I've been thinking on this a lot since yesterday (who needs sleep anyway?), and I've come up with the following observations:

1) I would like for someone to explain to me just exactly how in the hell ANY of this is going to protect children!! This isn't about them, it's about legal porn and the fact that a specific group of right-wing politicians don't like the fact that it's so readily available and there's nothing they can do to stop it.

2) IMHO, the US government has finally hit upon a way to do the impossible... police the internet. They've been wanting to do that since Al Gore was around and just hadn't been clever enough to put it all together; thus these changes in the regs.

3) I can't help but notice the irony of the fact that Carl's Jr. can put a commercial on prime-time network TV of a scantily clad P*ris H*ilton all but masturbating and the government doesn't even raise an eyebrow, but credit-card-carrying adults are being told what they can and can't do on the internet (when you get right down to it, the new rules have implications far beyond just WMs - they slap the hands of the over-21 crowd on a global level).

4) Personally I blame the email spammers, the BBSs, the chat rooms (and yes this includes those that are supposedly "monitored"), and Google et al for a lot of this. Unfortunately, WMs who consider themselves businesspersons and who take this seriously are but a small percentage of those tossing porn around on the Net, and now we're paying for the indiscretions and lack of concern of the rest of the group. Anyone who moves forward with these new regs in place may find they have a lot more traffic and revenue in the coming months as the bottom feeders get tossed out and/or arrested (can you say "test case"? I knew you could).

As I said, just my observations. With time I think I've gone from being freaked out and worried to being so pissed off I can't see straight... and something tells me I'm not alone. |angry|

Right on Wenchy! Let's get the bottom feeders out of here. The Feds should clamp down on those that steal the "legit" stuff, pirate the pics, and then "toss them around" and end up making money on copyrighted material! I know because I have caught many and have lived to see a reimbursement. I've had my fill of pirates and thieves....and if this law, Big Brother as it is, and as against it I am, is enforced, I hope the thieves are too stupid to even know what 2257 is. |headbang|

Linda

1) wasn't the intention. The intention is to drive people out of business.

2) it is the same as using zoning laws to shut down adult businesses. The material is legal (and the DOJ admitted it in the news) but using other laws in agressive ways has the same results as rendering it illegal.

3) we are all stinking pornographers lumped in with the morons that do cp and such. I warned about this many times before, and now it has come true.

4) you are blaming the right people except you forgot the spyware / adult redirect / adult popup people.

Sadly, none of this changes the facts that june 23rd is coming.

Alex

I just went through my stuff and this is how many pages I found that are associated with one or more than one image: 304,759

Anyone want a job as a 2257 URL Mapping Documentation Specialist? |pink


I think I need to go see the |pink |pink

Well put Wenchy! I was freaked out earlier also but now just plain pissed. What I do is all legal and there is no way I shouldn't be able to do it if I want. I'm going to forget for today. I'll just print it all out and read it till I can figure out what I need to know. And keep doing what I am now. For the simple reason I like what I do..... |peace|

Another thought - I was in the process of subbing a free site and gathering recips - all those freesites out there that have a recip with an image on them - I'm of the assumption they are also all covered by the new regs, and as such we have to either get the 2257 info, which is impossible, or change a hell of a lot of recips to text based ones :(

GRRR.... I just stumbled on to a new wrinkle. The definition of "Picture identification card" was changed.

All the content that I have were the model used a foriegn passport, which was legal at the time, is now unuseable. The id card has to be issued in the United States.

There is one more thing I have to weed out because of all this!

When is the injunction going to be filed, I think we are really going to need that.


_

EDIT:

There is a provision for the producer AND the performer if BOTH are not from the United States. But in my case, the producer is in the US so the provision doesnt count. Damn it!

_

Barron ditto on that! I don`t have photo ids for but a freaction of my content. And I don`t reasonably expect all these content "primary produders" will be stepping up to share all that info with every person that has obtained said content.

