Tommy, the questions out there range from google to chat boards... to things like fusker, Mirc, and newsgroups. Each and every step along the way someone publishes sexually explicit material and there is no way to track the documents.

If the government starts OVER THERE I will be a happy man.

Alex

Good idea Tommy!

Alex, if I use a system like Remote Thumbs are you still consider a secondary producer even if they are located in Panana?

Let me see if I've got this right:

1) I have to go back through all my domains and document every "picture trail" with a specific URL to each individual pic on every site/gallery/page/whathaveyou created or published since July 1995.

2) From this day forward I have to continue that ridiculously anal retentive documentation process for each and every page I upload and allow public access to.

3) I'm expected to publish my home address on the Internet (WTF?!?) for any Tom, Dick, or psycho serial killer to get their hands on (a VERY scary prospect for the females in this industry no matter which side of the camera they are on!! I thought this degree of privacy intrusion was left to those convicted of ch*ld molestation!)

4) If I use sponsor content, I have to go to that sponsor and acquire from them the model releases/personal information and keep that at my "place of business" (which can't be my PO Box anymore apparently)

Alex, you seem to have a good handle on this BS. Did I miss anything?

I'm not even going to start on how potentially detrimental these changes will be to everyone in terms of time, personnel and, ultimately, revenue streams; that's a rant that could go on for hours.

It's my humble opinion that we need both lawyers and the ACLU involved here... I see some blatant privacy law violations in this mess, both for WMs and models. Some information has no business being made available for public consumption, and there are very good reasons for that! I've read several of Juggernaut's posts, for example, in which he has detailed some of the weirdos his wife has to deal with as a cam girl. How's he going to feel knowing that he has to publish their home address on the Web?

The whole thing gives me the willies |shocking| Here's hoping to FSC achieves a great deal of success in their fight to stop the DOJ from getting away with this!

Wenchy, I spent 3 plus hours today reading what was published, as well as looking at JDO's summary... read directly, the rules are pretty darn easy to understand but are not very friendly (and in my mind likely not to pass a court test, but that is a different game).

Spend the time read them slowly. It's all there, but it's all ugly.

All comments I make are personal opinion only, really ask a lawyer (JDO is a good choice!).

1) That would appear to be correct.

2) That also would appear right

3) Your home address or the address of your place of buisness. This would be a very good time to rent a small office and go through the motions to obtain a business license and such. That would allow you to publish not your home address but the address of your business.

4) That would also appear correct. You will also need to do all the cross referencing to other material that you have published with the same model, their real names, any stage names, any other stage names they have used that you are aware of, and any names you may have assigned to them while designing a site ("mary fucks a turnip" would require you to make a stagename entry for "mary").

Basically, sponsor content, purchased content, self produced content - the rules are the same all around for website publishers, I don't see any way around it.

nycfreak: Consider that remotethumbs uploads thumbnails to your server, I think the answer is pretty obvious. Even if they move to a pure iframe situation, I am not clear that this would make your website exempt (you are publishing someone else's stuff, technically you are in some sort of control of the content of your website).

Alex

From reading all this over there's some serious areas for this to get way out of control and pretty much change the way a lot of us have been doing business:

A) Posting the addy of your business. Most of us work out of the home, we're hosed and have to put our home addy on the web. Just waiting for some Christian wacko that masturbated and felt it was a sin to come to your house and blow your brains out for posting the pics.

B) Sponsor content - sponsors if they wanted to comply with these regulations would have to divulge all kinds of information to their affiliates...not sure how many models are going to like that idea.

C) The inspection process is kinda big brother and kinda scary as you give up some of your rights regarding search and seizure: Sec. 75.5 Inspection of records...specificially "a law enforcement officer may seize any evidence of the commission of any felony while conducting an inspection." So while they're checking your records they can look for other things? MP3 you downloaded are a felony, hmm, bittorrent files, hmm, so if you give your home addy they can inspect you down to minutia beyond the mere records? From reading that it appears like its a yes.

Mr Blue:

a) As I mentioned, if you are doing this from home without a business address, and feel at risk, then you have two choices: Get out of the business or actually set up an office with an office address and use that. Not a PO box, but an actual office, with a business license and such.

b) It's going to be interesting to see which sponsors step up and which ones pussy out.

c) If you take route mention in a, then there is nothing to see.

