But of course, the answer to this OP, and the others, IMO, is that it doesn’t make sense. It’s very difficult to defend the position that producing porn should be legal but all prostitution illegal.
Were it something less politically sensitive, countries/states would reform their porn and prostitution laws into something entirely consistent and principled.
But since it is politically sensitive, it’s whichever way the cards fell as puritanical and/or religious societies evolved, with occasional moral outrage laws sprinkled on top.
True enough, but just making the production of porn illegal while allowing sales and distribution is a tricky position to defend also. Generally-speaking, media which encourages or glorifies an illegal act is not protected speech.
(FTR I am pro legalization of both porn and prostitution, with regulation)
Sure you can. The person driving the car is likely to be prosecuted for the illegal act, but there’s no general prohibition against publishing videos of an illegal act. If there was, how would the evening news do it?
I realized soon after my last post that my point doesn’t work. For example, you can have a show about running a brothel in Nevada because no-one’s doing anything illegal.
It’s irrelevant that such activities may be illegal in the state in which the movies are shown.
So, point retracted.
I still maintain my answer to the OP though: it doesn’t make sense. As Chronos pointed out to me, it’s yet another weird feature of California that they have this strange combination of laws.
If you do set up an LLC and “produce” porn, make sure you are able to operate your business out of your location. An area zoned residential might not work.
In the column he states that California’s prostitution laws are narrowly written allowing Hal Freeman to win in the appeal of his conviction for pandering. Effectively making the production of pornography legal in California.
The San Fernando Valley IS the porn capital of the world. From production to distribution, most of it happens here.
Oddly enough, in the last election, there was a County measure (passed) requiring that porn actors wear condoms during the filming. A really stupid measure ensuring a lot of the actually filming will move to Ventura County, just a few miles away.
And remember for most johns the real punishment just being arrested. A conviction is just icing on the cake. And in most localities the punishment for soliciting a prostitute are quite low. It’s the arrest and subsequent public and private humiliation that customers want to avoid, not community service and time served.
Again, in most parts of the United States you really could be prosecuted for prostitution by offering to pay someone for sex and then filming it. It is only in California that this is not the case. And even there, the cops could make it extremely difficult for porn producers to actually operate. Except, the cops there don’t bother to harass the porn companies.
In lots of other places the actual production of porn might be a grey area and you might successfully beat a solicitation charge. Except you’d be better off just taking a plea bargain and doing your community service unless you expect to be able to make a lot of money from porn. And nowadays even the established porn companies are having trouble making a profit, it’s called the internet and they have free porn.
Again, what makes California unusual is not porn production, it’s open porn production. Porn made in other places is kept on the down-low to avoid attracting attention. And while porn production may be illegal in most places–paying someone to have sex on camera can be treated as prostitution–buying, selling, and distributing porn generally isn’t. Except there are a lot of places where it might be legal to open a porn shop, but the local powers-that-be would not allow it and would shut it down through various extra-legal or quasi-legal methods. Which leads again to the internet and competing with free porn.