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Court Strikes Down Age Verification For Adult Sites
How Appealing reports that a court has struck down age verification requirements for porn sites, as a First Amendment violation. Here is the ruling (PDF). While the average reader here has never been to such a site, porn has been a driving force in the economics and technology of the Net. The age verification requirements of U.S.C. Title 18, Section 2257 were yet another attempt to regulate to death what the government can't outright prohibit. The requirements intruded on the privacy and safety of performers and created headaches for sites like flickr and photobucket that host images. It is has long been thought that the requirements wouldn't hold up in court, but this is the first actual ruling.
So does this mean there's no mandatory retirement age for porn stars? Granny will want to hear about this.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Of course not. People don't go to these sites to read, now do they?
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Hello, double entendre.
Bah, that was easy. There was a limited number of questions, and I think four possible answers given for each one, so you just kept guessing away until you could map out all the answers to all the questions.
There's a nerdy solution to every problem.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
People seem to be misinterpreting what this is about, partially due to the vague nature of the summary. They aren't talking about those 'enter your birthdate to enter' gateways to porn sites; this is about websites being required to have verification that all actors involved are, in fact, of legal age.
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
For you lawyer-types: Does this make it illegal for the Federal government to do this ? Or does it make it illegal for any government to enforce these requirements? Basically: Can the state of oregon say that they want to regulate this, or does this ruling make this illegal?
BA
The law that was struck down was about age verification and ID requirements for PERFORMERS in the porn. It had nothing to do with the age of the people VIEWING the porn.
Note that this ruling is not about the questions you get asked when visiting a website. (e.g. Are you at least 18/21/whatever?) This ruling is on the rules for storing proof of age of the people recorded in sexually explicit photos or videos.
It makes sense that the overly broad ruling made earlier would be overturned due to its potential to conflict with the 1st amendment. It would have become exceptionally difficult to post sexually explicit content without fear of violating the law. Expect a less sweeping law to be put forth shortly. (IANAL)
Insert self-referential sig here.
Adult natured games in 16 color EGA for the kids of yester year, gonzo orgy divx on demand for the kids of today.
The future is fucked. You think you had it rough? Try for not even being an American. At least you cannucks can just shout over the border and get answers.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Thank you for clearing that up.
In their summary, How Appealing notes that the requirement was struck down as "facially unconstitutional."
A lot of people are posting with obvious confusion about what was actually struck down.
... problem is the law is completely undiscriminating and many amateurs who run their sites from their homes are forced to publish their full names and address etc. for legal purposes. Not to mention that many feel that such documents regarding their performers identity should be kept confidential and only be obtainable via court order).
Title 18 USC 2257 has absolutely nothing to do with verifying the age of a web site's surfers. It imposes record keeping requirements on the web sites. Requiring them to keep and make available records of every performer's age and identity etc.
The law has always been controversial in the adult industry due to privacy concerns it raises for the performers and for the web site operators (you may notice on many porn sites at the very bottom they'll have a link called "legal" or "18 USC 2257" which links to a name and address where the records can be obtained
The full text of the law can be found at here
In other words it's not about verifying surfers age. It's about verifying performers.
This ruling wasn't about putting AVS on sites so as to prevent people from seeing the pics. This was a controversial change to the 2257 laws that were going to basically make it illegal to have any sort of adult oriented image online anywhere unless there was a verified with US ID and current contact information for the model. the law was semi insane, as not only would the original site need to have the name, address, phone numbers and so on of the models. but so would everyone else down the chain. the advertisers, the affiliates. this was also supposed to affect personal sites, and private web pages. basically the laws weren't in any way meant to protect children, or even stop online pornography. They were being used as a bludgeon to make online hookup sites impossible to run. thank god it got struck down.
"Thou shalt not filter on the date of birth,
for that censors the rights of the children."
And the heathens cheered, as their ranks would swell,
while the righteous cursed, as the children would be corrupted.
-- Book of the Internet, Chapter 72 verse 17.
Of course, this ruling doesn't have a ton of effect. After all, it's not like a fourteen year old can't select "I was born in 1972" in a drop down. Those pages were basically worthless. I'm not surprised the court ruled as they did. Probably the right decision. I'm not sure that a click-though page is really censoring free speech, but I understand why they did it (conspiracy theories aside).