I think the "retroactive" aspects of these new regulations are going to be one of the major reasons the court tosses them back at the DOJ. That simply isn't legal. One of the basic concepts we learned in Jr. High Civics class, ex-post facto laws are not constitutional.

wondering about programs
 

What is the likelyhood of sponsor programs handing out their docs for the free content they distributed so freely to their affiliates over the years.

Last summer, I had tried to get docs from FTV and a few others and got blown off.

While I can see 'why' they don't want to hand over that info to affiliates it's a catch 22 down the food chain line. Without the docs we can't promote, we lose, they lose.


I'm not expecting anything, but to remove content. |shocking|

|bananna| |bananna| |bananna|
|pink |pink |pink


My lawyer is still going over the regs so I havent had a chance to ask my questions. But, as I read posts and re-read the regs, I think I just found a huge loop hole!

If I'm right, the industry will change, but the record keeping will not be as extensive as we think. And, we'll all make more money!

As soon as I get an opinion from the lawyer, I'll let ya'll know :)


-

I'm thinking about purchasing 2 laptops just for the purpose of maintaining records. Having a backup of the database may not be good enough if you can't get it loaded within a few minutes.

Jim,

Since I have your advertising button for the board on a few of my sites, and you're holding a cigar in a sexually explicit manner, I need you to forward a model release for my 2257 statement.

:)

Figured we needed a little levity.

This reminds me of when the state I live in tried to outlaw drug paraphernalia.

The law got passed and all but then when they went to enforce it they realized that it was so broad in scope that it was illegal to even sell a garden hose since you would use a garden hose to water your marijuana plants.

All the head shops pulled all their merchandise and a few people even got arrested but in the end the law was repealed and I once again all the head shops are selling drug paraphernalia.

God no! Not Garden hoses!!! lol

Regarding the home address or "place of business conducted" reg and not wanting my home address broadcast all over the net,,,, I have an opportunity tomorrow to look at an office space that is 200 sq ft and is priced so reasonable and includes utilities and parking, I know it won't last. My question now is......am I jumping the gun in renting out space if there is a chance I won't have to do so?
A year's lease is a fair amount of money for an office that will seldom get used other than to hold documents and be around for the big invasion!

|angry|
Linda

Linda, truly... consult a lawyer before you spend any money on any thing.

Alex

Will we need to send 2257 info to GG&J to cover our avatars? There are some mighty perverted little pixels floating around here :D

(I couldn't help myself... all in the name of cd's levity heehee)

wenchy, actually i think you will see many sigs and avatars will be blocked banned or chatboard no longer accept not sure how that get handled.

Alex

Hentai industry will drastically grow in popularity lol

Linda, I rented my space, was cheap thru a friend, but I am on a month to month basis...And there is someone there 8 hours a day...best part if they would come in, I am only 2 blocks down the road..

Think of one thing, are you going to be there if they coma knocking? or will someone be there? Just giving you some of my thoughts on it.

I guess one idea might be for a group of webmasters that live in the same general area to rent an office space together, share it, keep documentation there, and have "shifts" that total up to 20 hrs a week where one of 'em will go in & ...do whatever. It could be set up however they want...

And I was thinking a wood-chipper under a trap door on the front step! |devil|

On the comment about paying someone a $1 to maintain the records. How about if we hired the content providers to maintain the stuff as they already have it?

I just had a paysite owner call me a bit upset about all of this. They wanted to hire someone to find the URLs of all their stuff and put together the required 2257 stuff at a rather large cost. I suggested that before they spend a lot of money paying someone to do this they should hire a lawyer to advise them on these types of matters. This lead to the question on how does one go about finding a lawyer for this type of matters?

So besides readonly calling lawyers out of the Yellow Pages what is the best way to find a local lawyer who is knowledgable in this type of stuff?

http://www.martindale.com/xp/Martindale/home.xml

Off the top of my head Martindale-Hubbell is a good start. You can search by area of expertise and check the rating of an attorney assuming s/he is listed.