Just days after the recent announcement from Attorney General John Ashcroft that federal prosecutors are planning stepped-up 2257 records inspections, Webmasters around the country are wondering how to make sure their record-keeping is on the up and up. While this new plan affects all Webmasters with racy content, it is especially relevant to those running adult sites.
Cydata Services Inc. CEO Brandon Shalton of FightThePatent.com – a passionate advocate of Webmasters’ legal rights – believes he may have a tool to help: 2257Lookup.com.
"I believe that technology can be used to solve problems, and given this problem of how to identify an image, I created the technology behind 2257Lookup.com that is essentially a 'who-is' of images," Shalton told AVNOnline.com.
Nine months in the making, 2257Lookup is a database that has indexed and processed a large variety of images from content providers such as Matrix Content, Titan Media, Focus Adult, Paul Markam, Falcon Foto, Medium Pimpin, Max Pixels, ZMaster, and many more. An image can be processed by the 2257Lookup database and matched with the original image to identify its origin.
Shalton hopes the program will keep Webmasters in compliance with the record-keeping requirements of section 2257 of United States Code 18, and away from copyright infringement liability and other legal snares. Failure to comply with the proposed new record-keeping requirements – which means more than just proving the age of models – can get a Webmaster thrown in jail, Shalton said.
"I had been listening to the attorneys on various panels talk about federal intervention into the adult industry, using various laws to curb pornography," Shalton said when asked what inspired the program. "As I started to learn more about the 2257 statute – actually read the law and compared interpretations with some attorneys – it became clear to me that here was a way that Websites could be shut down. I then looked at the misconceptions of 2257 and saw the problem: If a state or federal prosecutor were to ask a Webmaster where a specific picture came from because [the prosecutor] felt it was underage or obscene, the secondary record-keeper requirements require the Webmaster to be able to identify the primary record-keeper.
"Most Webmasters have a 2257.html page – and still many don't – that lists the content producers of images on their site. Some have simply copied and pasted a large list of content producers, most of which aren't even on their site. So when the Webmaster points the prosecutor to the 2257.html page, it doesn't answer their question. With renaming of files and poor record-keeping, the end result is the Webmaster could have their Website shut down and go to jail for up to two years. This has not been tested yet, but there are already indications of 2257 inquiries."
Shalton said Webmasters can use 2257Lookup to become more compliant as a secondary record keeper by knowing where to find the primary record keeper, and by doing that, they can steer clear of getting tangled up in potential obscenity, child porn, or infringement litigation. Plus, Webmasters can use the software tool as a way to discover the origin of an image that they would like to buy for their site.
"For participating content providers, their images are indexed by my proprietary system to identify the image by alphanumeric values," Shalton explained. "A program called ImageDiff Engine can take an unknown image and compare it to the database of known images to find a match, regardless of its size or resolution.
"2257Lookup allows a Webmaster to upload a picture and with a small transaction fee, reveal the distributor and owner of the image. This service can allow a Webmaster to directly answer a prosecutor's question."
2257Lookup clients can submit their content on hard drives and DVDs to be added to the 2257Lookup database at no charge. Shalton works with Webmaster in cleaning up their records, or approaches Adult Verification Services, pay sites, and credit card processors to identify all of the content in their databases and who the original record keepers are. Webmasters are charged a small transaction fee on a per-image basis to locate the origin of content; a different set of charges apply for AVSes and pay sites looking for matches on the content of their Websites.
Shalton said the 2257lookup technology can also safeguard against copyright infringement. Because Webmasters sometimes have problems identifying where images were purchased, 2257Lookup can scan Websites to find matches, so that the Webmaster can determine if the sites have the appropriate licenses.
Shalton said this allows Webmasters to be proactive in finding images that are not licensed, and images that are exclusive content that should not be in someone else’s system. “If Webmasters aren't going to be proactive, then they end up being reactive to lawsuits of copyright infringement,” he said.
2257Lookup is only able to process still images at the moment, but will soon include video as well. Eventually, Shalton hopes 2257Lookup will go beyond the adult industry to offer services to mainstream companies like Yahoo, Google, and eBay to use in searching for unlicensed use of images on their Websites, and as a search service for stock photography libraries.
Meanwhile, Shalton will also continue his ongoing efforts with FightThePatent.com.
"FightThePatent.com is my one-man crusade of activism against patent abuse," he said. "As an entrepreneur, I see bad patents stifling innovation and taxing businesses with litigation and licenses. Good patents are ones that don't have prior art and are tangible. The business model of generating revenue from patent licenses goes back to Henry Ford's time, but has gained more prominence as a real revenue opportunity in the Internet space."