I'm surprised that it this lasted this long, but if I were running a site I would keep the page up for plausible deniability and because we all know someone will try to find a way to re-enact this (local level, perhaps).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I was getting worried that they might get suspicious that I still wank to porn despite the fact that I was born in 1901.
Well now you're safe to publish a picture of your activities, without worrying about whether their software has a hangover Y2K bug and might decide you're only 6 years old.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Indeed, compromising the performers' privacy by requiring that identifying information be distributed to any site hosting the content they star in seems to have much less to do with its stated purpose of preventing underage individuals from acting in porn and much more to do with making a hostile and dangerous business environment for those in an industry the religious right would like to shut down.
Whether 2257 is in place or not shouldn't make any difference for sites that don't host porn, correct. Of course, in a world where user-submitted contact is every idiot's idea of how they're going to start a business that'll be The Next Big Thing On The Internet but artificial intelligence isn't good enough to conclusively determine whether a given piece appeals to prurient interests or is outside of established community standards, being a site that doesn't host porn is considerably harder than just putting a line in your TOS and filtering things out after-the-fact.
How is masturbating and looking at pornography of consenting adults considered "perverted"? That is a very limited view given that your body is wired in such a way as to encourage you to reproduce as frequently and as often as possible. It stands to reason that people need to satisfy their natural urges somehow. It's hard getting laid; people are picky about their partners and there's this stigma attached to sex still even in our modern liberated society.
It's pretty easy to watch porn and whack off... A few people take it out on poor unsuspecting passers-by (i don't condone that kind of thing). You gotta satisfy the urges that your body has somehow. I find it somewhat offensive that you would classify the satisfying of the body's natural urges "perverted".
I never really supported the age verification because I think a person who is old enough to know to seek out the content on their own is probably old enough to make their own decisions regarding sex. A person who wants to seek out the porn will be able to find it regardless of any age verification laws in one or two countries. Not everywhere is the USA or Australia. Lots of places don't enforce similar laws.
Younger kids should be supervised by their parents. Someone else said "if you don't want your kids looking at it then try something called parenting". I couldn't agree more.
I do agree that porn isn't for everyone, and a simple banner page warning is what a great-many of the porn sites have currently anyway.
I drink to make other people interesting!
The majority proceeds to hold the statute facially over-broad...
Do judges really refer to their *ahem* as a 'statute'?
Ah! So that's what they do behind closed doors.
There was widespread protest at the latest ammendments to 2257 (which just came out of review in Sept. and were going into law in Dec - written in 2006 by Gonzolas and the Bush whitehouse) as they were going to document-requirement-out-of-existence many adult themed but obviously non-porographic websites, the national lesbian bisexual gay transgenered taskforce was doing political organizing against it, among many other groups.
... quo... was going to be applied much, much more widely come December.
Effectively it said you are a porn producer if you run a website that has any graphic nudity (or "portrayals" of sexual activity) on it and you must therefore comply with section 2257 recordkeeping guidelines which are a huge, gigantic pain in the ass and go far, far beyond ensuring you're not using child actors in your smut.
Additionally if you are a producer (and w/ the new definition so very many people will be) you can be 'audited' at any time which is in effect a warrantless search and seizure.
I work with some people in the adult industry and I have this information from the source (i.e. not 2nd hand) that agents came into their production company on a 2257 record keeping inspection and seized EVERYTHING in the room the records were kept in. Computers. Other records. Everything.
Subsequently other production studios started actually building special rooms to contain just their 2257 paperwork and nothing else (it appears the understanding is the warrantless search only applies to the room where the records are kept). I was in meetings where they were trying to figure out if the room had to have a door or just an opening, a ceiling, and what cross-linked records (did I mention the requirements are a pain) might possibly be somewhere else... they even needed a new server just for the electronic records b/c elsewhere servers (with all their graphics and video) were seized b/c they had part of the 2257 records stored on them.
I know this sounds ridiculous but I'm certain this is was status quo - now this
Bravo 6th circuit for putting breaks on this insanity.
Sorry I don't have time to include links but I'll follow up later w/ documentation if I can.
closed minded is as closed minded does
We are everywhere.
We are legion.
We are embarassed.
For one of us was more lame than all of us.
Saddest part is that if he'd posted that missed reference on Caturday, his fail would have been so epic it would have wrapped right around the integer into win.