I am thinking that a PC specifically dedicated to the job of record keeping,with nothing on it but an OS and a database program would be about right. How far they can inspect your office or home is something I have no idea on, except to say that I am sure it would make an interesting court case.

Alex

I spent all day reading the changes also. There are several questions I'm leaving to the lawyer to answer.

But, my lawyer is only one opinion. If any coders out there that are on staff or as independant contractors are contacting a lawyer, please get their opinion on this:


...or conspiracy to do any of the foregoing. is a very powerful statement standing on its own.

However, this talks about "commercial interest" in the depictions.

I dont want to sound like the "doom and gloom" guy, but if coders create scripts for the purpose of placing sexually explicit depictions on the internet, we do have a commercial interest, we are getting paid. I know.. I know.. commercial interest means sales of profit from the showing of the depictions.

But, some wild card investigater might to make the stretch. So, if any of you coders are contacting a lawyer. Ask them about this so we can get more than one opinion and compare notes.

On the lighter side... They screwed up and left a big whole in all of this, and I dont need a lawyer to point it out. The new regs specifically called out TCP/IP.

This will never happen, but wouldnt it be great if we all changed to IPX :)

http://www.nikmakris.com/cisco_ipx.asp

Back to reality...


_

Thanks for the reply, Alex. I'm working today and haven't had time to sit down and really go through this thing line by line, but I think I get the general idea... that being that small, independent, single-person businesses like myself are basically hosed in the extreme.

I work a full-time job and do adult on the side (full-time hours but you know the drill). Anyway, it's completely out of the realm of reality for me to rent an office space, no matter how small. I live in one of the most expensive cities in the country right now, and business rentals are even more outrageous than real estate.

So, basically what I'm getting here is that I can either (A) give up several months of hard work and dedication and a craft I truly enjoy, or (B) potentially place myself, my teenage son, and the other people who live here in jeopardy of harrassment or worse. Great f*cking options. And, no, I'm not going into "the sky is falling" mode, not by a long shot... I'm just trying to get a serious grip on WTF I'm up against.... and the more I read/absorb the more distressed I become :(

Edited to add: On a side note, I certainly hope that LLs, TGPs, et al are going to offer a "leniency period" for WMs who can't get their hands on adequate 2257 info for old sets of pics and have to remove pages from their domains.

Barron, the word "conspire" actually means to plan or to "agree to do" something - requires two or more people. Basic gist is this: Even if you are outside the US, but are working with someone who is in the US (like sponsor, payment processor, content provider, etc) and enter into a contractual agreement (like becoming an affiliate) then you are subject to the law - no matter where you are actually located.

The rules seem to specifically exclude script writers, companies that build html editors, and anyone else "once removed" from the situation, who is not handling actual content nor is in control of that content or website.

However, I just thought of something. This is going to be the death for counters with images on them.

Alex

The part that concerns me for those that work a full-time job is the 20 hour per week requirement that have to make the files available. Do we really want law inforcement officials visiting our homes with the kids around.

Then take that a step further, which 20 hours are you going to designate? If done incorrectly you will find it hard to go on vacation, or even take a three day weekend off for holidays.

Your right, there is lots to think about on how we all will proccede.


_

Ditto Wenchy...

Feels like only the big guys who do this full-time and have the resources to be Inc'd, have the office space, a lawyer and maybe even a compliance officer will weather the storm -- should this come to pass as written.

But if that's the case, perhaps they (the big players) could sub-contract out designers to create free-sites for them and pay a nominal commission or build fee.

Not trying to sound drastic, just trying to think outside the box.

I think coders are exempt also. It would be a real stretch to get a coder prosecuted, they/we dont have any control over what the person controlling the content is going to do.

Speaking of counters, I just had a thought about all the hardcore banners. Even if you have the age docs for the performers in the galleries, if the page has hardcore banners, you still have to edit the page. What pain this is all going to be...

_

I think that is a most excellent idea! |angry|

Well, that's legal challenge one there as not every small business can afford a office space and the privacy concerns / danger of having your identity on the net like that will surely be the first point of challenge...clearly this puts a burden that will shutdown a lot of people in the biz. I did think of a cost effective way of handling this if a group of webmasters from a specific area rent out one small office space, have a server where you can ftp the required documentation. If one office handled x number of webmasters the cost wouldn't be that bad.

