“This law has nothing to do with fighting child pornography,” Mike Jones says, a hard tone in his voice. “It has everything to do with the [U.S.] government trying to kill the adult Internet. This is a concerted effort to put adult out of business.”
Jones can be expected to feel strongly about 18 U.S.C. §2257, the so-called records-keeping law. More than three years ago, the photographer and former owner of CDBabes.com was charged with distributing obscenity and possession of child pornography. The records he kept pursuant to §2257 did as much as anything else to exonerate him.
There is no rancor in his voice when he speaks about the law. Instead, Jones’ ire is directed at a target that’s much more vague and elusive: the child pornographers at whom 2257 supposedly is aimed. “They don’t give a shit about that law,” he says. “The average producer walks on eggshells every day, but the child porn guys are going to have a field day with this because it points the feds in the wrong direction. All the money they should be spending on child porn enforcement they’re going to be spending instead on making sure all the good guys have their paperwork in order.”
Jones admits he’s still in the process of absorbing the ramifications of the changes to the law, but he saw some problems right off the bat. “There are some big gray areas,” he notes. “What about leased content? What about affiliates? None of those people actually own the content or serve it from their own machines. Are they going to have to maintain all that documentation, too? And for the average content producer, it’s impossible to track URLs. Once you’ve sold a set of photos to someone, you have no idea where they’re going to use them.
“I’ll tell you another thing,” he continues. “It’s going to kill the European content market. Most of those girls don’t have U.S. IDs, and under the new changes, everyone has to have an American ID for the paperwork to be legal. There are lots of Canadian girls working in the business with Canadian IDs, and you can’t use [their images] now [on American Websites]. The content providers I’ve been talking to for the past couple of days are stripping all the European stuff off their sites because of that. It’s a mess.”
Jones says he’s glad all the adult photography he does these days is on a work-for-hire basis. He shoots the models, gathers the original paperwork, and then passes it all along to the person who paid for the job. After that, it’s no longer his headache. For other content producers and Webmasters, the migraines are just beginning.
“Holy crap! It sounds like a nightmare,” says Gramma, owner of GrammaCash.com. Her content – images of women who obviously haven’t been minors for many years – is difficult to mistake for child porn. “If we already have what was the entirety of the legal requirements, and now we must give even more information…. It may be really hard to do. A lot of models in this business were one-shot deals, and then they disappeared. I have stacks and stacks of model releases and photos, but it sounds like now I have to copy them all, per each screen name, and file and cross-file them. Some of the information they’re asking for, I don’t know how we’ll find it or keep it up to date.
“I certainly don’t see the need for some of this information,” she continues. “Proof of date of birth with photo, one other form of ID, and the release for publication signed by the model should be sufficient. This just seems like overkill to me.”
Eric J. White, founder of and chief scientist for VR Innovations Inc., is tired too – but he’s tired of what he sees as clear-cut persecution of a commercial segment parts of society don’t like. “I think it’s silly,” he says, venom fairly dripping from the words. “[Attorney General John Ashcroft] is the same man who spent 8,000 tax dollars to cover up the statue of Justice’s breasts! And when he was asked about how many pornographers’ records his department has actually checked, he answered ‘zero.’ This is clearly a political move to satisfy the religious right that the Bush administration is ‘doing something’ to ‘control’ the adult industry. Oh, and let’s not forget ‘protecting the children.’ Gotta have ‘protecting the children.’
“It is quite clear that the current 2257 law has never been needed or used,” White says. “It’s one more unused regulation for the government to persecute the adult industry when they have nothing else to use against us. You know, given enough laws, you can prosecute a priest for thinking about spitting on the sidewalk.”
Asked if he thinks anyone cares if pornographers are persecuted, White fires back, “I’m not just a pornographer. I’m a citizen. I don’t like alcohol, but I don’t say it’s okay to violate an alcoholic’s rights simply because he is one. The administration is wrong. Perhaps the reason they’ve never invoked 2257 is because they fear a challenge.”
What it all boils down to, Jones says, is that “we need representation on Capitol Hill. Like the tobacco industry and the liquor industry, the adult industry is a powerful economic force. We need lobbyists, but everyone wants to lie low – and that’s a large part of the problem. If the church and African-Americans can put a million people in front of the White House, so can the adult industry. You put a million people in front of the White House, and folks are going to take notice.”
