Considering Free Speech Coalition Donation - Please list their accomplishments
 

Okay, so the FSC (Free Speech Coalition) is soliciting money from the adult industry regarding the 2257 regs, and implying that only contributing FSC Members may be entitled to injunctive relief should their petition be granted (which many have said is BS since it should apply to the entire industry), so what exactly is the FSC's track record on legal issues?

They filed comments regarding the proposed 2257, but it seems to have had little impact. So what do they expect to accomplish regarding the new 2257 regs published in the Federal Register? Delaying the inevitable?

Please don't get me wrong, I believe in fighting the good fight, but I also expect that the FSC has probably already drafted it's response to the regs, so how is any additional amount of funds going to make a difference, except to make some pro-adult lawyer(s) richer?

I sincerely hope that someone from the FSC (as opposed to all of the expert GFY armchair lawyers) will step up and explain their past specific accomplishments, as well as their intended effect on the new 2257 regs.

I will be glad to make a contribution once I have heard an acceptable response, and get good answers to my questions.

ADG Webmaster

interesting.... good post! :thumbsup

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/british/images/vc264.jpg

ADG Webmaster

some pretty cool looking dudes there

On closer examination, that photo looks kinda gay. Glasses, no glasses, glasses, no glasses - each pair has their hands on a guitar. I selected it simply because it mentioned crickets, since there has been mostly silence on this post hence far.

What would Carl Jung think?

Anyway, so if any Free Speech Coalition members wish to exercise their free speech and explain what the organization has actually accomplished aside from creating a badly designed web site and raising funds for themselves, I would be interested to hear it.

It's not that I have a problem with giving lawyers a pile of money for nothing (although that's part of it), but I like to know that my money is going for something productive instead of lining ineffective fear-mongering lawyers' pockets.

Too many people are already trying to cash in on the 2257 hysteria.

All it takes is good reading skills, a good copier, some manila folders and a working knowledge of Excel basics to comply with the regs.

Granted there are some bigger issues for those who release their content to other parties, and the secondary producer regs suck, but before I pass along money to the FSC, I am curious as to what prior legal successes the organization has had, and what specifically they believe they can accomplish with donations from myself and others in the adult industry.

ADG Webmaster

We are a large number. We are everywhere. We must not divide our energy. I agree with you that FSC is a good thing, and I understand what you mean about lining their pockets. But at least there is an effort to unite. Perhaps they should offer a free or less expensive membership and only ask for money when it's time to strike and the resources are low.

We are many, and it's a shame that we are also very opinionated and stubborn. Our inability to unite will be our undoing. The truth is we will never unite. We will never stand as one. And therefore we will get pushed around by the gov't because we fight with each other. We are divided, but together we will fall.

The few individuals with enough money to fight with expensive lawyers will only win a few small battles but they will lose the war.

Aside from one partial victory related to virtual cp, I am unaware of any other cases that FSC has fought and won. Yet I am expected to pay them $500 (the same amount a large studio would have to pay) to become a Member?

It would be nice to see the heavyweights in the industry AVN, LFP, and the major adult studios fund FSC or launch some organization of their own that smaller players could then join for a more reasonable amount of money.

ADG Webmaster

"the greatest nation in the world is donation."

FSC is a trade association advocate, it is not analogous to something like the ACLU.

FSC wants to preserve the right of american businesses to push any sort of shit into the marketplace.

it represents a BUSINESS interest, not a MORAL interest.

not making a judgment on that, just pointing it out.

sometimes just because you have the legal right to do something doesn't make it the "right" thing to do.

a lot of folks don't understand that the reason thousands of american webmasters in the next 30 days are scrambling around trying to comply with revised regs has NOTHING to do with child porn.

it has to do with the american people FED UP with scammy UCE porn in their mailboxes, nasty degrading shit porn that has no redeeming value to anyone but a freak, and stupid asswipes pushing the envelope to make a buck.

and that, is the big picture.

I do not know them to say good or bad, but I know that the comments about only their paying members getting the injuction might have rubbed some people the wrong way.

I thought I saw a comment from a big time message board owner among others.

YARGH! I agree. It could help to protect their affiliates, and thus themselves.

AHOY! me shimmy shams.

http://www.lukeisback.com/archives/updates/040726.htm

interesting read on how the FSC used to work..

Would you be willing to join them if they were a % fee based organization, and provided you not only with legal service, but something more solid as well? Like traffic, or hosting, or content, or any other tangible service or product that they could hire out to a 3rd party? And offered a newsletter that would keep you informed of all progress by them. What if they based your membership fees based on sales? Like say 1% of your sales would go to them, or a minimum or $50 or $100.00 per year.
And what if like CCBill, or any other large 3rd party processor had an option or setting where you could set aside 1% of all your sales into an account so when it reached the 50 or 100 mark you could then electronically wire it to FSC as your membership dues. But like I said maybe they could offer a little more in return.

