Government Intervention
 

how many people here think that the government will eventually produce laws that force all porn to be shielded behind AVS type systems?

There are a lot of governments in the world. Who cares if one of them makes porn illegal. Just move your shit to another country.

most servers and bw is run out of the US. i am not in the US, but all my servers are located there, and all my bw usage occurs there. the same is true for many others.

Well if the US makes porn illegal, people will just move their shit out of the US. Problem solved.

:)

Someone posted recently, that if you ran porn sites outside of the states, and lived in the states, if a law such as this was passed, you could still be prosecuted.

Is that true? I mean.. i don't live in the states, so it doesn't concern me, but i am curious...

the question in this thread appears to be 'will the US gov't do X?'. not ' what can be done if they do X?'.

regardless, the issue is slightly more complicated than that.

Hardcore porn is illegal in norway. But running hardcore sites that are located offshore is not illegal. go figure, the state has gone to cort against some people here. But no one was found guilty

Interesting.. I wonder if it'll be similar in the states...
And norway, i'm hoping to go there soon :Graucho

if they decide to do it they can, "make no mistake about it", as George W likes to say. will it be good or bad for the industry, that's another question. personally I think it will be VERY good. :winkwink:

Cheers,
The Machine

It would be bad for american hosting companies.

why - they'll just host more avs type sites. the assumption here is that the government imposes restrictions on how a pay site gets it's traffic, e.g. they can only pay affiliates who send them surfers age 18+,which means avs. i don't think that porn companies will move overseas. hosting companies will lose some money, true, as there will be less tgp-type freeloader bandwidth, but this only means that some hosting companies will go under, and the ones left will raise bandwidth costs (and therefore their profits). surfers will learn to pay for porn again and ultimately the industry will be much better off.

Not that easy. It's been shown with gambling sites and people going to Thailand for sex with children that you'd have to give up your US citizenship, too. As long as you are a US citizen, and especially if your work shows up back in the US, you'll still be held accountable.

So, yes, I do think some kind of AVS system is coming for those of us who want to stay in the biz AND remain US citizens.

It will never happen -- because our government will not be able to define (in writing) what an "AVS" is -- and there would be too many debates of what is an AVS and what isn't -- it would be pointless to make a law based on internet technology that could change tomorrow...

I think bandwidth issues are only temporary -- we got satellite bandwidth and all sorts of shit -- fuck 15 years ago there was "packet radio" -- nerds networking digital data by radio waves -- you can't take the internet away from the people or they will just reinvent it for you... Remember all the first PC's were made by hand -- all the circuits etched and soldered by hand (I know these people) -- no government can regulate that kind of ingenuity.

they will just tell you what an AVS should be and all AVS's that don't fall under the description will have to change. it's that easy. if they decide, they can do it.

So the US government is going to tell us how to sell porn?! HAHHAHA

Then we can have porn lobbyists -- hey maybe I can get into politics! A few hookers here a few hookers there -- maybe the White House will send some more traffic out way!

whitehouse.com?

If they try it, then the next Larry Flynt's of the world will be born.

Who will be the ones to tell the government to fuck off and fight the good long hard fight for freedom?

20 years from now, they'll be heros, just like Larry is now.

This is about much more than money.

Believe it or not, what you descibe is currently illegal in the UK:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/...000/407863.stm

The government telling us what an AVS is -- would be like the government deciding on the next HTML specification or like telling Intel not to make its chips faster -- technology changes too fast -- for all we know HTTP could become obsolete next year.

the enactment of some kind of law where access to porn would require AVS protection or payment is not the same as porn being declared illegal.

this is not the same and you know it - and the definition is quite simple as we all know - all porn is behind an age verification interface/password. that's it - you don't need further definitions.

well, they could just do something relatively simple. no nipples, no pussy, etc - ie: no full nudity until a valid cc is entered. or it's illegal. period. just playing the devil's advocate...

doing the same thing here...although devil's advocate is too evil sounding in this case as i think such a turn of events will be good for the industry.

Cheers,
The Machine

You're wrong. The whole reason that the library filter bill was killed is because the technology doesn't work. It blocks adults from seeing content that is legal for them to see.

This is the exact same thing. No AVS can block kids without blocking adults. Most adults don't have credit cards and many kids do have them - that method of trying to tell how old someone is would be unconstitutional in the same way that the library bill was ruled unconstitutional.

This issue is all about the specific technology. If it can't block kids, and kids only, then it's going to be overturned eventually, as it should be.

Free speech doesn't mean free only for people with credit cards.

It's nothing like that.

It's stating that to see porn you have to prove you're 18.

The technicalities of how that is done is irrelevant.

I hope so

Again, you are missing the point on this issue. Read the decision in the library filtering case. If the technology doesn't exist then it is unconstitutional to make a law like this. That's already been established.

