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.

If this thing flies - there will be no us webmasters.

When I said where you host is irrelevant, I guess my point was that no matter where you host, if you are US-based and deal with sexually explicit content you have to comply with 2257.

But like you said earlier, "it sounds like we won't know the full meaning or validity of this until someone gets popped" so no one really knows what lies ahead, I am just trying to keep options available!


cheers,
Luke

Right there is a very good point. If your run an affiliate program, isn't it better you take care of the people that have always taken care of you? Rather that leave them hung out to dry?

If I ran an affiliate program (which I will be doing in the next week or so *wink* - *nudge*) -- I would be bending over backwards to make sure my affiliates won't be going down for promoting my shit.

I can't believe how so many programs are sleeping on this shit! Remember, you are only as big as your affiliate base.

We need to be more proactive or this will be the end of us.

I am pretty happy that we decided to go with hosted galleries and hosted free sites instead of handing out content. That will make compliance as easy as adding a 2257 statement with my address on it.

But what about banners? I am thinking of getting some new banners created that are not sexually explicit for US based webmasters. That way they don't have to worry about the record keeping.

cheers,
Luke

Yes, every sponsor should be doing this.

OK, it may be hard to promote, say, "triple penetration pussy-piercers" with softcore banners, but that's just an opportunity for the designers to exercise some creativity. :)

I've read, and reread this thread, and others..And I get the jist of it all, but what I am unclear of still....Is for instance, if I buld a tgp gallery with 16 pictures, does the 2257 info have to point to each individual picture, or just that page?

Good question. I'm guessing the gallery URL itself. Since, after all, your jpeg images are .htaccess protected to avoid direct hotlinking and therefore aren't accesible to anyone except thru the gallery page. right? :)

Disgaree. That's why courts exist and precisely what they do.

Disagree you might but I think I picked that little tit-bit up from something a lawyer said.

Let's hope I'm wrong.

That may br the case if you were to actually spend the money to file suit yourself as a plaintiff against the enforcement of the regulation. But as a defendant in a civil regulatory action, all that can usually be considered is "the preponderance of the evidence." In other words, does the evidence show that you were in compliance, or does it not? At least that's the background I've been given.

I have a question here.

Now we are not bartenders, we are not up to date on the looks of a fake ID. (If we shoot our own content) What issues would someone have if the person shooting content of a person that showed ID statting they were legal age but were infact under age. After all its not like opening a business bank account where you have to show your add from the newspaper of your "DBA Doing Business As," and whatever docs you need to get that account open. Traci Lords as we all know was an underage porn star, who's to really say someone didnt get her a fake ID.


On the other end what would happen to someone who bought content and had the proper licenses to show at any given that content was legal so they thought until someone discovers the person was using a fake ID and was under age.

honestly, get up to date on that kind of thing, if its questionable, dont shoot her. Period. Why take the risk, one naked model who is questionable, is not worth the risk of some jail time.

I am not having that problem, I buy licensed content and have docs. just threw that in, meaning we dont see the ID's of the people we buy from whatever content producing company. It could happen, after all you cant cut the person in half and count the rings.

very true, that was not a personal attack on what you said, more general, I should have stated that.

It's a definite risk, but My though on that would be do everything you can, better safe than sorry

No worries I didnt take it as an attack.

my rule is if it could happen it would happen to me. I have been cursed with a streak of bad luck lately. |sad|

not with this issue but other things.