Bottom line is we elected the idiots that make the laws that allow a program to be held responsible for the actions of a rogue affiliate.
Top Bucks was placed in the middle of a judicial squeeze - just like every producer is on 2257 issues. How many of you are willing to throw away thousands of dollars just to prove that a particular law is unjust? Personally I appreciate Top Bucks effort to keep as much separation between the actions of an affiliate and the liability of a program. Yes, I wish they had won a clear-cut victory but that's not always possible or economically feasible.
Why did the feds pick on Top Bucks? Simple, big programs have the money to pay a fine - and they have enough affiliates to spread the fear of God throughout the adult community. If they were to attack one of my affiliates for the same thing, how much publicity do you think the feds could squeeze out of it? And they sure as hell couldn't ever get $400,000 from me.......
Now it's up to us to start calling and writing our elected officials and screaming WTF!
Just because I owned the house where the murder too place doesn't mean I had anything to do with the murder.
Place the blame where it belongs - on our elected officials and the judicial system - not the program.