I see what you mean by them charging $500 to file the same paperwork for you as they would a $50 dollar membership person. It's like them saying. "We have this form we're going to file for everyone. We can add your name for $500. and we can add that guys name for $50.00 and you both will get the same coverage."

It might be easier to do if they say well it's going to cost us $5000.00 to file and we'll divide that money evenly. So you all pay the same.

I can understand that a major corp should pay more than a single person, but the coverage is the same. If they were doing MORE for the major corp, then so be it. But they are not. It's the same form getting filed.

And again. I don't look down on the FSC. I have all the respect for what they stand for. I'm just asking these questions in hopes that one day we can all be united in this endeavor and not have so many lawyers telling us different things. Or even scaring us into paying money for services we may not even need.

The Free Speech Coalition has been fighting for your right to do business for over ten years. The fact that you haven't been supporting them while their members spend money to protect your right to do business is reason enough to join now.

Try searching Google if you want to know what they do.

They are always working to kill anti-adult bills, they have had a lobbyist who works at the state and federal level, and they have worked with other important groups like the ACLU and ICANN on a variety of issues including opposing and contesting unconstitutional laws and the proposed .xxx extension.

This is not an organization that was formed to take your money over the 2257 rules. You'll have to check some other GFY threads for those. :)

If you don't like the fact that they published the opinion of a lawyer that told them you might not be protected if you don't join, then file a lawsuit against the government yourself.

Everyone wants the FSC to fight for them, but some of you don't want to pay a few hundred dollars?

You should all sign up for the future, but also to thank them for helping protect your business for the last ten years while you weren't a member.

Good post RedShoe.

I doubt that anyone here is against free speech (well, maybe a few people are). My point was that FSC has been around for something like 14 years, so before I pay them $500, I would like to know that I am doing more than just supporting a noble cause.

ADG Webmaster

The large studios are paying a lot more than $500. Look again at the membership prices:

MANUFACTURERS / DISTRIBUTORS / INTERNET SERVICES / MAIL ORDER/ INDUSTRY SUPPORT SERVICES:
Annual Sales Volume :
$10,000,000 & over $8,000 per yr.
$5,000,000 -- $9,999,999 $4,000 per yr.
$1,000,000 -- $4,999,999 $2,000 per yr.
$500,000 -- $999,999 $1,000 per yr.
$0 -- $499,999 $500 per yr.

Talent Agencies, Production Companies, Law Firms $500 per yr.
Dance Clubs, Retail/Rental Stores, Websites $300 per yr.(Per site)

If you are a webmaster, they are asking for $300 per year!

Big companies like LFP and Vivid are the ones who put the bulk of the money into the organization. They put a lot more than what you see listed above into the FSC. Several of the bigger paysite owners also pay more in than the minimum $300. That doesn't mean that the little guys who benefit from their work should pay nothing.

Why should Larry Flynt pay 100% of the legal fees to defend your business?

Think of the $300 as insurance on the future of your business. How can you not afford $300 to protect your business and to protect yourself personally from prison?

$300 is less than it would cost you for one hour of the time of a good lawyer.

To join the ACLU costs $20. To join EFF, as little as $25. Both of those organizations have long lists of accomplishments.

FSC wants $500 to join, yet their impact appears to have been minimal, unless you mean that we should celebrate that thanks to the FSC we can create virtual cp (which I would never do anyway).

I'm not against the FSC, I just take issue with charging so much for Membership, and question their efficacy.

ADG Webmaster

Mounting a huge legal batter costs money...dumbass.

I missed that part. Last night when I visited the FSC site, I was looking to see how much it would cost me personally to join. Since I operate a Production Company as well as web sites, I would be required to pay $500.

Next I looked to see what specific accomplishments FSC could cite, and I was surprised to find that they had accomplished very little.

I'm happy to know that they are better funded than I originally suspected, although I would expect that they should have a better record of accomplishments in that case.

ADG Webmaster

Yes. That's my point.

United we stand, divided we fall.

Like another post in which I asked similar questions as AsianDivaGirlsWebDude, this is not intended to suggest I'm opposed to FSC. And as I have stated in other posts, I believe 2257 is one issue that we could more effectively and more efficiently deal with collectively: not only actions to try to stop/stall/clarify these changes, but also to have them interpreted professionally into plain language and have a step-by-step guide produced as to how to deal with them properly. I'm fed up with the constant suggestions this topic has produced to "go talk to a lawyer", because the idea of us all independently paying to ask the exact same questions is ludicrous.

