If you believe Ashcroft is going to take any note of what you or any of us write then your are living in lala land mate

This is Ascroft were talking about not Clinton |jester|

He has to take notice it's the law.

And when the first girl get's stalked and murdered we can point a finger and say "Told you so" and he knows that.

Write and make a difference, you don't have to give your details.

I suspect you're right.

"Hey, look, those disgusting perverted satanic pornographers are all upset about the new regulations. We must be doing something right."

Face it, the US Justice Dept. is not in this to worry about our business problems. They're deliberately trying to cause us business problems, it looks like. |angry|

Still, I do support letting our opinions be known. Well-reasoned and politely, though - no sense inviting oneself to become a target by threatening the Attorney General with bodily harm, etc.

Can anybody say weather moving your servers offshore and setting up a foriegn company being a solution to this problem?

What it would take to comply with this is damn near impossible. I think I'd be better offshore.

Any thoughts? I'd love to hear what JD has to say about this.

The issue that may just shut me down is that the DoJ apparently is going to now enforce the requirement that both primary and secondary producers must have an actual employee present at the "principal place of business" at all times between 8am and 6pm local time 7 days a week. Even if you're full-time (I'm not), you can't leave for lunch or a doctor's appointment, or any other reason, 'cause if the DoJ shows up for a snap inspection and no one is home, BAM - you're shut down and face up to 5 years in jail.

My own attorney says this language dates from pre-Internet days and was originally meant to apply to XXX video producers and distributors. But my attorney also pointed out that the new regs reemphasize this language, and pointeldy provide NO exception for net-based businesses. He thinks this means they intend to enforce this provision against net businesses, else there would have been an update or modification to the requirement. This is also a regulation, not a law, so if charges were brought under Sec. 2257, it would not be a criminal trial with a jury, but simply a civil hearing in which the only question would be "were you out of compliance or not?" Constitutional issues or the general unfairness of the rule would probably not be allowed to be considered by the judge.

So if you're not big enough to hire a full-time employee or two yet, that will actually work from the same office the 2257 records are kept, you are running a very big risk by even leaving for an hour or two, even on weekends. |sad|

Yes, but my question is, by having a company set up outside the US with a corp, servers, and bank accounts in aonther country put you outside the Feds jurisdiction?

If nothing else, I think it would make you a less attactive target.

I'm NOT a lawyer - but I'd hazard a guess that if the "principal place of business" and therefore the place where the 2257 records would theoretically be kept is in fact not in the US, that DoJ could have no jurisdiction.
I don't even think the servers would have to be out of the USA - just the actual location of both the incorporation and the real physical address of the "principal place of business." Remember ISPs (which would include webhosts, no?) are specifically exempt from liability under Sec. 2257.

OK - here's another question. I just talked to a lawyer and he said that the new regs applied only to page published after the 8/24 deadline.

I'm not sure that I believe this 100%. Isn't every time you log onto a webpage isn't it published again? How about modifying it?

Again, standard disclaimer - I'm not a lawyer, but I'm trying to quote him from possibly faulty notes and memory - I have not received a written letter outlining all this yet.

I was told it only applies to pictorial or video content produced after 8/24. So an existing free site with existing content would be covered under the older set of regs, but if you changed or added any sexually-explicit content that had been shot after 8/24, the site would then be liable under the new regs. The content on the site (which does include banners, if they are sexually-explicit) is the part covered by Sec. 2257, so say, a TGP with only text links to outside sponsor-hosted galleries and no explicit images otherwise would not fall under 2257 at all, since no explicit content is actually under your control. But for any gallery or video accesible from a domain you control, you have to have recordkeeping on file for that content and those models. Again - that's content produced after 8/24, and the content provider (primary producer) is responsible for providing you that information.

In short, it's basically a mess.

One more clarification - It looks like any newly created site after 8/24 falls under the new regs regarding the 2257 contact information that must be put on the main page of the site. What I wrote about content above applies to the model recordkeeping part of the rules. Two different things as far as the 8/24 date goes.

Plus, I should say I'm still not sure from my discussion whether the new content/model recordkeeping rules actually apply to content shot after 8/24, or to content bought or licensed after 8/24. I'm not sure my lawyer can tell, either.

Supposedly the "grandfathering in" is true:

Section 75.2 paragraph D.

Although I honestly can't make sense of it.

It is typical government BS when the rules are not carefully considered. This is Assclown and his merry (but certainly not gay) men attempting to write laws without bothering to get them passed by the house and senate.

The dates are not clear. The grandfathering isn't clear. The actual record required are not clear. 2257 has always been about the person creating the content, never about the publisher. Now it is about both. I think they will get themselves slapped stupid for trying this. Supreme court will love it.

In the mean time, stay low, fly under the radar!

