I used to run an online adult shop. One of the reasons I stopped was due to the tougher restrictions on secondary producers regarding the amended 2257 law. Basically, I ran a Pay Per View section on my site, so that considered me a secondary producer. This required me by federal law to have on file, age verification and other records of every adult “actor” in my movies on my site. A nearly impossible task. Sure, Jenna Jameson is gonna mail me a copy of her drivers’ license.
There are other laws that states like Texas has that deal with legalities of shipping certain “types” of movies over their state lines. They say that movies from certain producers are of a vile nature and are deemed illegal.
But isn’t it freedom of speech, this porn stuff? Aren’t the people involved doing so at their own free will, even “actors” in fake rape movies?
These examples are small, if you were to read AVN, you would see it goes wide and deep. There are people arrested every day for “obscene” porn. We’re very behind the times IMHO.
How do you feel about the restrictions we have on porn?
Of course we have too many restrictions. As you say, people should be free to produce and buy whatever kind of material (pornographic or otherwise) they want, as long as it is not stolen or libelous. However, my expansive view of the First Amendment is not shared by all, so we face the restrictions we see today.
If you’re asking whether it’s a first amendment issue, no, it’s not. Courts have consistently held that things considered obscene is not protected by it. Also not protected is speech that presents safety problems, such as Holmes’ example of yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater.
If you’re asking whether society should allow all porn, I don’t think there are many people who would vote for absolutely no restrictions on obscenity. It’s a question of where you draw the line.
Courts have been wrong in the past and they are wrong here. While the Supreme Court may be, for all practical purposes, the last word on the Constitution here, I disagree with many of its views on the Constitution. For me, the words “Congress shall make no law. . .” mean exactly that. If the Court disagrees, then in my mind they are wrong.
And the single most fun part of the ‘obscenity’ interpretation bit is how that changes over time. 99%+ of what appears in web pornography would have likely got the seller some jail time 50+ years ago.
And heck, might again, the law as established makes a moving target of what the porn industry can bring to the table. It would be foolish in the extreme to believe that such mores will always loosen and never tighten.
Free market my ass (not to be taken literally). Porn will simply move overseas where it can’t be prosecuted, still within the reach of customers in the US. And the money will follow it.
Are there? I knew the FBI had set up a new “anti-obscenity squad,” but I didn’t know it was actually making any busts. Or are you talking about busts by state/local authorities?
You’re just saying that the Supreme Court has repeatedly caved on the bold protection on free speech presented by the First Amendment. You are right, they have. They should not have: America is a weaker nation, and the Court a less revered institution because of all that caving.
Why is this so hard to comply with? Who do you get the video from? Or at least, from whom do you get the right to show the video. They should have all the age verification documents and should send that along with your license agreement.
Jenna doesn’t need to send you her license. But whomever films her should have some kind of documentation that gets passed down the line to secondary distributors. Is that asking too much of the industry?
As for the debate. I am not convinced that the porn industry needs less regulation, if the regulations we’re talking about are age-verification, disease prevention, etc.
But if we’re talking a matter of content and individual tastes, then I will agree that such things should not be regulated by laws.
You don’t get it: the 2257 law is an incredible wad of paperwork, designed to catch the unwary website owner. It should be dumped. Here’s why: it requires EVERY distributor of an adult image or film to maintain records proving that all individuals appearing in the image or film doing adult stuff are of age and so forth. Every last website, my friend.
Now, if you were only concerned with catching people who were distributing images of underage actors, it’d be easy enough: you go to a website that is doing that stuff, and bust them under any of the many child porn laws we have in this country. No, the only people that Section 2257 is designed to trip up are people who ordinarily do adult porn but who are sloppy about getting those all important proofs of age.
Now, the obvious person to charge with that responsibility is the original photographer/videographer who shoots the photos/takes the videos. They’re the ones who are in immediate contact with the models, they’re the ones who can and should get those proofs of age. If the Feds think someone is using underage models, they’re the ones the Feds should go after.
But of course, the law has virtually nothing to do with suppressing child porn and everything to do with suppressing porn in general. Because it requires every last frigging adult website owner to keep such records, even the teeny little mom and pop sites. It’s just back-door censorship (heh) and should be done away with.
That’s fine if the “child porn” in question consists of images of pre-pubescent children.
But what of the websites that feature, say, a 14 or 15 year old? The website owner can piously claim that in his view, the child looked over 18. and anyway, he was relying on whoever took the pictures to check. We have only to remember the Tracy Lords business to realize that an underage teen may well appear to be legal.
So – let’s imagine a present-day Tracy Lords featured on a website. How do you “easy enough” “bust them” under any of the child porn laws?
Exactly. Also, aren’t there only a few hundred active, mainstream, working pornstars in the business. How hard would it be to compile a database for these “actors”, and an industry group that could certify them? I don’t think it would take a whole lot of effort to do that.
I do recall the Tracy Lords debacle, in fact, there was an excellent special about it at one time. She was using fake IDs and she did look 18 by all accounts – she sure didn’t look 13, the age she was when she made some of her films (she was also underage in her Penthouse spread I believe). The cops did try to bust several porn distributors, but couldn’t because they all had proof of age documents that they believed were legal.
