Is a porn website legal in my state?
 

How do you guys know if a porn website is legal in your state or do you even look to see if it is? I have other sites but they are the family kind and you can't make much from them anymore so i wanted to get into the adult world i would ask a lawyer but i don't have much money to spend.

I think it's more important where you host, rather than where you live...

I wouldn't host in any of the "bible belt" states...

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Even Jesus wont host in the Bible Belt States!!
Jesus Host is in Canada!

And you should to!
Trust Jesus, if ya cant trust him who can you trust?

Just dont trust the people of Jesus. Trust Jesus and only Jesus himself.

Thanks for the fast reply.

Where is all the "bible belt" states? I found a adult web host in my state but they are in a different city.

States really have nothing to do with it. The Miller test for obscenity covers community standards and no state (with the possible exception of say Wyoming and South Dakota who might muster one community up in the whole state lol) is a single community.

For instance what may be considered fine in LA may not be acceptable in San Diego or what is considered obscene in Albany may not be in Manhattan.

Nor is where you are hosted truly relative to anything at the moment, since it is where you are prosecuted that will make the difference.

Nowhere in the current legal statutes does it say that a site hosted in Nevada, owned by someone in California, cannot be prosecuted in Mississippi for obscenity there.

If you are simply advertising a sponsor -- with free sites, gallery pages, etc -- I would strongly suggest that you consider running either softcore pics or very censored hardcore on your pages -- nothing more than what you see in Playboy for the most part.

If you own pay sites, you probably should think about going the way of most of the larger sites and censoring those tours as best you can.

There is a case in OK right now stemming from a site owned by a TX couple which is hosted elsewhere than TX, and the attorney for the couple is attempting to use the defense that OK cannot prosecute something that has no real relationship to OK. The case should be interesting in that if it does go to trial it will set a precedent one way or the other that can have a very heavy potential influence on how obscenity is going to be tried.

I agree with Kimmykim and for people who put the "I am not a law enforcement officer" in their disclaimer - not only does it not have any legal weight whatsoever - you are just making a prosecutors job easier.

"He knew it was illegal, otherwise he would have not put a disclaimer up there."

Apparently this disclaimer comes about from the common misconception that a cop must tell you he is a cop. People like that are prosecutor's favorites. They hi-5 each other back in the office when they get a defendant like that. Superman can not lie - cops are free to anytime they want. So if you have that in your disclaimer - you are either stupid or asking for trouble. Either way - take it out.

Kimmykim, that happened to a couple in Milpitas, California, someone, city or town in TN. sued them and they had to go stand trial in TN.

Can not remember how the trial turned out, that was 2 or 3 years ago I believe.

Jim

To set the record straight. Where you host your site means absolutely nothing in regards to the law. The law clearly states, that it is the state in which you file your taxes in that is considered where the business is operated. Those who think hosting a site in a foriegn country or some other state will protect them from the law, are wrong. This info is straight from the us attorneys office.

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I'm sure it's probably happened in more than one case jimmy -- it's such an easy thing for a local prosecutor to start up such an action and be hailed as a hero, especially around election time --

Personally I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable with the defense on this one being the legality of prosecution across state lines -- while it would be fantastic to have the court say it's not a relevant reason to prosecute, it could also go the other way and you could find certain locales prosecuting everything they can find, making it very expensive for the industry to keep hiking out to Bumfuck Mississippi or Backwoods Alabama to defend ourselves.

I agree with Lighting, where you host means
shit.It's where you live.If you live in US
you are under US law even if you host in Congo.

so no matter where i live I'll always be taking a chance if i run a adult site? I'm thinking it's not legal to have a adult site where i live because there are no bars here no strip clubs or any kind of adult entertainment to be seen for miles!

It is not where you live, or where you host. It is as kimmykim said - where you sell. If one customer from that state visits your site - they COULD go after you.

