Schvoogiewhat
Senior Member
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2004
- Messages
- 24
- Reaction score
- 55
All pornography in the US is now effectively classified as child pornography, unless providers can prove the ages of everyone taking part.
http://web.morons.org/article.jsp?sectionid=1&id=6351
The Bush Administration is set to change the understood interpretation of 18 USC 2257 in a blow to free speech and the online pornography industry...
The justice department under Bush appointee Alberto Gonzales is set to reinterpret 18 USC 2257, created by a law passed in 1988, later amended and effective since 1992. The purpose of the law is ostensibly to protect children from exploitation in pornography by requiring producers of porn to keep the proof of age of the actors on file. For the entire time this law has been on the books, the understanding of the word "producer" has been clearly understood to mean the entity that actually creates the pornographic media. In expanding the scope of enforcement of 18 USC 2257 to the Internet, the Justice Department has decided that just about everyone with potentially pornographic material online is a producer of pornography and must keep proof of age on file. Further, the Justice Department intends to make its change in rules retroactive to a time before the change was made.
There are a number of problems with this proposed change, which goes into effect today in a manner completely ignored by the mainstream media. For one thing, everyone on the Internet posting a pornographic image is not a producer of pornography. If I obtain a license to an image of a naked person from a porn producer and post that image on morons.org, I may be a porn distributor but no sane person would argue that I produced that image. In fact the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) points out that this has already been litigated in Sundance Associates, Inc. vs Reno, and it was decided that only the primary producer of the porn has to keep proof of age on file.
Secondly, this destroys amateur porn and adult imagery. Ratemyboner.com? Gone. In fact, that site today has a message reading, in part:
The things that used to be here, k-razy digital pictures of wangs from around the world, have been made retroactively illegal by the US government, in a side-handed attack on the pornography industry.
The government is mandating that we meet certain bookkeeping requirements, ones impossible to meet for this site.
Another popular site which often featured amateur adult imagery, gapingmaw.com has similarly bit the dust.
People can no longer even post adult images of themselves online! Gay.com has locked out all of the adult photos in its user profile area for example. Simply having that content there would make them producers of pornography under the new rules, and they'd have to maintain proof of age on file for every member who posted an adult image.
Supposing web site operators were even capable of keeping proof of age on file for every image they posted from a primary producer, there are privacy concerns as well. This would mean that everyone who showcased an image of Max Fisty1, for example, would have a record of the model's real name, age, and home address... something many porn actors would be uncomfortable having in the hands of so many people. (Even though they're naked, they still value their privacy off-camera.)
This is the largest attack on free speech online since the "Communications Decency Act," yet most people have hardly heard about it. The Free Speech Coalition has filed a lawsuit seeking to have the change in rules overturned, and they have filed a motion seeking a "Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) enjoining enforcement of the recently re-issued federal record-keeping and labeling requirements."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Annalee Newitz called the new rules "so inclusive that it's really absurd" and said they could even include online news organizations posting images of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. Maybe that's the idea? Online Policy Group executive director Will Doherty said, "Unilaterally changing interpretation of the law to require that every Web site owner check and record IDs from all those who appear in explicit images is an outrageous attempt by a repressive administration to effectively halt the publication and exchange of many images of adults -- including those of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons -- engaged in consensual explicit activity."
And what about those lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons? Online porn distributor World Wide Content's VP of sales, Don Mike commented that "If you have a straight male committee checking out the content, they may see a Web site featuring twinks as being something to attack more than Web sites with 18-year-old girls just because of personal bias. If this is all driven by the religious right, they may feel they can add 'stomping out homosexuality' to their quest for purification of the Internet."
The courts have consistently held that adults have a right to their pornography and other adult imagery by virtue of the First Amendment freedom of speech. Why does the Justice Department hate our freedom?
http://web.morons.org/article.jsp?sectionid=1&id=6351
The Bush Administration is set to change the understood interpretation of 18 USC 2257 in a blow to free speech and the online pornography industry...
The justice department under Bush appointee Alberto Gonzales is set to reinterpret 18 USC 2257, created by a law passed in 1988, later amended and effective since 1992. The purpose of the law is ostensibly to protect children from exploitation in pornography by requiring producers of porn to keep the proof of age of the actors on file. For the entire time this law has been on the books, the understanding of the word "producer" has been clearly understood to mean the entity that actually creates the pornographic media. In expanding the scope of enforcement of 18 USC 2257 to the Internet, the Justice Department has decided that just about everyone with potentially pornographic material online is a producer of pornography and must keep proof of age on file. Further, the Justice Department intends to make its change in rules retroactive to a time before the change was made.
There are a number of problems with this proposed change, which goes into effect today in a manner completely ignored by the mainstream media. For one thing, everyone on the Internet posting a pornographic image is not a producer of pornography. If I obtain a license to an image of a naked person from a porn producer and post that image on morons.org, I may be a porn distributor but no sane person would argue that I produced that image. In fact the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) points out that this has already been litigated in Sundance Associates, Inc. vs Reno, and it was decided that only the primary producer of the porn has to keep proof of age on file.
Secondly, this destroys amateur porn and adult imagery. Ratemyboner.com? Gone. In fact, that site today has a message reading, in part:
The things that used to be here, k-razy digital pictures of wangs from around the world, have been made retroactively illegal by the US government, in a side-handed attack on the pornography industry.
The government is mandating that we meet certain bookkeeping requirements, ones impossible to meet for this site.
Another popular site which often featured amateur adult imagery, gapingmaw.com has similarly bit the dust.
People can no longer even post adult images of themselves online! Gay.com has locked out all of the adult photos in its user profile area for example. Simply having that content there would make them producers of pornography under the new rules, and they'd have to maintain proof of age on file for every member who posted an adult image.
Supposing web site operators were even capable of keeping proof of age on file for every image they posted from a primary producer, there are privacy concerns as well. This would mean that everyone who showcased an image of Max Fisty1, for example, would have a record of the model's real name, age, and home address... something many porn actors would be uncomfortable having in the hands of so many people. (Even though they're naked, they still value their privacy off-camera.)
This is the largest attack on free speech online since the "Communications Decency Act," yet most people have hardly heard about it. The Free Speech Coalition has filed a lawsuit seeking to have the change in rules overturned, and they have filed a motion seeking a "Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) enjoining enforcement of the recently re-issued federal record-keeping and labeling requirements."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Annalee Newitz called the new rules "so inclusive that it's really absurd" and said they could even include online news organizations posting images of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. Maybe that's the idea? Online Policy Group executive director Will Doherty said, "Unilaterally changing interpretation of the law to require that every Web site owner check and record IDs from all those who appear in explicit images is an outrageous attempt by a repressive administration to effectively halt the publication and exchange of many images of adults -- including those of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons -- engaged in consensual explicit activity."
And what about those lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons? Online porn distributor World Wide Content's VP of sales, Don Mike commented that "If you have a straight male committee checking out the content, they may see a Web site featuring twinks as being something to attack more than Web sites with 18-year-old girls just because of personal bias. If this is all driven by the religious right, they may feel they can add 'stomping out homosexuality' to their quest for purification of the Internet."
The courts have consistently held that adults have a right to their pornography and other adult imagery by virtue of the First Amendment freedom of speech. Why does the Justice Department hate our freedom?