Alex

Question:
According to http://www.xxxlaw.net on the 2257 table:
"Producer does not include....A provider of Web-hosting services who does not manage the content of the computer site or service"

So my interpretation is that hosting in the USA is irrelevant, its only where the primary and secondary producers of content live that matters.

if this is correct, then any one whose "presence" is outside the USA and is hosted on my USA-based servers does not need to worry about this, right?


cheers,
Luke

I think what will happen is that when they do a whois on a domain and see that it belongs to someone outside the USA they won't bother. If they don't believe the whois info and approach the hosting service and he confirms the owner is not a USA citizen they will move on. They have thousands more in the USA they can bother.

Near the bottom of this thread:

http://www.pornstarkings.com/cgi-bin...=1;t=2251;st=0

...Jace consulted with his lawyer.

That Jace dude is so negative - I would just ignore his posts.

2 things that I know for sure right now, and that is if this IS NOT a worst case scenerio:

1. Any page you publish AFTER 8/24 had better be in check.

2. As a layer of protection - move your business (at least on paper) OFFSHORE. It is much easier to move on to the guy who didn't move offshore and lives in North Carolinia that it does to go after a Panama based company. Even though just that is not enough.

The more walls you put between you and them - the better off you are. Plus, you can observe the fate of the people who do NOTHING and get cased up before you do.

"1oz of protection is worth a pound of cure"

Jay, careful with that logic... sometimes the feds like nothing more than to come down on someone who is playing games. No matter how far offshore your company is, if you are the one person publishing adutl material for that company (you make the pages, you FTP the stuff, etc) the you are not exempt.

Yes, it would be harder for them, yes, they are more likely to go after the obvious ones, and YES, if they want to get you, they will, no matter how many shell companies you hide behind.

Alex

Regardless of being negative he saw a lawyer and shared what his lawyer told him.

How the hell will anyone ever know what pages out of the millions out there were FTP'd after 8/24?

Did you talk to a lawyer yet?

Yes, I have talked with SEVERAL lawyers about this.

The most confusing thing is the date of publishing thing and if this law is retroactive or not - which I have had a variety of answers to, even from lawyers:

Some said all pages published prior to the change in regulations would be subject to the old regulations and some say pages published after 8/24 would have to comply with the new 2257.

If it effects everything after 8/24 - no biggie...just comply. If not - there are much larger ramifications.

what about hot linking? if i hot link a banner (or any image for that matter) off of someone else's server, who is considered to be the secondary publisher?

I wondered about hotlinking too.

This is pure speculation like the majority of the posts- but I'd think if it's visible on www.yourdomain.com then you need to have a 2257 statement somewhere.

If that was a way around the regulation then all people had to do would be to get a host outside the US and hotlink from their US based domains.

I doubt "It's not actually on my domain - you just see it on my domain" will be a good defense.

From a non technical standpoint it is reasonable for people to think you are responsible for what is shown on your domain.

Probably none of those question like you came up with would be anwered until a case went to court. :(

The lawyers cannot understand if it is retroactive or not? That's a pretty big gap in understanding to have.

Did your lawyer get into specifics at all? Meaning- any advise in what to do in a practical sense on our websites?

It really isn't clear. With 2257 as it was, there was a specifric date (sometime in 1995, I think it is) where the law took effect. All images produced before that were exempt from 2257 (and you will see that on many websites notices).

The new "rules" are not really laws, they are "administrative clarifications", essentially Assclowns way of attempting to screw up all the porn sites. The wording to their changes is less than clear, and there is no real effective date. It is not clear from the text if the new rules for secondary producers (ie: website owners) applies to all 2257 material since 1995 or just new material going forward from the effective date of these new "clarifications".

I personally think these "clarifications" won't float in a court of law, but it won't stop assclown from being, well, an ass.

Good luck to all my american friends.

Alex

I think that there is an effective date and that is the date that the AG - or his appointed officer - signs off on the new regulation.

That date will be announced in the government gazette - or whatever the official US government publication is called.

And as someone pointed out - it's not easy to challenge a regulation in court. In fact if someone is charged under this regulation the court will probably not be allowed to consider the fairness or constitutionality of the regulation.

I think you guys are getting a bit more agitated about this than is necessary.

Admittedly, there is a certain risk, but it is probably significantly less than the risk you take driving to the store for groceries.

The feds never acted on the old 2257, what makes you think you are so big a porner that they are going to spend thousands of dollars to come make a surprise visist to your home to check your 2257 records?

Even with big name cases like E.A., they could have made dozens of arrests based on a similar strategy, but they do one, as a scare tactic.

Jay, arguably, has more risk than the average webmaster. If the feds do decide to test case this, he has way more chances than me to be targeted. But I STRONGLY doubt they will even test case this. This looks like classic fed obfustucation, writing punitive regs to threaten and bluster, and as a CYA thing politically, but with no means for enforcement.

I'm not planning on making any changes other than a slight addition to my current 2257 declaration. Then watch and wait- we'll probably see big warning signs before enforcement, and the legal eagles will have a better idea of how to interpret the regs, practically speaking, after more time has passed.

