Great 2257 News. Been posted yet?
 

Justice Department Revises 6 Terms in 2257 Lawsuit

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

WASHINGTON - U.S. Justice Department trial attorney Samuel Kaplan sent a letter earlier this month to the attorneys representing the Free Speech Coalition in a lawsuit seeking to permanently enjoin 2257 record-keeping amendments. Kaplan?s letter ?corrected? six terms in the amendments that the FSC attorneys felt had caused the greatest amount of confusion and were most inconsistent with the regulations and supporting comments.

FSC attorneys considered Justice?s retreat from those terms to be a step in the right direction; however, it is not yet known whether Kaplan?s letter will be binding as the case moves forward.

The letter stated the following clarifications to the statutes that were first published in the Federal Register May 24:

# Domestic producers who travel outside the United States to record images of actual sexually explicit conduct may rely upon foreign government issued passports.

# The requirement that ?a copy of the depiction? must be maintained applies only prospectively; that is, materials recorded prior to June 23, 2005, are not covered, and no copy of the performance need be maintained.

# The requirement that the ?date of production, manufacture, publication, duplication, reproduction, or reissuance? be identified on the label is satisfied by stating the last date of filming and characterizing that as the date of production.

# Material produced before June 23, 2005, that was compliant with the old regulations may continue to be marketed without fear of prosecution under the new regulations.

# The term ?actual sexually explicit conduct? does not include ?lascivious exhibitions of the genitals;? (i.e., mere nudity).

# Websites containing no depictions of ?actual sexually explicit conduct? but that provide hyperlinks to third party websites which do contain such material have no record-keeping obligations.

The case of the FSC vs. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was last heard on Aug. 2 in Denver, Colo. A ruling from the judge on whether to grant the FSC a preliminary injunction against the amended regulations is still pending.

so basically they are saying it's ok to use the "mugshot" method of cropping the sexually explicit thumbs, then linking to the explicit gallery?

Where did you get this info?

Yes, please link source.

:)

wondering the same..

www.xbiz.com

been there all day

XBiz just now. Didn't want to get in trouble for posting other boards.

I tried to tell you people that you could link cropped thumbs of explicit images to the galleries without needing records. Wtf...

why can't i find this article on any regular news source though?

Uh, ever think it's because the rest of the world just doesn't give a damn?

Uh, ever notice most other news articles related to 2257 have been on cnn.com and foxnews.com?

Uh, ever notice AVN or XBiz break it first because they're covering the industry? Why is it you won't believe something unless you see someone out of industry reaffirm it?

Who ever said i didnt believe it? I simply asked why i cant find it at a different source...

XBiz and AVN are all over this...have been. I've never really seen anything on CNN or Fox. Well, I refuse to watch Fox, so there ya go.

wow this is good news...

I don't see where that is specifically clarified. It talks about sites using hyperlinks not requiring records. Technically a cropped thumbnail could still be construed as showing depictions of ?actual sexually explicit conduct?. :2 cents:

# The term ?actual sexually explicit conduct? does not include ?lascivious exhibitions of the genitals;? (i.e., mere nudity).

# Websites containing no depictions of ?actual sexually explicit conduct?

there ya go. if your thumbs aint explicit...no records needed. if your thumbs are explicit...you need records. what's so hard about that?

I'll keep them off for the time being ..better safe than sorry

Jesus the level of stupidity here grows every day.

The DOJ said if your site merely contains links to other sites that have sexually explicit conduct that you don't need records.
A thumb is not a link.

If you take a picture that has sexually explicit conduct, and crop out the explicit parts, and put that thumb on your site....that doesn't exempt you from record keeping requirements.
That's like saying it's ok to use minors in porn movies so long as you don't actually show the penetration......every first amendment attorney we've questioned about this has said the same thing.

Nothing in this letter from the DOJ changes that.

Well then its fucked up and should be changed. When you crop an image you make an entirely brand new image. If that new image is not "sexually explicit conduct" then it shouldn't fall under the regs.

The amount of webmasters who want to hear what they want to hear is scary :helpme Good post for #6K, Lenny2 :thumbsup

Not really.
Think about is this way....the purpose of this law is "supposed" to be to prevent minors from being used in pornography.

If you have a minor being used in a porn film, but then you blur out the explicit parts, was that minor still being exploited? Does the government still have a compelling interest to protect that minor?
Or does it not matter since you simply blurred out or cropped off the explicit parts?

I agree that this entire statutory and regulatory scheme is fucked up in many ways, but this one part actually does make sense when you look at it the way I described above.

Alot of people just don't like it because it fucks up the whole thumb TGP business model.

Another thing I was thinking about is how do you prove a pic is from before june 5? We did everything we had and will continue too even if they get a injunction because it can be lifted and to play catch up would suck