If you’re in the online adult industry, you’ve probably heard of the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) (www.freespeechcoalition.com). You may have heard that it’s a video and retailercentric organization that doesn’t care what your concerns are. Perhaps you’re right.
But new leadership wants to assure you that times have changed.
In the past year, the industry watchdog and defense organization has tried to make a more concerted effort to reach out and understand the adult Internet community.
But in effect, the shift to incorporate the online sector as much as the video and retailing sectors really started last October when Michelle Freridge, with her extensive background running nonprofit organizations, was appointed the executive director of the FSC.
"The organization that doesn’t have people from a specific segment working within it at the leadership level has a hard time meeting the needs of that segment. We’ve identified that and are really trying to address that so we can serve the needs of the Internet side as effectively as every other segment," Freridge says.
"We need to be more knowledgeable about their industry and how they do business— what the issues are and what they’re struggling with legally."
The origin of the grumbling
Currently, the only member of the FSC’s 13-person board that represents the online industry is the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection’s Joan Irvine, which for many, supports the perception that the organization is focused only on video and retailers.
"I think the perception is the reality. Look who’s on their board," Sex.com and FSC member Gary Kremen says.
"Actions speak louder than words. Where’s [our] representation?"
To try to dispel that notion, the FSC has established a presence at various industry trade shows and has reached out to the industry and other groups, like the ASACP, where Freridge sits on the board.
Prior to meeting Freridge, Morgan Sommer, president of Cybersocket and an FSC member, was one of the people who viewed the organization as a video-only group.
"The relationship with Michelle is where I became interested in Free Speech Coalition—seeing her professionalism and her agenda for the organization and how there’s a broader focus for the future than just worrying about the video industry," Sommer says.
While several individuals on the online side of the industry admit there appears to be hope, questions still linger.
"It appears to me Free Speech still has a long way to go in bridging that gap," says New Destiny Media/Homegrown Video CEO and FSC member Spike Goldberg.
"Where’s the direction, how’s it being provided, and what are your goals? Those are three things I just don’t see there yet. There is a new administration and I have high hopes that they will come to the table and engage the online side better."
The FSC says it has taken steps to better serve adult Internet players, however. An Internet Affairs committee was started to address the issues of the online sector and help the membership understand the industry better. The former editor of AVN Online, Tom Hymes, was hired as public relations director to help bridge the communication gap.
There have also been additions in a broader sense.
Porn lobby heads to Capitol Hill
On April 1, the FSC established a presence in Washington by hiring their first national lobbyist, Aubrey C. King.
King’s arrival signals a new focus for an organization that, until that point, only made lobbying efforts in Sacramento, Calif.
"Historically, this organization has been very defense-oriented, and that has been effective, but things have become a little more complicated in recent years. In some ways, the best defense is a good offense," Freridge says.
"If we can get in there and participate in the legislative process before the laws get passed we have a much better chance of keeping unconstitutional legislation off the back of the industry."
Although being the voice for a bunch of pornographers isn’t the easiest task in today’s Washington, King, who brings more than a decade of lobbying experience to the organization, will be acting more as the eyes and ears of the industry than an in-your-face proponent.
"A lot of stuff the fundamentalist religious group of people would like to do, they try to keep secret," Freridge says.
"An example is the Senate hearing on porn addiction. That was kept so quiet that nobody in this industry knew about it until the day before it happened. It was already too late to get any kind of testimony submitted."
As with California, where the industry has had a lobbyist in place for eight years, the coalition believes it can succeed by educating lawmakers about the business and bringing their attention to the numbers: California’s adult retail stores paid more than $31 million in sales tax in 2002. The nation’s Internet commerce generated $1.2 billion in 2000.
"The real spirit of government is not to shut things down and force your values on other people. The real spirit of government is to try to work together to ensure things work smoothly. In Sacramento we’ve done a good job of achieving that," Freridge says.
