and listing her nick names and aliases?"

Dates of production, and all required names/other info can be included on a seperate 2257 form that complies with the current laws. This same form can have a "general release" that also directs back to the main release form. The general release should include enough info to allow our clients to rest at ease while the full release covers my ass to the furthest extent possible.

The new regulations allow for things to be digital. I like that and I am sitting on a custom solution that I will be sharing with you shortly.


[QUOTE]Originally posted by charly
[B]I already answered that question.

On a similar note. IMHO, any affiliate program would be making a rather large mistake and taking on an even larger legal risk by continuing to provide content to their affiliates once these new regs go into effect.

The new regs will require them to list all URL's that their content is on and the only way to do this is to use 100% hosted galleries and hope that if an affiliate steals the content and builds their own that the Government does not come after the anybody for that.

I personally hope that these new regs run all the idiots like you out of this business.

"The sky is falling!" :321GFY

Where exactly is the vagueness?

Section 75.1 paragraph (B) seems pretty clear to me.

(b) Picture identification card means a document issued by the United States, a State government or a political subdivision thereof, or a United States territory that bears the photograph and the name of the individual identified, and provides sufficient specific information that it can be accessed from the issuing authority, e.g., a passport issued by the United States or a foreign country, driver's license issued by a State or the District of Columbia, or identification card issued by a State or the District of Columbia.

I've spoken to US magazines and they are saying that a passport and National ID is sufficient. I'm assuming they have spoken to lawyers. Companies like Hustler don't rely on Webmasters message boards for legal information. :)

And neither should anybody else. :2 cents:

Does that mean finacial support or threads on message boards?

There is not one content provider with the money to do this and I doubt if all of us would get together to change this law.

But of course if content prices could go back to $200 a set or video, exclusive $2,000 for solo, then we might be able to take on the fight for the paysites. :1orglaugh

Be warned for most of you this will have a grave effect on your business. Non US webmasters can carry on as they did before, US ones will be left to use Hosted Galleries, with a lot less chance of getting listed, or buying content themselves with 2257 documentation and cross referencing it.

For some Aaron is right "The sky is falling!"

I just solved the Contact information and altering the documents situation.

We will scan all the IDs and Model Releases, and supply the scan with the content.

But on the scan we will lay paper over the pert that has the conact information.

We are not altering the documents, we are just blocking some of the NON REQUIRED information.

Let them prosecute on that.

Why are people always trying to find ways around the issues instead of simply dealing with them?

The more you try to buck the system, the more regulations they will impose on you for it.

So you propose giving out the documents with the models contant info and hoping he will not give it out again.

Fine enough for you, but I'm legally bound not to give out contact information. Others might have other worries.

Want to keep something private? Keep it to yourself and do not rely on the next guy to not pass it on, just one more time. That chain might never stop.

Scew that the woman i work with mean more to me than that, safety first. i'll just find a way around it.

You're legally bound not to give that out? Bullshit. All it takes to fix that is a simple addition to your release that states you have the right to give it out.

I never heard of a model release that legally binds you from giving out the models info. If you shot a model and then sold the pics to some magazine without a full model release there would be no sale.

Aaron is right about the model release has nothing to do with 2257, I learned that last week from my lawyer . I thought it was all the same thing it is not.

Perhaps not - the EU has some privacy laws in place that may prohibit him from providing those sort of details.

Hi Guys

Ok I'm still at the "Gonzo Stage" of the content provider lifeform.

But I want to let you know that I allready give full scans (nothing blocked or covered) of ID.s and Passport to my customers.


I will still do so in the futur in conpliance with the new 2257 laws proposal.

And will follow the big dogs, you guys, to stay secure in the pack...


So the sky is not falling for everybody, on the opposit, I do think that at least in my case, it will make my bussiness stronger and better by showing the US customers and other US providers that I'm in full compliance and totaly ligit.

Great thread, thanks for all the infos.:thumbsup


Regards
MajorTom

Um...You appear to be overlooking a major part of the current law.

Hi mister AaronM

As usual in your un-imitable personal style, you raise a point, without pointing at it.

If you would be so kind as to enlight me what I'm "overlooking".

Being a newcomer, I'm not as well as you, familiar (to my great shame) with all the procedings.

It could be a first step towards "content providers joinning forces", big and small alike.

As we all have been new comers, at one stage or another of our lifes, I dare to hope that you will dig deep into your memory bank, and dwell on some souvenirs of your when you where just a Nooby, making mistakes through ignorance of the biss protocols.

And though find the strenght to ad to your latest 2 liners, just the necessary info, for me to learn where my fault lays, and correct it.

Kind Regards

MajorTom

:thumbsup

The magazines asks for two photo ID's and they get the models ID card and passport/or DL.
I can't see they can have any vagueness about foreign passports...if the girl is American she has an American passport, and if she's Czech, she has a Czech passport.

We currently comply fully with the current law and are prepared to do what is necessary to comply with the upcoming revisions. Making available un-blacked out IDs is a simple step. The ramifications of this are much larger and I believe any jury would surely see the privacy issues involved and strike this down the first time it appears in court.

This is all webmasters need concern themselves with in regards to content providers. What's the big deal?

Next issue is URL tracking which needs to be more clearly defined because if it means the primary producer needs to keep track of every single url an image winds up on anywhere, then forget it... we're all going to jail. If it means only secondary producers are required to keep track of their own urls and where they place their content, then I think this is a fair and reasonable measure.

None of this will be known until the revision has been worked out and our comments taken into consideration (it's still possible to make your concerns known to the DOJ). When it is published we can all act accordingly.

At this point we can only expect and plan for the worse.

Look smart ass.....If you had read and answered each of Charly's questions from the original post in this thread then you would see what you are missing.

I am not here to hold your hand.

I'm not sure that I agree with that.

Tracking the URL may be a pain in the ass but it is possible, even for the primary to track the secondary producers URL's. Of course, this would take a lot of trust which is why content producers may want to start screening their potential clients. If people are pissed about having to register for content sites now...Just wait until content providers start screening more. :)

The solutions are all simple IF you can trust your clients. Personally, I trust each of my clients but I am not the average content provider who is scrambling for business and will sell to anybody to make 15 bucks.

oh the humanity.

Sometimes I just do not get you people.

The URL tracking language is way too vague in the revised regs. If it means I have to record that a certain set of pics is on 123.com then it's no problem. If it means I have to list http://www.123.com/images/1000234/001.jpg, http://www.123.com/images/1000234/002.jpg, etc, then it approaches impossible. Plus, consider the php based sites that are dynamically generated. This is another great example of the government trying to regulate an industry that isn't understood by any of the regulators.

I'm waiting to see what survives and makes it into the revised regs, but there is some potential for disaster there.

I was told to worry about urls on my server only.

didn't you post a thread like this a few days ago?

That's exactly what we have to do, and no it's not impossible. It's quite easy. I have my own in-house system done. Took just one afternoon to program.

The purpose of the URL database is so they can show up with a URL and you can go to your database, type in that URL, and immediately know who the model is instead of them standing around for hours while you search through records trying to match that photo up.

It remains to be seen what will happen to people who come up with better systems that don't follow the regs, but can still produce the model info immediately.