UK govt lunacy, and the end of UK LTDs as billing entities.
 

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...dband-ondemand


So the uk govt fined a small VOD co £60k despite the fact that they had moved the business offshore and put the original company into liquidation.

Good work guys, that will keep the kids safe from all that free nasty porn.

:Oh crap

that explains a few things about SB!

explain to me the document please.. I tried to read it and from what I gathered they have been fined for not protecting their content from minors? Is there anything I am missing?

What is to stop a kid from the uk typing in porn hub and not strictly broadband and getting porno there?

I agree that something should be done but not on a country level

country level works quite well, look at Germany.

Logic has rarely something to do with that, just follow the laws of the country you are operating from

Hence the lunacy.

Basically the legislation says that any on demand service that plays adult video must hide the content behind proper age verification. No teasers, no pics etc.

Unless the company (and editorial control) is based outside of the UK.

If they are offshore ATVOD/Ofcom will not even look at it.

The crazy part is that the UK industry makes up a tiny fraction of the available on demand porn. After this case the tiny percentage that is left will pack up or go offshore, entirely ceasing to be regulated, or tax raising for the UK govt. Good work.

I would actually like to see some legislation that stops access to adult sites for minors. However this legislation does not protect anyone, and it is frankly absurd.

Most of my business has been offshore for some time, everything else will be out of the UK by the end of the year.
:2 cents:

However all of the sites that have been using UK LTD's for their billing need to cease asap. ATVOD follow the money trail in deciding where the editorial control of a site lies. If you use a UK LTD you are now in the firing line.

And to be honest, Jerry at Strict Broadband had been on a crusade to fight against them and fair play to him for that.
*BUT* if
1) you've got legislation in place that you have to adhere to;
2) you've been given an final judgement in July (ie. you have to fix the breaches NOW, last chance)
3) you dont comply after the judgement
what did he expect?

It took a LONG time to get our sites compliant, and it has no doubt affected our business adversely. *BUT* we dont have a £60k fine to pay, and we're still in the game, making our $$$, paying our bills, and paying our affiliates who help! :thumbsup

Well I dont speak for Jerry - but atvod have fined a company thay is in voluntary liquidation and the vod business in question is now run as an offshore entity.

Looks like a win for Jerry and pointless exercise by the regulator.

:2 cents:

I don't care anymore

Hi rastan, both epoch and ccbill allow the use of debit cards. What exactly have you done to make sure than minors cannot get access to your member area? Or does this not form part of the regulations?

Cheers ...

It's retarded if he was given a final warning and didn't comply. Oh well £60k for the Treasury to piss up the wall.

TBH I don't know why anybody runs a site like this out of the UK.

Ironic or what ? RazorSharpe ? Many months ago I contacted Christiana at Epoch and gave her a full brief on this ATVOD outfit, she did a great job as did Epoch as a whole and now it is possible to block debit cards for UK customers with Epoch. I did this live on the phone with Cathy at ATVOD and she confirmed that my sites were compliant.

To be fair, all this needs to be put into perspective, ATVOD decided to test the water, make an example, kick some ass, call it what you want. They took a variety of sites that had done the right thing by notifying and set some baselines. That included me, Rastan, SB and....... the megasite of rosewoodxxx LOL All of this is designed to send a message. They've used a few people that did the right thing and screwed us over.
Lesson learnt ATVOD. Now the pressure increases as ATVOD will need to explain why there are so many UK sites not notified, why there are so many UK sites notified and still in breach of Rule 11, for example www.rosecabs.com

I agree with the Queen

ATVOD an organisation created by the EU via the AVMS Euro directive that allows every country to do what they want.........LOL
ATVOD protecting under 18's from porn by checking 23 UK based adult sites............LOL
ATVOD a quango that extorts money from legitimate BIZ to fund itself and then shuts them down.

She has never once advocated ATVOD

It does make I laugh though when Television X has a member on the board of ATVOD and at the same time they are running their YOUPORN channel at:
http://www.youporn.com/channel/587/television-x/ #petejohnson #atvod

http://www.atvod.co.uk/about-atvod/a...ard/cr-profile

Chris Ratcliffe on the board of ATVOD........... He runs the day-to-day operations of 16 pay channels across Sky, Virgin and Freeview, including Television X, Red Hot TV, sporting pay-per-view channel Primetime and their respective on demand services.

So it seems if you are a company on the board of ATVOD it is ok to breach rule 11 ? How can this happen ? Are the top dogs at ATVOD getting back handers ?

Come on keep up, youporn is neither owned by a UK entity, nor does it have its editorial control in the UK.

Therefore it is all hunky dory !!!

Breathtaking hypocracy perhaps, but all perfectly legal............I seem to remember thinking this before about tubes, stolen content, and DMCA.

:2 cents::2 cents:

However I do see your point as the televisionx website does not look compliant either. (it has visa debit as a payment mechanism)