jayeff

It isn't necessarily easier to adapt what exists. That depends on how entrenched are the existing interests and on how much momentum can be gathered to effect change. And it also seems that very few are willing to address the question of whether a single organisation can effectively represent what are in reality different industries. That we all work with porn does not put magazine publishers, video producers, content providers and website operators on the same page.

Lenny2's post gives a clue to the barriers that have to be overcome before any organisation can make real progress. He claims to have spent thousands of dollars on legal advice re 2257 and then - reasonably - asks why he should share that information with others. What he doesn't apparently question is whether it was reasonable for him to spend all that money in the first place.

There are only a handful of lawyers with special knowledge in this area, so one is forced to wonder exactly how many times they have been paid over the past 18-24 months for giving out broadly the same advice. Yet despite that and all the other time and money which has been invested in this topic, AFAIK there still isn't a resource which provides an A-Z dummy's guide to 2257 compliancy. Certainly FTP doesn't point to one and if there were one, surely he would know.

I'm not sure it applies in the US, but if you look at a set of audited accounts in the UK, they are always signed off in a near identical way. That is because after any change in the law or new case law, the Institute of Chartered Accountants sends out a template to all its members. As an industry, we should have been able to get a clear guide for the standard business models long ago, leaving people only needing to consult lawyers if their businesses do not fit one of those models or if they want to know what-if I push the envelope here or here. It is crazy that as some have said, after all this time we are still telling everyone to consult a lawyer, when in most cases that simply should not be necessary.

You cannot blame Lenny2 or anyone else who chose to seek their own counsel, rather than waiting to see if the industry would get its act together in time. But in terms of a more effective direction for FSC or whoever, it's far more important to persuade the likes of him as to the benefits of collaboration in certain areas. It may be more comfortable to complain about the small-time webmaster who contributes neither financially nor practically, but by definition his impact would be limited even if you could stir him up. The people with both the most to lose and the most to gain are the ones who need to be motivated and mobilized, because they have the most resources and (potentially) the most influence.

For the sake of what-if, what if sponsors who were members of an industry association required all their affiliates to be members of that association. That would solve the financial problems of the association without putting an undue burden on any of its members and incidentally, also pave the way for an association involved in more than just legal matters.

The problem is that you would immediately run into what I meant earlier when I wrote that this industry hadn't matured enough yet. For every sponsor who could see the advantages in that route, there would be half-a-dozen (at least) looking forward to the extra affiliates they would sign up if a handful adopted that policy. This industry includes a lot of people who have made a great deal of money, but they haven't magically become far-sighted businessmen as a result. It likely won't be until the post-2000 generation dominate the top spots that we are going to understand that collaboration can sometimes be more profitable than competition.