What legalities need to be striaght for Free Sites?
 

Me and my partner are planning to shoot content for a paysite, but there is a good deal of legwork to get out of the way before that begins.

We figured we'd start some free site's linking to some programs like Sextronics for exmaple and just see what that does while were working on our main goal (As well as use the free sites to link to our pay site when it's operational).

Basically, what (if any) legal documents do we need to get this started ? Also, do we need a business license or Legal Counsel to start these free sites ?

Any and all advice is appreciated :)

Can anybody spare some knowledge and experience por favor ?

It really depends on the content and where you get the content. Obviously if you are shooting XXX content you MUST have all 2257 docs. However if you are starting a few free sites and use galleries provided to you they will most likely not have any material that is above R rating. In this case I do believe you are not responsible for the documents. Now if you want to show more then R, like some HARD R or softcore stuff you must make sure you get 2257 documents for every bit of material you have and list your 2257 compliance page.

Basically the best way to figure this out is cruise some sites. Look at there material and look at the site to see what (if any) documenting notes they have. Some document even pg-13 stuff so you can see how that is done.

As for biz license I always recommend you have one when doing business. Even if its the beginning stage of your business it is always best to have your state, federal and IRS documents in order. Our legal stuff was the very first thing we took care of to be honest and it cost us over $20k to go thru a lawyer and make sure our pay site was fully legal. Mind that was for more then just our license, it was all our releases, 2257 compliance stuff, our LLC, and a few trademarks and copyright documenting. Which if you are opening a paysite you may want to look into all of these.

Thanks Smokie. Yes, for our paysite we will probably be going through Adultbizlaw, but for a free site we just wanted to do a quick setup with as little initial work as possible.

As for spending 20k I wonder how that happened honestly. A lot of places have these documents cheap, you must have had a lot of specific document written up ?

I received your email and I will be sending off a response later tonight/tomorrow morning...

No problem, I am a patient guy and I know this isn't going to be operation within a week.

I'll be glad to hear from you :)

i am not, nor did i want to be based in CA, this is where the extra expense came in. also we have 4 different trademarks, and the ability to legally and properly copyright all of our videos and properties. This insures that my investors will not have there product stolen and reused for gain without us having legal grounds. Not everyone needs this, however I am an adult star and honestly I have a higher chance of making this work on a large scale then most people that start a production company. I am also doing ALL the filming I do not buy content so my paperwork has to be in order. Filming legally in AZ does take a bit of extra paperwork. So yeah we had to have alot of our documents written up properly.

How can "paperwork" make an illegal activity in AZ legal ? I am unaware of any case law or statutory law that states that content production a protected First Amendment right in AZ. I could be wrong, I am not saying that I'm not. I am just curious what your attorneys have told in regards to how to make an illegal activity legal. Usually contracts do not prevent criminal prosecutions.

Further, assume for a minute that content production is illegal in AZ, then the contracts (model releases) may not be enforceable. In almost every state, contracts for sex are illegal and cannot be enforced.

Unknown to most Florida producers is Florida statute that allows a prostitute to sue her pimp for profits and this statute classifies pornography as a form of prostitution.

Which means that a model could sue the content producer for profits from the sale of her pics/videos.

Entirely in regards to your free sites, the biggest issue is model ID's. Assume that none are available to you from the programs. So that will be your choice on whether to post sexually explicit promo material or not. So far the compliance checks have been at the source of the content, but it is one possibility that affiliate webmasters will be included one day.

You'll probably hear about schemes where you are sent a password protected file containing ID's, and in the event of an FBI inspection the paysite will give you the password after verifying that the FBI really is there. But let's face it, the FBI isn't going to sit in your living room watching movies while you attempt to obtain access to the ID's. At the very least, this process would not impress the DoJ. So again, assume that they are not available to you.

The vast majority of affiliates have thumbed their nose at this law and continue to post hardcore without having model ID's.

I see Matt, thanks.

I was figuring this first step would specifically just have free content from a program that offers free content for sites, I don't expect to have legal ID's for any of that stuff and honestly I didn't think I had to.

Yes you do...

Great!

Me and my Partner will try and speak with you sometime this week, he has a hectic schedule right now. All the services you provide seem really top notch. Thanks for your time thus far!