Obscenity Prosecutions and Affiliates

[tombarr]

I was just reading the new copy of AVN online magazine about the indictment of JM Productions on Federal Obscenity charges for production and distribution of "obscenity".

Reading through the article it seems that they produce content that is a bit rough, such as throat fucking, bukkake, and others that the government considers "outside standard adult video fare".

They were charged with interstate distribution of obscene materials by "knowingly using an interactive computer service and other facilities and means of interstate and foreign commerce"....

which made me wonder... in this climate of seemingly heavy handed porn legislation, attempted prosecution, inspections, 2257 modifications, etc... what liability do affiliates or link sites, or search engines have if they link to or affiliate with programs that produce this kind of web content.

We often talk of off shore companies and programs and producers that are companies registered outside the USA as being exempted from our laws.....but what about sites in the USA that link to them, affiliate with them...

Are we setting ourselves up for potential prosecution by making sales for, or referring traffic to sites that the US government deems "obscene"?

[Lee]

Are we setting ourselves up for potential prosecution by making sales for, or referring traffic to sites that the US government deems "obscene"?

An educated guess to the answer would be that yes, we are.

IMHO, those of uf who are running businesses should always think about the decisions we make and how they can possibly effect us in the long-term, that includes where to buy content, where to host, what sponsors to use and, the domains we register.

I see webmasters who register domains such as 'horny-boy-fucking.com' all the time and it really does make me cringe, not only because they obviously dont have a clue about the current political climate but because, most of the time they choose to use sponsors from Eastern Europe where the models look extremely young.

At the end of the day, when choosing a program to promote we need to ask ourselves, how would we feel being on the stand in court with the prosecution holding up a 10ftx10ft image from one of our sites....

Regards,

Lee