Let's say there was a law -- the MAJORITY of traffic will not want to pay -- you think they will pay? -- they will just move somewhere else to get their porn -- they will either move to p2p or encrypted porn or IRC or offshore or whatever -- #1 source of traffic is WORD OF MOUTH -- you saw how quickly Napster took over -- you pull some AVS bullshit law and something new will take over. Can you imagine the AVS companies complaining to the government that they are losing business to some other new technology? Haha... That'll be the day.

And remember the laws don't mean too much... look at how pervasive: copyright infringement, password trading, warez, etc. etc.

And you guys also forgot the challenge that the law would have to once again define what is "pornography" -- because of freedom of speech they will never be able to define it.

I'm not worried in the least -- we got half of world watching teenagers fucking on MTV all day long. AVS is the least of the governments concerns.

If the US does it many will follow, don't you people know there always has to be a leader & followers?

in the real world if you want to see porn you have to pay for it. and mind you, you can't buy it just anywhere, like the grocery store for example. sooner or later (and i hope sooner) the same will apply to the internet. looking at FREE porn is not your constitutional right lol

"you think they will pay?"

yes. if we as an industry work together to make them pay.

Are you being sarcastic?

I also think that a solution that relied on credit cards for age verification could be appealed on the basis of discrimination of some sort.

You can't say that rich people have more of a right to free speech than poor people. You can say that rich people have a right to purchase products, but you can't say that a poor person, or a person without credit, has no right to read or view certain material based on content.

Imagine if the government made a law that only people with valid credit cards could visit the library, it would be overturned in a heart beat by the Supreme Court.

There has to be a valid appeal on those grounds alone.

what i don't understand is why you want to fight this - this is not like banning porn altogether, just FREE porn. aren't we all in this industry to SELL porn, not just to give it away?

i can't agree with you there. i have a monsterous amount of exclusive content available, i don't have that much trouble keeping infringment under wraps, at least to the point where it's not noticably cutting into our bottom line.


ultimately it is decided, everyday, what is acceptable on tv. and what should fall under an r, mature, or pg rating for a movie.

i am not that worried either - but it's an interesting question.

about paying - hell even if it was free, and all that was required was a confirmation of age (if that could be sorted out) - it would still save the industry money not having to deal with kids/etc with no way to pay later on... prequalified traffic :)

The day you can make someone pay for porn is the day the internet dies...

I can just see the headlines, "AOL goes bankrupt as the mass exodus of internet users say goodbye to free porn."

Remember the internet is what it is today because of the word "FREE" -- and free porn is the #1 reason people buy internet access!

I was a free speech advocate before the first web porn site existed and free speech is more important to me than any amount of money.

I know that's not the priority of all of the people in this industry, but that's me. :)

A system that relied on SS #'s or similar information would be shot down as too invasive of your privacy. So if you can't use credit cards because it's discriminatory against poor people and you can't use SS #'s and/or other information because it invades your privacy to surf anonymously, what do you use?

not only that - if there's no free porn, everybody will have to pay for it - you do the math.

"The day you can make someone pay for porn is the day the internet dies..."

nonsense. video and print porn not to mention tobacco and cigarrette manufacturers have managed just fine for a very long time with out ever giving away free product.

if you look at the REAL economy - nothing is free. the internet is moving in this direction - you can no longer watch news coverageon CNN if you don't pay. it's just that the internet is young, and it takes some time to get there, but it will. and it will never die lol

forget about everyone paying for even a tiny bit of porn. instead, imagine everything the same, but only people with cc's have access to the 'free porn' area of the www. still a much better prequalification than all the kids and 3rd world surfers with no cc's (and so know way of purchasing memberships).

Credit cards are a poor way of verifying if someone is of legal age or not.

"A system that relied on SS #'s or similar information would be shot down as too invasive of your privacy. So if you can't use credit cards because it's discriminatory against poor people and you can't use SS #'s and/or other information because it invades your privacy to surf anonymously, what do you use?"

then explain to me how car rental agencies and hotels seem to get away with credit card requirements? i'm also finding your whole credit card argument to be more specious reasoning. there are many other non cc payment methods available to the avarage person looking for sexual entertainment on the Internet.

true, and this is the least beneficial scenario

your CC company knows if you are of legal age or not. it's VERY easy to construct a database of CC numbers of people that are 18+ and grant access to porn sites only to those CCs.

correction - you don't even have to construct such a database - you just need to add a couple of lines of SQL code to the regular query and bingo - only people 18+ have access to porn.

i was just about to say the same thing. sure, not all surfers have cc's... but it is possible to verify all surfers with cc's are over 18.

ok you got me, the internet will never die ;) but you must admit that free porn is the #1 application of the internet -- and you can't just expect to make it disappear. As long as I can email dirty pictures to a friend -- there's no way an AVS law is going to mean shit.