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fr_defenestratoGanked from Vidio[sic]View.com. In case you don't know, U.S.C. 2257 is a bit of federal law regarding (a) what counts as porn and (b) what responsibilities the producers of porn must bear in record-keeping, to ensure, for example, that porn gets driven wholly out of business so America can be pure and Puritan once again nobody's making child porn. The law was revamped by the Republican-controlled Congress about 3 years ago, inserting a positively obsessive-compulsive set of regs and guidelines for that record-keeping. For example, every single photograph image you have displayed on a Website must be catalogued by name and location and show reference to the model(')s(') proof of age at the time of photography. Similarly for live action porn. The law limits itself to concern about "actual people engaged in actual sex" but you know that the federal fucking government will construe that, if they want to bust somebody, as "Eating a peanut butter sandwich while having a look in one's eye that suggests thinking about somebody, somewhere, having sex." Anyway:
'The whole 2257 thing has just taken a new turn, and it's not a good one for companies with older titles. In a story on XBiz.com, the FBI visited the home of J.T., owner of JT Video, to conduct a 2257 record-keepings inspection for two gay films produced in 1997. It would seem that a film made at that time would not be subject to inspection, as films older than seven years did not apply. However, a press rep for the FBI confirmed that material that has been re-issued on DVD, for example, would restart the time-limit clock, putting formerly exempt material at risk. So it seems that any repackaging of older titles needs the 2257 record-keeping, which would seem to put a lot of companies into a state of shock. Titles from such outfits as Laguna, the old Fox Studio, Catalina, In Hand—the list goes on—could be violating 2257 by releasing the titles without documentation that they most likely no longer have. It's being said that possibly two-thirds of the titles produced before 2000 is now going to be "illegal" to be sold. Chris Ward at Raging Stallion told me, "I don't think anyone is going to jail, and I don't think it will really change anything, but officially, it's the law, and there is a risk involved." Raging Stallion says they do not have any older titles that would apply. Fred Bercovitz is the guy at Video 10, whose company releases predominately older titles that are now being released on DVD. Fred told me, "We have no records on file for (the older titles) so these would all have to be taken off the market, I suppose, if we were told to. It seems like they're changing the interpretation of the law every other week. Hopefully it will be reversed," adding, "It's very clearly draconian, and I rarely get to use that word!" The 2257 is still being challenged, but courts have rejected injunctions, saying the law must apply until the challenges are resolved. I can hear the "Aaaaagh!s" being shrieked throughout the industry. There will be developments, I'm sure.'
I think that "2/3rd of titles older than 2000" is a conservative estimate. Why would anyone in the porn biz keep records as bizarrely elaborate as the law MIGHT insist 5, 10 years from now? How in the blistering FUCK can any legal expert argue that laws drafted one year can apply to entertainment product created a decade ago? I can only hope that the no-longer-GOP Congress is not quite so much the religious right's under-the-shit-table bitch as to put up with this nonsense... But that's not terribly likely, given the wholly craven, principle-free, bootlicking, pandering puscillanimity of the current crop of Democratic "leaders"; plus we've still got a Justice department, handpicked by the head Fuckstick of the Organized Crime Racket of the American Presidency (OCRAP), that would have found ostracism way too lenient a punishment for Hester Prynne, that would have sent her to an offshore prison camp (say, on the Vineyard) and tortured her (a) for the identity of Pearl's father and (b) just because they're the Justice Department, and they get to.
'The whole 2257 thing has just taken a new turn, and it's not a good one for companies with older titles. In a story on XBiz.com, the FBI visited the home of J.T., owner of JT Video, to conduct a 2257 record-keepings inspection for two gay films produced in 1997. It would seem that a film made at that time would not be subject to inspection, as films older than seven years did not apply. However, a press rep for the FBI confirmed that material that has been re-issued on DVD, for example, would restart the time-limit clock, putting formerly exempt material at risk. So it seems that any repackaging of older titles needs the 2257 record-keeping, which would seem to put a lot of companies into a state of shock. Titles from such outfits as Laguna, the old Fox Studio, Catalina, In Hand—the list goes on—could be violating 2257 by releasing the titles without documentation that they most likely no longer have. It's being said that possibly two-thirds of the titles produced before 2000 is now going to be "illegal" to be sold. Chris Ward at Raging Stallion told me, "I don't think anyone is going to jail, and I don't think it will really change anything, but officially, it's the law, and there is a risk involved." Raging Stallion says they do not have any older titles that would apply. Fred Bercovitz is the guy at Video 10, whose company releases predominately older titles that are now being released on DVD. Fred told me, "We have no records on file for (the older titles) so these would all have to be taken off the market, I suppose, if we were told to. It seems like they're changing the interpretation of the law every other week. Hopefully it will be reversed," adding, "It's very clearly draconian, and I rarely get to use that word!" The 2257 is still being challenged, but courts have rejected injunctions, saying the law must apply until the challenges are resolved. I can hear the "Aaaaagh!s" being shrieked throughout the industry. There will be developments, I'm sure.'
I think that "2/3rd of titles older than 2000" is a conservative estimate. Why would anyone in the porn biz keep records as bizarrely elaborate as the law MIGHT insist 5, 10 years from now? How in the blistering FUCK can any legal expert argue that laws drafted one year can apply to entertainment product created a decade ago? I can only hope that the no-longer-GOP Congress is not quite so much the religious right's under-the-shit-table bitch as to put up with this nonsense... But that's not terribly likely, given the wholly craven, principle-free, bootlicking, pandering puscillanimity of the current crop of Democratic "leaders"; plus we've still got a Justice department, handpicked by the head Fuckstick of the Organized Crime Racket of the American Presidency (OCRAP), that would have found ostracism way too lenient a punishment for Hester Prynne, that would have sent her to an offshore prison camp (say, on the Vineyard) and tortured her (a) for the identity of Pearl's father and (b) just because they're the Justice Department, and they get to.
