This is interesting....

I knew it was bad, but not to that extent.... It seems big brother is only after the money....

Second, we are subject to US federal laws. Title 18, Section 2257 is a matter of hundreds of pages of statute, amendments, explanations and several federal court decisions. It's a black hole to fall into - with serious penalties for seemingly minor administrative errors; even errors in the format in which the information is printed can put the custodian of records (usually the webmaster) in prison for years. Add to this that the whole purpose of these regulations is to corner us into a violation worthy of 5-10 years of prison time and outrageous fines. "Girls Gone Wild" was recently fined $2.1 million for record keeping -- NOT for anyone in the crowd scenes being 17 or under.

Layer onto that the fact that 2257 regulations are THE most violated federal law concerning model sites. Not identity theft, not Nigerian scams, not petty thefts, not financial fraud, not the spreading of viruses, not phishing, not even spam (virtually all spamming is done through email, not websites). The stated purpose of 2257 is to insure that no minors are sexually exploited online. Nice goal, but this is a bullshit enforcement for that goal. If law enforcement thought for one moment that minors were being exploited by the adult industry, they would be kicking in doors all over the San Fernando Valley with TV news crews in tow to film the crackdown. 2257 PRESUMES that everyone who appears partially or fully nude online is a minor -- even if the performer is obviously 75 years old -- in the absence of having proper records ready to hand over upon first request. In fact, resubmitting correctly formatted records the following day is not a relief against a violation! The goal is to catch websites in a minor administrative error with big penalties, not to catch websites actually exploiting minors.

BTW, these records have to be maintained for SEVEN YEARS along with our readiness to hand them over upon request, 40 hour per week. These records have to show samples of every photo or video, along with the exact web link/location where it was published, for every time it is posted or changed, along with the government issued photo ID of the performer, cross referenced with every name by which she has ever been known as a model.

So we don't play that game. We don't offer anything that is subject to 2257 regulations. No sex acts, no simulated sex, no genital displays (even clothed genital displays can be subject to 2257), no allusions to models being under 18. As the custodian of records, I'm not going to deal with meeting federal requirements of having to

Post my home address on the Internet (many Internet models have to put their home address on the Internet, and stalkers be damned - that rule is violated virtually 100% of the time by those sites)
Maintain the records for seven years from date of last publication
Keep records of every exact URL/folder/directory/gallery in which every photo was posted along with dates of publication
Sit by my door 40 hours a week, 52 weeks, times seven years awaiting a warrantless, surprise inspection (even not being present for the surprise inspection is itself a violation punishable by years in prison and a $10,000 fine).
If other model sites want to deal with all that and face the severe consequences, let 'em. We wish them well. But I'm not going to jail and losing my house over a record-keeping violation just because some fan we never met wanted us to slip him a cooter picture! If you don't believe it is that serious, you can hire your own 18 year old model, take any photos you want to take and put them on the Net. Then you sit by YOUR door for seven years. Go for it!


It's a quote from a webmaster that does custom shoots on cds....

Well, I'm an American who is concerned about his rights and the rights of others, so I'm pretty concerned. Unfortunately, many Americans aren't aware of their rights and can't see why this very well maybe a constitutional violation. A fourth amendment violation; the feds searching your papers without a warrant. An eighth amendment violation, unusual punishment; serving prison time for not having records! This is a clever way of trying to shut down the porn industry seeing as trying to bypass the first amendment or declaring porn obscene has failed.

Sadly, it would harm most politicians who truly disagree with this unjust law since no one in that position would want to be seen as defending or endorsing pornography. I don't understand why there is that mentality. The first amendment protects the worship of all religions but does NOT endorse any religion. If philosophy equal rights w/o endorsement is all ready expressed in one of the supreme laws of the land, then why can't it easily be defend in such away.

This country would be great if it weren't for the people.

BTW, what webmaster made this statement.

He does Mary Alicia's web site and also does custom work with different models.

Code:

http://www.stevescds.com/customs/index5.html

Thanks.

same here in the UK, some laws are easier to prosecute than others, so whilst the vile evil bastards can get away with pretty much anything, if you don't pay your poll tax, tv licence,drive too quickly or drop litter you're fucked for it, the joys of democracy.

MajinBoo, that is exactly why you hire a Custodian of Records, an external record keeper who is responsible for all the submitted information being properly formatted and available for the prescribed times and available for inspection, like the dozens of production companies who were inspected this past summer.

Now for the heartbreaking part - all the people posting these sex videos on the net are also LEGALLY defined as producers and subject to the same 2257 rules.... unless they are smart enough to declare themselves secondary producers and rely upon the 2257 records of the primary producers....

To be honest, I don't understand this whole 2257 issue:

US law != world law!
[ "!=" = "unequal"]

So why not use another base than US and, in the worst case, just don't offer products to US citizens?

Then the producer should be completly out of any US-trouble, or isn't he?

Second, in most countries it's illegal to depict people under the age of 18 engaged in sexually explicit activity, so why loose the US market? I think non-Americans use the 2257 just to assure potential customers that everything inside the website is legal. If every website had the name or number of their local law printed on their home page, it would get pretty confusing for the surfer.

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