Also, while this may not effect the big players, it will somewhat as you're removing the body of webmasters that promote, support, etc, the system. LL's and TGP's would have to depend on sponsors more for FHG, HFS, etc, etc.

Most won't, foreign companies certainly won't, and this leads to affiliates only using content in which they purchase or going to sponsors that provide the necessary documentation.

Yes I was thinking about a seperate comp set up with the database available, but it leads to a question of how broad something like this would be allowed for interpertation. You get a zealot inspector that demands to have access to all your comps...while I'm not worried so much about that...how far can they go when they do this inspection.

I thought this as well, though I will wait and see if there is an injunction from a fed court befor doing any removing.


I hope the FSC and the ACLU have great success...



Ben

Ok...so the way I figure it is:

I run my own site with my own content, namely myself and George are the models. I have two other people that are on the site in just a few updates and I have their Driver's licenses and signed waivers. Right now the records are kept at my corporate attorney's office because I work out of my home also.

So, if I am reading this right, I need to make sure the two people that I have info on have corresponding URL's where their images can be seen. AND, instead of the attorneys holding these MEASLY two files, now I have to do so and they have to be onsite. Now the onsite address is no longer the attorney, but either our home or we rent an office space and put a filing cabinet in there with two files in it? Or, four counting me and George. AM I GETTING THIS RIGHT?

|shocking| Linda

I am in the exact same boat you are,
and me having 4 children, I just am not comfortable with my info being published, being I just had troubles with a stalker about 2 weeks ago. So hey maybe I will put my info up, so he can knock on my door...
None of us want this, and we all seen it coming, The government does what the fuck they want and dont care who likes it, it is what makes them happy...

Furthermore, the whole attitude about protecting children with this, is bull, what pedo is going to have any discalimer? Just another reason to take more rights away...Big Bad Gov taking away our rights, what else is new? And we the People sit here looking at each other with dismay...

anybody who wants to remove a page from Tommys can just 404 the page, no worries

Your almost correct...

You need two forms of ID, one of them has to be picture id from a US government source(drivers license will do). But, you have to have a copy of each depiction attached to a list of every url the depiction is on, attached to the age docs. And, you have to have the date of the shoot, date of publication and you have to have all that cross-referenced with any names the models might have used, including maiden names.

Oh, dont forget to have the url for all the thumbs, banners and the large pics. And dont forget that you have to store the webcam presentations as well.

Bottom line, its more than just two little files. Also, dont listen to me, contact your lawyer, I may be wrong.

-

Tommy... as always, you are a gentleman and a scholar. I'm not the least bit surprised that you were the first to step up to the plate |bow|

Here's another interesting thought I just had... there are those of us with children at home and these new rules require a business address which, in most cases, will coincidentally be the same address where those children reside. So what's to stop the bastards from waltzing in under the guise of a "2257 compliance check" and arresting us for some bullshit charge related to having minors and porn at the same address? Oh yeah... "out of control" doesn't even come close to describing how ugly things could get.

Shit, I really need to stop thinking about this. Either that or I need to plan to get my Xanan prescription refilled ASAP.

Wow Wenchy...I didnt even think of it that way

So, if I just dump the pics and vids of the two other people and leave the site solely presenting just George and I, that means that every single image pertains to only us, including URL's and banners and thumbnails and videos. So since it's just us, do we have to link our names to every single image when we are the owners? And webcam can just go away I guess.
? |shocking|

Thanks for any help. I guess we're looking for office space.

Linda

What are they considering explicit content? if anyone knows...??? Just sexual acts? or nudity also?

My take as webmaster of findpics: If you feel the need to 404 a site or whatever, no hard feelings. My bot will remove that site and that site only.

I will not, cannot, and will never bein the business of checking 2257 statements for validity. I am not a law enforcement agent, and I cannot do their work for them. I will continue to decline sites that appear to have CP on them, and I will continue to list adult sites.

Your lawyers will be able to better tell you what you will need to do about your sites.

... and yes, I agree that the home address disclosure is designed to create maximum pain, stress, and potential suffering for many individual webmasters and webmistresses. Doubly so for those who are "their own content". It's ugly and evil, and that is the exact intent of these rules: To drive you out of business.

Alex