So having the docs doesn’t really prevent child porn, does it? The producers in the Lords case had the docs, which kept them out of jail, though they lost huge amounts of money because they had to dump every item of inventory they had that had Tracy Lords in it.
Was this not an acceptable outcome for you? What would have been fairer, prosecuting distributors who were essentially defrauded by Tracy Lords and her fake IDs?
Fact is, unless you are deliberately in the child porn biz, you want no part of it, because enforcement is so strict and the penalties so nasty.
As for the difficult-to-bust websites that are using underage models/actors, show me the money, Bricker. Show me where law enforcement is unable to bust such websites/distributors under existing laws (except for 2257)? I don’t think they’re out there. I was under the impression that child porn was rare in the US because our cops have all the tools they need.
Including some they don’t need – like Section 2257.
Also, please demonstrate for me that there is no remedy for the problem that supposedly prompted Section 2257 that could not be handled by another, less ridiculous law.
I would vote for it, with the understanding that it could not break other existing laws. (like snuff films or having underage performers) I see absolutely no reason to restrict what can and cannot be filmed and then viewed in the privacy of ones home based on if it offends someones sensibilities. You’re not into watersports? Fine don’t watch it, some people like it. You’re not into fisting? fine, don’t watch it. You’re not into…whatever THEN DON"T WATCH IT.
I’m not into sex that involves women but I’m not about to say you can’t make porn featuring opposite sex couples or two woman. People really need to lighten up.
That’s a completely different debate, though, is it not? The claim put forth by Evil C is that “child porn” laws would be sufficient tools for law enforcement to handle any instances of underage actors being pictured in porn.
Your claim seems to be an acknowledgement that “child porn” laws are insufficient to prevent pubescent or post-pubescent underage actors from being featured in porn, and a suggestion that this is an acceptable outcome because such a result is usually harmless.
Exactly, I couldn’t have said it better. This record keeping law means exactly that, you need documentation of every single person on every single website
Not to mention, who the hell is going to keep records of underage children anyways?
I actually have a great idea to counter this law, but I’m not telling any secrets just yet.
Very true. Still, I suggest that the lessons we may draw from Ms Lords are not entirely what you have offered.
The interest in accurate IDs, and the concurrent technology to create and verify IDs, has come a long way from the 1980s. Ms. Lords’ ability to proffer convincing fake IDs then does not compel a conclusion that it would be as easy now.
Further, merely because it is possible to circumvent the protective measures in place does not mean we must abandon any hope of using protective measures. We forbid felons from buying firearms, even though it’s conceivable that a felon may obtain fake ID and buy one anyway – because placing the barrier in the way of the action is a wise plan, even if it’s not 100% effective.
What sort of evidence are you looking for? You’re asking me to demonstrate a negative, and I can only do that inferentially. I infer that there is a market for young actors for porn sites – witness the plethora of “Barely Legal” type sites. I infer that, but for the strict rules prohibiting it, such sites would feature under-18 actors. And I infer that because of this, substantial barriers to the practice are appropriate.
The inferences don’t come in a vacuum. I know a bit about criminal law, and the available defenses to a particular charge. If the law fails to compel a website operator to keep records, then his defense of “she looked 18 to me” will be a matter of reasonableness for the jury to decide. If the jury were looking at 13 year old Tracy Lords, they might well believe him – and, indeed, he might well be telling the truth. The law exists not tp punish him for his honeest error, but to prevent the precocious Ms. Lords-alike of today from making choices she should not, in view of her age.
How would we go about showing that the problem exists to your satisfaction? Since the web site owners are not required to keep records, if I point to a particular image and say, “She appears underage to me,” the web site owner (or you) will merely respond, “Not to me, she doesn’t.” I have no way of proving or even investigating the claim without the records. The website owner doesn’t know her name or address; how can we track her down and find her to prove or disprove the point?
But you’re not addressing the pernicious effect that the law has of making the actual adult pornsite operators liable for doing something they have no interest in doing, just because their paperwork is out of order … very bad law, in my opinion. If the only persons really affected by the law were child pornsite wannabe operators I’d have no problem with it. My suspicion is that the law is a tiny fraction of real underage pornsite operator’s problems. The law primarily affects people who are not its putative targets. Surely you cannot argue that it is a good law.
How about any article about a US-based child porn site that can’t or couldn’t be busted because the operators were careful to not be the originators of any of its content? Wouldn’t that demonstrate the need for Section 2257? How about an article about “barely legal” sites frequently running images or videos that are in fact not legal, but no one can bust them because they don’t originate the stuff? Isn’t that the sort of problem this legislation is intended to address? Surely there must be many instances of it if that is the case.
I was under the impression that it is illegal for the underaged to have sex, whether or not cameras or camcorders are present. In fact, I recall threads on this board about minors being prosecuted for statutory rape for having sex with minors their own age. Isn’t that deterrent enough?