The greatest pornography distribution mechanism in the history of mankind, and what do we use it for?
> lolcats
We were embarassed.
We know Avenue Q was a documentary.
We fixed it for him.
my buddy and i knew the answers to all of the questions when we were 8... and does anyone remember the prophetic
O.J. Simpson is:
a. no one to mess with
b. something
c. something about juice
d. under indictment
so depending on when you played the game, there were two answers to that one...
now is the winter of our discotheque
slashdot will now allow images in the comments section?
that's a joke
no really, it's a joke
PLEASE NO
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What I gather from the PDF is:
1. The Government application of record keeping requirements was "uncreative" as applied specifically to child pornography.
2. The law produced a weighted burden on other forms of free speech (in relation to 1).
3. It is regulation of speech, not conduct, since the photograph (and taking of it) "bear a necessary relationship to the freedom to speak, write, print or distribute information or opinion."
4. Connection publishes "swinger" magazines, which I'm pretty sure was founded by two wild and crazy guys, Georg and Yortuk Festrunk.
4. "facial" is actually a legal term.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
That is statute not statue. Check a dictionary for difference.
...and, I guess, upon further review, that I cannot count to 5.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
Don't you mean a brute force solution?
In the UK there was a bit of an uproar when a tabloid printed topless pics of a model called Linsey Dawn McKenzie the day after she turned 16. They had been doing a countdown to her birthday with less risque shoots. The paper insisted that the pics had been taken the minute she turned 16 and printed in the very next edition, though some people claimed at the time that they had been taken earlier, and that all the papers readers (viewers?) were paedos. What a difference a day makes....
I know someone who went through a 2257 inspection. It's scary, because record-keeping mistakes are felonies. The law was intended to intimidate, which is part of why the court struck it down as overreaching. She came through it OK; she and her staff can quote the record-keeping requirements from memory (yes, the separate room requirement is real), and she knows all her models.
Compliance is easier if you're a real, live producer, with offices, staff, a business address, production space, and a payroll system. It's amateurs and the people who use third-party photographers who have problems.
"Why do they even bother putting an age restriction on these things when all you have to do is click 'yes- I am 18!' Even a seventeen year-old could figure that out."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I'm not sure how much will change soon. I'm doing a shoot tomorrow and will once again be giving out way too much info once again. Unless this is it for government appeals, no producer of content will want to risk not having the records - so tomorrow I'll be spending the hour or so before each shoot doing unpaid paperwork for the government, and wondering if the creeps working in the office can be trusted with a big file of information that can be used to steal my identity...
If you read the law itself, or even the court ruling linked to in TFA, you will see otherwise.
In fact, the law required ANYONE who took sexually explicit photographs (for example, you taking pictures of you and your wife) to keep records, and make their place of business (or, in this example residence) available to inspection by the government with no advance notice.
Yes, you read that correctly. If you have taken explicit photographs of ANYBODY, for ANY reason, in the U.S. in recent years, and did not keep such records, or attach record information to such photographs, regardless of whether they were taken for commercial purposes, then the law considered YOU to be a felon, publishable by up to 5 years in federal prison.
If you don't believe me, read the court decision, or the 2257 laws themselves.
As written in the summary above it is about the performers/models or whatever title they go by.
You were not actually mistaken, but the extent of the law was much greater than most people realize.
Contrary to the original post, this ruling was in fact about the performers, but the record-keeping requirements were for the "producers" of the product. But "producer" was very broadly defined. While ISPs and the like were generally not affected, the fact is that if your website had ANY "adult" images on it, then YOU (or your company) were required to verify the ages of anybody depicted in such images... even if they were originally made by someone else half a world away. Those records included a copy of legal ID for every person depicted in "adult" images.
So, in fact, just about every site that contained content made by someone else was in violation.
"Get off my lawn before I cockslap you! Yeah that's right, I can reach you from here!"
If you had been working in the porn industry, surely you would know this.
I do know this. If you were closer to the industry you would know that the most serious and responsible adult content providers are concerned about the legality of their operation and thus engage in what they consider to be "hyper compliance"; Most of the bigger players prefer to be one step ahead of legal requirements to ensure the legal footing of their business.
