TopBucks-Important 2257 Announcement
 

TopBucks prides itself in maintaining a professional reputation within the Adult industry; our business has always been and continues to be--sound, organized and run with a distinct level of confidence in order to provide a quality service to our webmasters and members. With the recent changes to the 2257 regulations, we want to assure our webmasters that you can continue to expect the same level of quality and professionalism from TopBucks. We have worked to comply with all changes to the 2257 regulations and support the Free Speech Coalition?s efforts to combat unnecessary aspects of the regulations.

After in-depth analysis of the 2257 changes with our attorney and others within the industry, we have worked to be fully compliant ourselves and worked to create solution, so there are minimal impacts on our webmasters

Below, is a breakdown of changes in TopBucks Terms as a result of our compliance with 2257 regulations:

Hosted Galleries:
Currently, all of our static hosted galleries and daily rotating pic/video galleries comply with the revised 2257 regulations, as the content is hosted on our domains. No changes by our webmasters are necessary in order to comply with our terms.

Free Content:
Webmasters will have two choices in how they access/utilize TopBucks giveaway content:

1. Those of you who feel more comfortable with non-?sexually explicit? content that is excluded from 2257 regulations may utilize the non-?sexually explicit? content recently provided in the giveaway content area. More sets will be added soon.

2. All giveaway content previously provided by TopBucks for reality sites may continue to be used. This includes ?sexually-explicit? content as webmasters will have access to our online 2257 database outlined in the next section.
2a.Giveaway content utilized by webmasters for non-reality sites is required to be removed from the webmaster?s domain by June 23rd, 2005, as we are unable to provide access to records for these images.

TopBucks 2257 Database:
TopBucks will provide our webmasters with the ability to access an online 2257 database only upon a lawful 2257 investigation for all images/videos from our reality sites. This database will have several back up servers and different hosting locations to ensure quality service. Furthermore, it will be audited by reputable third party companies and attorneys, allowing webmasters to feel confident in our 2257 compliance.

In the event of a lawful 2257 investigation after June 23rd, 2005, webmasters may call 1.866.470.2257 and we will provide a username and password to access the necessary model information on Topbucks2257.com. We will require the following information prior to accessing our database:

-TopBucks ID & Password
-Verification of Payable to Address
-Full name and accreditations of 2257 investigator
-The URL of the image or video in question

We ask that webmasters review more detailed information and instructions regarding our database and use of our free content by logging into their TopBucks account and visiting http://webmaster.topbucks.com/2257.html

Banner Content:
All ??sexually explicit?? banner content has been pulled from the TopBucks Banner Area. We require that all webmasters currently utilizing ?sexually explicit? banners remove the banners from their sites by June 23rd, 2005.

We have provided sets of ?non-sexually explicit? banners that our webmasters may use as an alternative and we are working on providing new ?sexually-explicit? banners for webmasters to use that comply with the revised regulations. Additional ?non-sexually explicit? banners will be added over the next two weeks.

TopBucks Web Sites:
Webmasters may continue to promote all of our TopBucks websites; reality, straight, gay, and VOD. We have worked on creating compliant tours and will continue to do so in order for all of our websites to sustain complete operations.

Terms Modifications:
We will be updating/amending our Webmaster Terms of Service by June 23, 2005 to reflect these new policies and regulations. We may have additional requests of our webmasters with regard to foreign model use, but will communicate any necessary changes in a timely manner

Finally, we feel our solution carefully balances both our goals of minimizing the impact of the 2257 regulations on our webmasters and protecting the privacy of our 4500+ models. We appreciate the support of our webmasters in understanding both goals and remind webmasters that we plan to continue to be proactive and offer additional solutions to 2257 compliance as they become available to us.

For a preview of our database, visit topbucks2257.com Please feel free to hit up any of the TopBucks staff or email [email protected] with any questions.

Oh la la

..

Oh hell yeah! :thumbsup :pimp

is that "sig spot" in Dutch?

wow.....

Wow, quite a nice explaination.

http://www.businessvoyeur.com/2005-0...2257-statement

Good move topbucks, the new system looks great

Reality Cash, Top Bucks, Nasty Dollars all allowing affiliates use of hardcore content still .. Anyone see a pattern? Good for these companies, proud to support them.

"Insert typical smartass ronaldo comment here" as a bump. Too tired to think of anything witty today.

Thanks Lee! I've been waiting for this!!

There you go, replacing banners on all pages now ... damn 2257 ...

Damn rights!

One of the really big programs speaks...interesting stuff. :)

Looks nice guys...

Just got the email
good to see Topbucks is constantly on top of everything (no pun intended) as always

I have a question then. Will your database have every URL that the content is used on listed or will you just be asking for the url so you can see the content for yourself and verify who/what it is so that the correct info can be given?

Also, I'm not a lawyer, but from what I understand aren't "secondary producers " supposed to have the documents in thier possesion? Just curious.