It depends on the law, but they have done so hundreds of times in consumer protection cases. Of course, you may have a defense, and that law may be tailored to certain jurisdictions. I was going to get into wine investing and selling on eBay, but this was impossible - as I had to be concerned with the laws of the state I was selling stuff to.
eBay eventually banned the sale of wine on their site for this reason.


States will often go after companies in other states under their consumer protection laws. They do not bother to do so in many obsenity cases, as it is much more complicated and there are 1st ammendment issues as well as they know that the ACLU will step in to defend such cases.

It takes a prosecutor with a lot of extra time on their hand to do it, and they can, but why should they - when they can go after people like Ms. Cleo and such.

They most likely would only go after people in their own state, because it eliminates a whole bunch of legal sticky stuff, but they can do it if they want to.

If you live in the US or are a citizen of the US - they can come after you. People tried to get out of internet gambling prosecutions by moving everything out of the US - including themselves. The US had no problem in arresting them. The US seems to have given up on internet gambling for the meantime.

I really do not think you have much to worry about. The police, FBI, and others know about tons of illegal stuff they NEVER prosecute. In almost EVERY drug case, they COULD prosecute you for tax evasion. They do not 99.9% of the time. If you are not doing something that that agency is currently working on - they do not care. I had a friend arrested by the secret service for a tiny bank scheme he pulled. When they arrested him, there was thousands of dollars in drugs in the room. They simply flushed it down the toilet. He could have done much more time for the drugs then he would have for the Bank Scheme (11 months for $70k he didn't even have to pay back). Why, because they weren't looking for drugs. It isn't worth the paperwork they would have to fill out.

Unless the police in some state - make this a priority - they are not going to go after you. I would even be willing to bet you could walk into the police stations of 99% of these hostile states with pictures of your "obscene" sites, and they would send you home. They do not care most of the time. Cops do not like to prosecute crimes they aren't familiar with - and 99% of them have never worked on such a case.

Now if you really piss off the police - they can prosecute you for everything under the sun, but usually they won't.

Tom straight free advice... call your local county seats prosecutors office and go have a meeting with the highest guy or woman you can meet with. They will tell you up front as they have enough on their plates without adding some green webmaster that doesn't have any real $$ to fine you for.

They are the ones that know your localities morals better than anyone else. They have to prosecute the crimes involving all of that. It appears you are already worried... so maybe a mainstream site might be better for you.

Kid sites with games and things can turn a few dollars per month and a newbie isn't going to waltz into adult sites and make a ton anyhow. Kids like to click on things and someplace like commission junction has lots of kid oriented affiliate programs to use. http://bbs.gofuckyourself.com/board/smile.gif Just be careful with selling the email addies if you collect them from kids. There ARE adult webmasters out there that will spam any age bracket. So try to sell that sort of thing to known safe sites like back to commission junction or one of the other family based aff proggies. There are several large ones.

All I show is softcore on my site, I try not to show any pink and when I accidentally do I freak out... It's easier to sell with softcore content anyways,because you tell the surfer to go to the sponsor for hardcore,unless you are going for "shock value". Anyways, lately I've been doing lots of foot fetish sites. Just pics of feet by themselves, no punana and no penises,perhaps a little boobie shot here and there...Surely feet by themselves cannot be considered obscene? I hope..

It's not where you host or where you live, it's how you host and how you live. http://bbs.gofuckyourself.com/board/wink.gif

The Miller test for obscenity covers community standards and no state (with the possible exception of say Wyoming and South Dakota who might muster one community up in the whole state lol) is a single community.
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Actually KK, that statement isn't correct. In the Miller case the Court ruled that the entire state of California was the relevant community. This has also happened in Florida, the entire state was used as the relevant community.

Larry Walters has some interesting thoughts on the obscenity topic that can be read here. http://www.lawrencewalters.com/publi...-03-30-01.php3

Peace,

Are there actually respectable hosts in congo?

[This message has been edited by Xero (edited 07-31-2001).]

I think the question is are there actually computers in congo http://bbs.gofuckyourself.com/board/wink.gif