Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Wild_Unicorn
I have tried reading all of this 2257 stuff so much and am confused to shit by it all.
|
You are not alone. Some of the reasons this is so confusing are:
we have what the statute say, then we have what the regulations say
we have producers, sponsors, and promoters each with different points of views (and judging by some sponsors statements agendas also) say
we have what lawyers say and what the courts have said
The actual statute is very clear, explicit, and could for the most part be understood by a young person (with the exception of definition of sexually explicit, ie when does lascivious depition of the genitals become masturbation)
The regulations are much more complex and open to endless interpretation
The statute applies to two classes of people: those that produce the material and those that ship or transfer it in interstate commerce.
For those that produce the statute requires certain record keeping. For those that ship it in interstate commerce it requires an attached notice of where and who maintains the records.
The regulations conflate these two classes and unlawfully impose the record keeping burden on those who are involved in "mere distribution or any other activity which does not involve hiring, contracting for managing, or otherwise arranging for the participation of the performers depicted"
The DOJ says it can ignore the clear meaning of the staturtory language and replace it with what it feels is better. The only court I know of that looked at this specific issue disagreed.
The statute also says that the record keeper needs to:
"ascertain, by examination of an identification document containing such information, the performer’s name and date of birth, and require the performer to provide such other indicia of his or her identity as may be prescribed by regulations";and
"ascertain any name, other than the performer’s present and correct name, ever used by the performer including maiden name, alias, nickname, stage, or professional name".
This requirement can only be satisfied by someone who is involved in "hiring, contracting for managing, or otherwise arranging for the participation of the performers" since it requires some type of actual contact with them in order to "require the performer to provide such" and such...
Since I am not a producer I can't require the performer to do shit, and that is why the statute exempts me from the record keeping burden.
Of course the DOJ disagrees. The DOJ not only wants to impose a record keeping burden on those explicitly exempt by congress, it desires to impose the costly and time consuming creation of a web site indexing database scheme and the dangerous multiplication of personal model information.
The intent of the statute is clear: the protection of children from abuse.
The intent of the DOJ regulations is clear: to wage war on constitutionally protected expression, and to harass those engaged in protected expression that it finds offensive, but that the supreme court has ruled we as adults have a right to create, view, and publish.
Then of course we have us and non-us webmasters. I'm a us webmaster that is hosted in the us.
I don't know the answers to non-us webmasters questions but here is my thoughts. I'm not hosted in Europe, but I bet I have sold stuff to Europeans and frankly I don't give a fucking shit what the European laws are. As an American in America, I'm only subject to laws enacted by elected political institutions in America, or so the constitution tells me so.
