Free Speech Coalition Meeting in Vegas at the Lingerie Convention - Synopsis
 

Hello All!

MadHatter and I drove in for this, the FSC had a meeting during the lingerie convention regarding 2257, taxation aimed at adult entertainment businesses, zoning problems, etc.


2257
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Clyde DeWitt spoke he is one of the attorneys and the main thing we all need to worry about is the wording they are trying to get into the 2257 law. Currently "lavicious depiction of the pubic area" is exclused from the definition.

They are trying to not only get this added back in, but make this definition
even if the person is clothed it would need 2257!!! This is BULLSHIT. |angry| You show a woman acting sexy in panties you'd need 2257.

They were trying to get the lingerie industry to also "wake up" that all their product pictures they take might need 2257 also, and join in the fight.

They are also trying to add back in the "simulated sexual activity" also. Fortunately for us, this has got the mainstream movie industry up in arms, and is fighting this. Lets all hope they don't get an exception for them, and not for us.

I did talk to Clyde afterwards, and one thing he was pretty confident on was the overturning of the secondary producer requirements of 2257. I was happy to hear that. Lets all hope that comes about.

There were several other issues discussed, figured I'd do seperate posts, so you don't see one huge chunk of text, and not want to read it all, lol. I'll break it up.

Join http://www.freespeechcoalition.com people. I was very impressed with what they are doing to fight this, and they are banding together with other people and groups. They have even have hired a lobbyist to get our voice here in Washington.

I know XXXJay knows a lot about this issue, and many others, I just hope this helps those that aren't as up on the issues.

Zoning for adult entertainment Businesses
 

Zoning for adult entertainment Businesses

Allen Lichtenstein who is an attorney, and representative for ACLU, told about a "tax" that Nevada has recently passed on adult entertainment industries.

Basically, you can't single out a business type and tax them unduly, you can only charge them admistrative costs, etc. for licensing.

What Nevada has done to get around this is they say, ok adult entertainment causes more violence and crime in the area, therefore we need to use more police because of this, and this causes our costs to go up, so we can charge these people a higher tax.

When this law was up for discussion, not one business from the adult entertaintment industry was there to speak against it. The only party was the ACLU. The law was passed, although amended so that only entertainment clubs that are 300 seats or larger are subject to the tax.

They are trying to get this decreased. I asked the question, did they forsee an adult entertainment tax on the type of businesses we run? Home based webmaster businesses, have no clients at our house, etc. etc. and they are feeling with the conservative government we now have in charge, this could be a trend.

I don't know about you, but to hell with a sin tax on our business. |angry| And I could see them adding photographers into that mix too very easily.

I'm gonna be using |angry| alot in this post. Truthfully, I am guilty of not following what laws are up, but damn, you'd think some of those big clubs in Vegas would be! I can't believe none of them showed up to fight this.

Found this on FSC's site about the adult entertainment tax in Nevada.

gosh i must have been asleep when you posted about coming over the hump from Pahrump.. the Rio is like 2 blocks from me.. and I had to be there today..dammit..

glad you got good info from this and nice to see the ACLU weighing in.. i think they have a bit more clout..

Thanks very much for the update |thumb

Think the above referenced section is the biggie for a lot of free site builders...this one included. Would sure be great to see that portion go away.

I agree about the ACLU, I plan on joining them too. I was so glad to hear they represent the adult industry, go 1st amendment rights!

I really expected to see some adult webmasters there, there are quite a few companies based out of Vegas, but the only ones I saw that were not at the lingerie trade show where from sincity chamber of commerce. Another neat group I met, they are trying to start an chamber of commerce that is more open to adult businesses after being discriminated by the Vegas CC. They have everything from adult webmasters to escorts in their membership.

Once they have enough members, they also plan on getting group health insurance plans. I told them they need to post on boards and get members from the adult webmaster community.
I want to keep my eye on them, I'd LOVE to get group rates for health insurance, we pay too damn much a month. :(

I agree, and I DO NOT want to see the part added about lavicious depictions of the genital area added, or for them to interpert that even if clothed would need 2257. I just want to smack some of these people that make the laws. |angry|

I know darlin...it's a fuckin sad time these days in the states :(

I've joined both the FSC and ACLU...want to support anyone willing to take up the fight. Otherwise, we're pretty much fucked...with no lube.

Hell, even bought some great domain names to get the public involved, but don't have time to develop them and still make a living. If you know anyone with the time and interest...pm me...hell, I'll give em a domain!

Thank you very much for posting your notes on what they had to say! |thumb

It's part nerve-wracking and part encouraging; still, hearing anything from them about what's going on really is helpful.

Cheers-
CatsEye

It's great that so many people are out there fighting these ridiculous proposals, and hopefully they'll make enough difference to protect US webmasters. That secondry producer nonsense really sucks.

Being in the UK I'd read a few scary reports that this would be applied to adult webmasters based ANYWHERE in the world, as we would be offering our "non-2257 compliant" material to US citizens. I was extremely concerned as a budding UK LL owner, so I emailed the ICO (information commisioner's office) here in the UK back in July with a few questions and recieved this response:

"If you are a web operator based in the UK then you will not be subject to this law. On the other hand, if you are a web host whose client is a US based web operator – that is, you merely host the site using equipment in the UK and do not determine the content of that site – then it is your client that will be subject to the US law"

I know it's not much help to most of you folks, but wanted to share the info anyway in case any UK webmasters were worried.

Is there a chance that non-US site owners will be affected by US LL owners etc not listing their sites due to not having a proper 2257 statement? Isn't that where this "secondry producer" comes into play?


Just because 2257 doesn't (hopefully) affect non-US webmasters doesn't mean we shouldn't support the fight!

That's a good thing.. the insurance.. goddess knows we pay enough.

I looked at their list of members and very few are from the adult industry and the ones that are like the Chicken Ranch and Deja Vu Girls are brothels or clubs. I didn't any representation from like the major web players here, and maybe because the chamber directors etc just don't know who they are.. but I thought at least Streamray and Vivid would be there (on the list)

Since i returned last summer i've been trying to get more participation in our little Camgirl breakfasts at the Palms.. we meet monthly, set up photo shoot exchanges, new traffic sources etc but it would be good to get a broader cross section with wm participating etc. Some of these girls would do exclusive shoots etc for either money or traffic.

I think the Sin City Chamber will get very few single providers as their minimum is 250.00 which is kind of steep for most of the indie porn girls..

I signed up to go to the event on the 20th and check it out.. then see if its worth the 400.00 to join and i can 'umbrella' them in.

Thanks for doing all this networking!!

You are welcome! Let me know what you think, Michael and his wife seemed very nice. I think their original intent was more "brick and mortar" adult entertaintment, and escorts. Hopefully he will start looking at adult webmasters / companies too to broaden his member base. The one thing about being an independant webmaster is lack of group health insurance, and I'm all for that. I used to belong to LVCC just for that benefit...until they raised the rates to over $400/mo for MadHatter and I for basic coverage...didn't seem like much of a savings to us, and that was over 3 years ago. Now I'm on Anthem, which has a high deductible (3k) but truthfully, have saved more money despite that i'm no where near having spent my deductible yet, then I ever did with the more expensive plan with LVCC. Go figure.

Someone pointed out on another thread this article yesterday on Yahoo

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051012/film_nm/porn_dc re the current law that would make simulated sex and lavicious depecition of genitals, even if clothed, fall under 2257. Glad to see mainstream media FINALLY reporting on this stuff! |thumb