Very professional. Top Deed!!!

http://darkstar.typepad.com/bagus_su...ebra-thumb.jpg

Secondary producers can EASILY claim hardship and get an appointment 2 days later. Then get into the DB, download the required info, and present it at the appointment time.

Kane-thanks for the questions.

In short:

1) We will include all referring urls that contain our content & all urls that webmasters enter that contain our content in the database

2) U.S.C. 2257 sec. 75.2 f states:
Records required to be maintained under their part may be kept EITHER in hard copy OR in digital form, provided that they include scanned copies of forms of identification and that there is a custodian of the records who can authenticate each digital record.

We feel that our database complies with the new regulations, but encourage our webmasters to contact their attorney's for additional information on their
individual compliance.

The law also states:
"Any producer required by this part to maintain records shall make such records available at the producer's place of business."

We also feel that our solution fulfills this requirement as well.

hi lee,
thanks for the clarification. I just logged into the site and see where I can add my URLs's that's pretty cool, so I should just be able to cut and paste them from my database.

looks like a great system.

thanks
kane

Thank you Topbucks!

I was really worried about having to pull all these banners and links

So if I'm understanding correctly all the 2257 data is available and ready however will only be given to affiliates if their are under investigation and can prove it. Is that correct? I was told this was not a viable solution.

Good to see Topbucks are on top of the situation

So what do we link to. Have you got a page we can send people looking for 2257 to on our pages. As a lot of places we promote your sites require a 2257 link. What can we put on that page?

Yes. We and our attorney's feel that this solution complies with the 2257 requirements, but again-- we encourage our webmasters to contact their own attorney's for legal advice on their individual situation.

Please log into your TopBucks account & visit:

http://webmaster.topbucks.com/2257.html

You will see the 2257 primary producer custodian of records information & you can create a page on your site to list those primary producers. We also include this information in our free content downloads.

We also recommend that you save our database URL and the phone # to contact us locally.

~Alli

OK Cheers

Good move :thumbsup

Great system & way of working with affiliates on the new regs Lee. Giving affiliates access to the 2257 DB if & when they are investigated is brilliant.

I fuckin' love Topbucks

I don't like the idea of giving a person / telling a person a password to any logins of mine, even if it's an employee of the company; I'd hope passwords would be encrypted. I realize it's to verify that it isn't a prank call, but perhaps just having a form inside (once your logged in) that you can fill in all that information, and not a phone number.. would work better?

Matt

Good stuff.. way to go TopBucks!

The purpose of the phone number is to be able to provide the fastest turn-around service possible if a webmaster were to be investigated and a more personal service during a potentially very stressful situation. We feel an online form would be less reliable, more open to "fake" submissions, and would not provide as fast a turn around.

Overall, investigations of our content should be few and far between, but we want to always be prepared. At this time, we feel it it reasonable to ask webmasters to verify their TopBucks account by providing it to a staff member over the phone. As time progresses, we'll continue to improve upon our 2257 system as we do with our other projects.

~Alli

Great solution for sure one more reason to push TopBucks even more you got everything covered...

Top BUcks rock :winkwink:

I agree, love Topbucks!

The idea is that the FBI can make a surprise visit to check records. People being allowed to call a 3rd party and get the records pretty much ruins the suprise element.

Seems safe for TB since they are making ID's available, but I must wonder how legal this is for affiliates.

nice announcement

Nice move, was wondering why it was taking you guys so long to make an Annoucement regarding 2257 :)

Hi Matt26z,

We and our attorney's feel that this solution complies with the 2257 requirements, but as we mentioned in our announcement above if you do not feel comfortable with our solution you may choose to use just our non-?sexually explicit? content. We've uploaded many sets of non-?sexually explicit? content and banners this week and will continue to add more daily.

Kevin

How do the boxcovers for the VOD program fit into all of this?

Matt,
Most of the vod boxcovers are not sexually explicit. Those few that are will be revised for use by June 23rd.

Lee, how does TB feel about non-US webmasters hosted outside of the USA still using the Explicit banners that you had. I don't think anyone asked this previously. Thanks

Maja-
We understand that as a non-US webmaster you may also have your own
country's laws to abide by that conflict with the U.S.C. 2257 regulations.
We are unable to offer you legal advice on your specific situation and
encourage you to contact a local attorney regarding your relationship with a
U.S. based affiliate program and the risks associated with either complying
or not complying with the U.S.C. 2257 regulations.

TopBucks is not in the business to police the internet for use of our
content, however we feel our solution does provide a simple way for both
U.S. and non-U.S. webmasters to comply with U.S.C. 2257 regulations.

Hope that answers your question.

Good job guys, I'm still working my stuff.

Good job topbucks :thumbsup

Yes it does, thanks Lee!

Time to do some banner editing.... But Topbucks has always been one of my favourite sponsors :thumbsup

Good policy...