2257 records for talent and age verification for visitors are related only in that both are mechanisms designed, at least on the surface, to protect minors from the harmful radiation released by nudity. Providers who are most serious about their business engage in both and won't be convinced to budge until it is practical.
Everybody is a slave to their desires, no matter what those desires may be. Your body is wired in a certain way; that way is to stay alive and to make lots of babies. That's natures way of making sure we stay around.
The biochemical mechanisms that make us want to make babies actually really only make us want to have sex. Making babies is a (fortunately controllable) side effect of having sex. It's only natural to go through phases where you wish to copulate and phases where you don't.
Most religious people would argue against pornography because the very argument is driven by their desire to please $DEITY. The desire to please a "god" is larger than the desire to make babies in some people and they resist the natural urge to go forth and multiply until they are married. That's a choice some people make. I, personally, don't think it's healthy.
I ask you, do you eat? Eating is driven by desire to stay alive. I certainly eat. I don't eat constantly and I don't usually just get up and walk out of work or meetings at bad times to eat (unless I feel my blood sugar dropping too rapidly). I am controlling my desire to eat when I am hungry.
This is OT enough!
I drink to make other people interesting!
Yes. Me. Now do my bidding - I'll have a coffee to start with, white and two sugars. Chop chop.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
This thread is so typical of what /. has become -- perhaps setting a new record for irrelevant or plain ignorant comments. At the time I'm viewing it, there are about 200 posts. It looks like perhaps a couple dozen at most actually discuss the article in question. Of the rest, they seem to be roughly evenly divided between (a) people who totally misconstrued the subject matter (even if you failed to RTFA, the summary makes it very clear as to what "age verification" legislation is being referenced), and (b) those who go off on tangents totally unrelated to the subject matter (including the ubiquitous and almost mandatory posts from the "right to bear arms" crowd, who somehow manage to interject comments on gun ownership into almost any thread).
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
The nefarious legislation known as U.S.C. Title 18 Section 2257 has never been about protecting the children or battling kiddie pr0n. After all, true child pr0nographers certainly don't have their subjects sign releases anyway, nor do they advertise their wares openly on easily accessible public commercial sites. It is one of many tools of intimidation, to harass and potentially shut down perfectly legal adult sites. They were hoping some sites would simply shut down rather than put up with the burdensome recordkeeping requirements, or that sites with user-generated content would be more vigilant about self-censoring even remotely questionable content out of fear. You can keep the most detailed, pristine, organized records (as any smart adult site would do anyway), and yet fear that if even one model's paperwork is in any way hinky, a felony charge may ensue.
In general, you can safely assume that any legislation regarding adult material has this sort of ulterior motive. The powers that be have never accepted the notion that it is legal (for now, until the Roberts Court rules on the next big case) for adults to choose to view adult material depicting consenting adults engaged in adult activities. To them, all pr0n is bad, and if they could, they would outlaw all of it. Whenever "think of the children" is bandied about in these things, you can bet that they are thinking of far more than "the children" -- they are also thinking about you and me and every other potential legal peruser of naughty pics.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
No, the post I responded to defined a biological purpose for sexuality. Using something for a purpose other than its intended purpose is the definition of "perversion."
It means that human sexuality has an inherent nature, and that that inherent nature involves intimacy, and that expressions of human sexuality inconsistent with intimacy are inconsistent with the essential nature of sexuality, and therefore harmful to it, and therefore a perversion of it.
No, I cannot quantify it. No, I do not lack counterexamples.
It spells it out rather clearly here.
"U.S.C. Title 18, Section 2257"
Granted, it's rather telling that I know what U.S.C. Title 18, Section 2257 is right off the bat.
Jason Lotito
The more you repress it, the more it spreads. Where I live in GA we have this massive number of "massage parlors" that (curiously) advertise heavily on the interstate with large billboards featuring scantily clad women.
Now while you can probably also get a massage at these establishments, it is generally understood that this is not all you can get if you were so inclined. And the public outcry? Nil.
Now, dancing, even "bikini" dancing, which is the only kind not zoned out in the county I live in, is the subject of vigorous public debate. Place just opened up a couple of months ago not far from where I live. "Massage" parlor (with unusually long hours) opened up next door at about the same time. Public outcry over the girls in swimwear? Vast. Public outcry over the suspiciously placed massage parlor? Nil.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.