But I have been in this business for 9 years and to me, one of its least attractive aspects is the "cult of personality". By which I mean that we are constantly putting people up on pedestals just because they are the flavor of the month with some board hero or other. We don't ask if these people deserve that elevation and often end up burying them later. I don't know if FSC fall into this category, but I have never seen FSC participating directly in any of the online porn forums and until this last week, never more than an occasional reference to them by anyone else.

So I went to their site to check them out. First, FSC has been around since 1990, which suggests whatever they are doing now, they started out representing an offline part of the porn industry. I looked around for answers as to what exactly their present actions against 2257 are designed to achieve and what - since a membership subscription does not go wholly towards fighting 2257 - their general direction was. There was almost nothing to give me so much as a clue.

They describe themselves as a trade association (actually "the" trade association of our industry) and invite people to join as members. Every other trade/professional association to which I have belonged have constitutions which describe how they operate and what members rights and responsibilities are. I couldn't find any such information about FSC, only reference to a "Board of Directors".

Up to a point the "an enemy of my enemy is my friend" may work. But wouldn't it be foolish if all the online porn webmasters who have contributed to FSC were to discover they are only pursuing the interests of video producers? I'm not saying that is the case, only that we don't actually know much at all about FSC and since 2257 is a serious issue, surely we should know more about the only people (I am aware of so far) in whom we are putting our faith.

This type of comment is why when I gave thought about the same thing as this thread asks, is why I did not even post it.

Even though I do support the FSC I also had simuliar questions. I personally felt they should offer up a lower priced membership option to get a greater number of members. Many of the smaller webmasters and the like would have a bit of sticker shock even at 300.00 per year. An organization can often achieve the same finacial results with more members paying less than a limited few paying more.

I must honestly also admit I have never bothered to see if they offer up to members any fiscal responsibility or accounting. Though they deffinatly should if they currently do not. Again I never checked and if someone knows off hand they can fill me in.

Dude - I can't believe how stupid you people are! This is exactly why we are going to lose this thing. Name one other organization that is doing ANYTHING AND I MEAN ANYTHING to oppose this? I'm waiting...still waiting...nope there's nobody.

Now the clock is ticking...we have less than 30 days left...do you think superman is going to come along and rescue you? Nope.

The internet is still realitivly new in the adult biz and 2257 is the first major challange we've been up against. The FSC wrote the comments and they did a damn fine job of it, but that's all they were comments. The Feds might have just wiped their asses with these comments for all we know and they probably did.

Now the real legal battle is about to hit and you are pissing about a lousy $500?

We can hang together or we can hang separately.

Support the FSC.

1st I would say COPA would of been the first major challenge we've been up against.
2nd It was not just the FSC that wrote the comments, the comments came in from a wide variety of people.

Again we should support the FSC, but asking questions and giving comments about the FSC should not be frowned on. After all they are the "Free Speach Coalition".

XXXJay, here is a huge legal batter for you to mount...

http://www.canseconet.com/finger.jpg

J/K. :1orglaugh

No need for namecalling and such. Before I make a donation to an organization, I like to know that the organization is going to use my money effectively. Since I didn't see much in the way of accomplishments, I was concerned, and hoped that someone here might have some idea if the FSC is worth investing in (it might come as a surprise to some people, but many non-profits are poorly run, and the majority of money they raise merely goes to perpetuating the organization and is not used for the purpose people think it is).

In my specific case, I can easily comply with the new 2257 guidelines since I shoot my own content, maintain the required records (even for my softcore models), and I operate my business independently. That doesn't mean I am not against many of the 2557 rules on general principles (I can see through the cp smokescreen and recognize the law as an end-around attack on the legitimate adult industry).

I contribute to an I am a Member of several non-profit groups. All of the groups I belong to have proven records of accomplishments. I would like to know that FSC has a good record before paying such a hefty Membership fee.

No need for anyone to get their panties in a bunch over that. I'm just asking questions, I'm not attacking the FSC.

ADG Webmaster

What on earth is the point of quoting something you obviously didn't even bother to read?

If you have an inside track to FSC and can fill in the gaps some people have been asking about in this thread, why not post something useful and answer their questions. I suspect you fall back on insults and clichés because you don't have any more idea than the rest of us what your $500 is buying. You are making assumptions that it is what you want and you are making assumptions that these people can deliver.

I sincerely hope you are right. But if not then you might as well have been waiting for superman to rescue you. At least you would still have $500 in your pocket.

The fact that $300 or even $500 is less than you will pay for one hour of the time of many good lawyers means that if you are even thinking about joining, you should just do it.

This is the cost of a nice meal for two people to protect your right to do business.

This is not a new organization and Vivid and LFP, as well as most of the other big players have been members for a long time.