The law took effect in 1992. May 1995 was the cutoff date after which all content had to be compliant. But the new rule does away with that and makes content going back to 1990 or 1992 liable under the rules. It certainly creates a real mess for a lot of video companies that market older back-catalog videos, though probably it's less crucial for webmasters. Still, it gives a sense of how deliberately punitive the new regulations are.

I agree with that. I hope you are saying it's becasue of all my good SE listing than how I operate my site.

I am talking to a lawyer on Tuesday that says he can make my whole site 2257 compliant by the deadline by Tuesday.

That I have just 99 domains to go after that...fuck.

Yes, your se positions and the fact that you are a "colorful character", just the sort they would want for a perp walk, ha ha ha!

I've never seen anything on any of your pages that would lead me to a second thought on 2257 or model age.

If they bust you because you didn't have your releases in alphabetical order I'll donate to your defense fund man. If they bust me because I put my "Zena's" before my "Alicia's", I'll happily do the time, because I think the whole country is going to laugh in their rat-eyed fed faces.

At the beginning of this year the 2257 rumors started, and a lot of the content guys were saying "watch out for the upcoming 2257 busts...". And this was under the old regs. Nothing has happened.

They are witless bullies who are incompetent to do a single thing about the worst kind of spam or rape TGPs. Admittedly, this being an election year, puffed up "political" arrests are more likely- but is arresting a bunch of working joes like you and I going to look good on the Evening Spews?

If the resulting headlines read "local internet pornographer arrested at his home for violating federal child porn regulations" (which would technically be true, even if utterly misleading and bogus) it would be pretty much impossible to get anything else across.

Agreed - in all of this we should never presume that we will get any sort of hearing based on 'we're just ordinary business people who couldn't get our records right'.

Instead it will be a case of 'depraved sex fiend who was out to corrupt our kids has been caught in a clever DOJ sting.'

No one is going to want to even know you when that happens and the entire community will applaud as you're carted of to jail.

Don't look at this from a reasonable point of view - look at it from the point of view of a far right wing religious loonie and you may start to feel the cold clammy touch of fear.

I agree 100%. They can spin that so easily.

Lawyers I have talked to say that they will be very aggressive about this. I wouldn't sleep on it.

Just remember the only way you can prove the date of publication is by having the records to hand in your office. So when the feds ever do visit you can point to the documents proving the date you put the page up.

Assuming publication is the date you put it up and not the day it was last read.

As for this never being acted on, dream on, it's coming out at the time of the Republican convention. A nice time for Ashcroft to stand up and declare he's fighting for the moral majority to protect our children. He will of course need a few scape goats to display as well.

By the time this law is revealed as unworkable he will be back in or voted out and he will not care.

NEVER UNDER ESTIMATE THE ENEMY.

That is the million dollar question right there.

Heh - a lot of sites have dynamic pages, that show the date of creation as the current date when you do a "view page info" search, since literally the page content is being created "on the fly."

Ok – I’ve have now officially consulted with three different attorneys on the “date of publishing” issue. Of course, the industry would like to state that it is the date a site went online, while the government will most likely take a much harder stance.

Fact is, what constitutes “date of publication” is nebulous – even in the written law.

Also, there is some case law (the Sundance case) that defines what “secondary producers” are and points to flaws in the new 2257. There are also constitutionality (Ashcroft can’t just create a whole new breed of criminals) and well as blatant privacy issues.

2257 IS bad news, but all the cards are not yet on the table.

Damn, I hate being so pessimistic abut it all, but from what your attorney is saying (and it is much the same as mine told me), it sounds like we won't know the full meaning or validity of this until someone gets popped and decides to spend some major $$$ fighting it rather than taking a plea bargain. |goodnight

speaking time is scarce at the conventions, there is no way anyone would be allowed to get up and preach about anti-porn laws. the point of the conventions is to kick off the "meet the candidate" portion of the campaign...

they know the general public does not give two fucks about anti-porn laws/regulations/etc, no candidate would ever allow someone to waste "costly" speaking time on a non-voting issue.

I'm afraid this is true.

If anyone is interested, I have just completed signing up a contract with a new data centre that is NOT in the USA. We will have our first servers in place within a week and will be able to offer offshore hosting for a price that is not much more than our current rates.

This will give any chilihost clients the ability to quickly move their hosting offshore if they need to for any reason, with no interruption in service. Best off, all chilihost clients will continue to receive the high quality service they are used to and will not have to worry about dealing with dodgy offshore operators.

Like I have said, the new 2257 regs specifically exclude hosting companies. Imho, where you host is irrelevant. However, I have had requests for a non-US hosting solution and am happy to be able to offer this service to all existing and new clients.


cheers!
Luke

As far as 2257 goes, that just means that hosting companies themselves are exempt from prosecution. Still, you have a good service if further restrictions should come down the tubes.

AFAIK, the only way to not be under 2257 reporting and inspection rules, as either a primary or secondary producer, is if you are a.) not using any sexually-explicit content on any domain or site you own or control, or b.) your country of incorporation AND your "primary place of business" are both located outside of the USA or its territories, and/or c.) you do not intend to offer content or affiliate programs to US webmasters.