"If [lawmakers] don’t understand what an affiliate program is, how money comes in and transitions, and how the businesses work, they’re not going to be able to write legislation that effectively protects the copyright[s] of Internet companies."
The question now becomes, do those who deal in online adult entertainment want to make an effort to step forward and join the fight?
Sommer, for one, wonders.
"I think a lot of people on the Web side are oblivious to the fact that they’ve been living in a bubble. The freedom and the Wild West mentality that have been there for years are being encroached upon by government all the time. There are certain people in our government who would love nothing more than to hyperregulate this thing," he says.
"There are people who say they’re for free speech, that they’re exercising free speech, but they’re not actually doing a whole lot to ensure their rights to free speech."
There are certainly issues that affect the three main areas of the industry, such as obscenity, privacy, and to a lesser extent, 2257 regulations.
Extreme legality
Individual privacy rights have gotten a boost from the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down a Texas sodomy statute and more recently in U.S. v. Extreme Associates, which freed Extreme’s Rob Black of obscenity charges based on Judge Gary Lancaster’s ruling which said, "obscenity statutes place a burden on the exercise of the fundamental rights of liberty, privacy, and speech."
That battle, however, is likely far from over.
"The question is not whether the content of [Extreme Associates’] video tapes was obscene. The question is, is it legal for them to sell it through the Internet and through mail order, from a private company that made the product by consenting adults for consenting adults?" Freridge said. "Because they had a system of selling it to consenting adults who are only consuming it in their home, the local community standards and the other issues of obscenity didn’t really apply based on the case history." While individuals are more or less free to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own homes, there are still obscenity laws in place on local and state levels throughout the country that must apply to somebody.
"The Internet and mail order marketing businesses are going to be extremely affected by the privacy issue. People have a right to consume this stuff in their home, but do businesses have the right to sell it?" Freridge asks.
"It’s not just Internet ordering of videos or toys, it’s also Internet access to websites and that content. How do you judge a community standard when the community is the Internet?"
Federal crackdown
By the time this magazine hits the streets, the federal government will likely have released their new 2257 regulations, which pertain to the legalities of record keeping for adult performers and the content they appear in. If that is indeed the case, the FSC will also have filed an injunction within 30 days of the announcement, before the laws can be enforced.
Freridge calls the proposed regulations unconstitutional, among other things.
"They create a huge burden on businesses and are almost unenforceable because they’re so convoluted. The people who wrote that legislation didn’t understand the Internet in particular, but they also didn’t understand other parts of the industry, which is another reason legislative activities are so important," she says.
While the industry as a whole has important issues to deal with, webmasters have to face another set of issues entirely. Among those are piracy and questionable content that often comes by way of a nameless, faceless entity.
"The Internet Affairs committee has brought to the attention of the organization how complex the international issues are, not just with piracy, but also with child pornography," Freridge says.
"A lot of that – obscene content, child porn, stuff like that – is coming from outside of the country and the public relations and legislative problems that result, as well as the economic problems of just trying to make a profit and protect your holdings are all issues of great concern with the Internet community."
So what’s going to be done about it? The long-term goal is to collaborate with similar organizations in places like Europe, Canada, and Australia to address these issues, Freridge says.
In the meantime, the FSC is focusing on growing more powerful in numbers and they’re evidently moving in the right direction.
There was a time when half a dozen companies contributed approximately 90 percent of the funding to the organization. Now, FSC has 15 major donors, but those companies’ contributions and membership dues make up less than half the funding.
As of early May, the organization had approximately 600 members and expected to have close to 1,200 by the end of the year. In fact, Freridge says Free Speech has the potential to double the number of members each year for the next few and she would eventually like to see it wield as much power as the National Rifle Association (NRA).
"When it’s a political battle, it’s really about community mobilization and it’s really about education and communication. If half a dozen companies are the only ones involved, their ability to mobilize the millions of people who consume adult entertainment in this country isn’t going to be as quick and as effective as a membership of 5,000," she says.