What is the risk of joining? What can you lose?

If you don't join, and if they don't have the funds to fight for you, you could lose a lot.

http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.ph...36&IssueNum=40

Another interesting read- I hope they cleaned up their act since then.

Read some of their previous newsletters if you want to know what they have been doing:

http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/wknewsletter.htm

true, that's what they call themselves, but i will call it as it is:

in actuality they are a consortium of attorneys representing adult business interests.

for this "coalition" free speech is not the primary focus, making coin is, both for adult business and law firms.

ACLU is more about free speech.

example:

i wonder how much "pro bono" work the FSC attorneys give to the organization.

contrast that to the ACLU and you will see my point.

You posted an old article about them removing someone who they believed wasn't acting in the best interest of the organization. While Lyon was there, they were doing important work for the adult industry, regardless of what the problems with him may have been.

I guess the ACLU thinks they are doing good work at that time:

In 2002, FSC views were upheld in the US Supreme Court in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the so-called VIRTUAL CHILD PORN case, which has been described by no less than the ACLU as "the most important victory for the First Amendment in decades."

http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/aboutus.htm

Do you have a beef with them for some reason?

You know...I'm 110% certian if you called them and said, "Hey, I want to become a member, but $500 is a little steep for me"...I'm sure they wouldn't turn you away.

The ACLU took on COPA, but I don't see them stepping up to the plate on this one.

The FSC took on Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition:
http://students.hamilton.edu/2005/jrick/ashcroft.htm

Even though this was very unpopular...Lightspeed would probably be out of business right now if this passed.

What I am trying to say is they are out there, they are standing up for us, but in the midst of all of the mudslinging and pettyness...nobody has been able to name anyone else that is. They are filing 2 injunctions -- right now, as we speak, both on the East and West Coast agaist this bullshit.

Is anyone else doing that for you? Are you doing it for yourself?

I don't see what is so tough to see here.

Amen-

Don't believe the hype-
Ask book store owners who had to endure costly litigation to protect themselves how muct they FSC did for them

Ask Rob Black too while you are at it.

Your whole post is all very rational, all very comforting. But then how is it this thread has got to almost 30 posts and the basic questions first posed are still unanswered?

Many of those who wanted someone to fight their corner and were willing to pay for it have now made their choice and paid: all based on assumptions that because this organization is fighting 2257 they want the same as we do and are capable of getting it. What we can lose is that if it works out, fine, but if not, any small impetus there might have been for us to find a better collective solution is gone because this convenient option was to hand.

Was Rob Black a member before he got busted? Were all of these "book store owners" members?

How many of the members of this board who don't want to pay $300 are going to cry as soon as they get busted and no one wants to fight for them for free?

I have a beef with the entire industry-
It's getting increasingly more difficult to prove it's not based on lies, deception, and corruption.

When you start to learn how this business really works, and see who is running the show- you'll find in almost every case it's all about a few people's own agendas-

Not for the protection or preservation of our welfare.

The only people who truly win, are the attorneys'.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHA

REDSHOE how are you my brother?
you still have me on your icq?

Also for a org thats been around for ten yrs,I dont see their presence in the media at all. Where are the comments in the news papers or letters to the editor of the major newspapers regards 2257? To tell you the truth, that would do more good then meeting with state gov of CA. They should be working on changing public view of us. The media is very one sided, until you work on that ,the rest is really a waste of time. I would also guess a bunch of the work lawyers do for them is pro bono because it gets their name out there and more business.

I doubt you will find a better "collective solution" that costs $300 in the next 30 days. :)

Do you really think that writing to the paper and telling people you don't want to comply with an "anti-child porn" law is going to make you friends? The American people love porn but hate pornographers.

Don't do it. Let the lawyers fight it out.

I give up.

I hate webmasters.

They protected peoples right to do virtual cp and thats a good thing ,your kidding right. Lightspeed does not do virtual cp and I think would be very pissed off to be included in that post.

Yep, my thoughts exactly.

Actresses over 18 posing like they are younger...let's see, who could they be talking about?

I know Steve very well. He would never say what he does is that, but other people would.

No explain how this really isnt a anti child porn law and then explain how there are no child in adult porn and how we are very vigilante on protecting children. Also talk about how most child predator are in aol, yahoo chat groups. Talk about clergy attacking children. Explain how they are using child as a shield to hide their real motives to decide what adults can and can not watch in the privacy of their own homes.Come on guys use your heads and that was just of of the top of mine.

Maybe opening the eyes of the public on how the Government is labeling things under the guise of protecting children when they have very little to nothing to do with it. Or how they are attempting to circumvent the rights of adults viewing habits by using scare tactics by grouping adult entertainment with child pornography.