I think you may have read it a little too quickly. :winkwink:

"SEC. 101. AGE VERIFICATION REQUIREMENT.
(a) PORNOGRAPHIC MATERIAL IN GENERAL.?It is unlawful for an operator of any pornographic website accessible by any computer located within the United States to display any pornographic material, including free content that may be available prior to the purchase of a subscription or product, without first verifying that any user attempting to access their site is 18 years of age or older in a manner consistent with the regulations prescribed under subsection (c)."

Unless you believe that they are specifically referring to tours on pay sites (and I think that would be giving Congress too much credit in terms of their understanding of adult websites), I'd say that free porn sites are intended to be subject to this statute, as well.

In the end, it probably won't matter much whether the bill passes, because it has a number of the same defects that COPA and COPA II had, and the courts would likely kill it for the same reasons. The authors of the bill have attempted to resolve some of those defects and to limit the scope of the materials affected by tying their definitions of "pornographic material" and "pornographic web site" to 18 USC 2257, but shoddy craftsmanship and sloppy citation marred that attempt.

For example, the definition of "pornographic web site" means "a person required to maintain documents verifying the age of persons engaged in sexually explicit conduct pursuant to section 2257(a) of title 18, United States Code."

The problem there being, of course, that Section 2257(a) of 18 USC specifically pertains to simulated sexually explicit conduct, and not actual sexually explicit conduct. With no reference to the main body of 2257 in this statutory definition, Congress will have effectively created a definition of "pornographic web site" that does not include sites that display actual sexually explicit conduct. Whoops!

Defining "pornographic web site" as a function of 2257(a) also puts that definition at odds with the statute's definition of "pornographic materials" that immediately precedes the web site definition, as the materials definition specifies that such materials consist of a "depiction of an actual human being engaged in actual sexually explicit conduct."

These are very minor errors, to be sure, and they could be easily remedied with the stroke of a pen, but to me it's pretty alarming that with all the hands that touch something like this before it is published as a bill, nobody involved in its crafting caught that...?

Congress in a nutshell, perhaps.

It was a quick read and I am speculating at this point, but I?ll tell you where this train of thought comes from namely the section of the bill that defines criminal liability:

Whoever knowingly and with intent sells or provides access to any product or service to a person under a legally specified age?

If you look at this language it seems to be saying criminal liability only attaches if you sell or provide access to a product service and the typical affiliate doesn?t do that.

Furthermore looking at the definition of ?operator? provided in the bill.

OPERATOR.?The term ??operator?? means a person who provides products or services online whose sale is limited by applicable law to persons 4 over the age of 18 or with regard to alcohol, over the age of 21.

The typical affiliate wouldn?t be an ?operator ?because he or she isn?t selling or providing products or services. Fanciful arguments aside about a 15 image galley being a product it seems to me to be a real stretch to attach criminal liability to someone that isn?t dealing directly with the end consumer.

Even the section you posted seems to lead me to believe they are targeting pay site tours as this was included as an example:

including free content that may be available prior to the purchase of a subscription or product,


I agree that all of these defects could be cured by a couple stokes of the pen, but then the bigger problem for the proponents would be as you mentioned passing constitutional muster when the Supreme Court has already defined adult filters as an effective means to keep minors from viewing porn online and COPPA as having gone too far.

Cal's trouble is with online gambleing, not porn. It will be resolved.
Duke

Not bad right? :thumbsup

The "free content" part only applies if the purpose of the free content is to upsell a membership. If I put a bunch of porn on my website just because I like to give out free porn then according to this it's NOT a violation. Otherwise Google, Yahoo etc could be in violation. Typical Congress trying to be slick to avoid same issues with COPA and not pissing off Google but still fucking up none the less.

As an adult webmaster I would just have to adjust to the changes. I already have over 10,000 old AVS sites waiting to be listed.

CyberAge part 2

This could save the industry

time to dust off the Cambria list?

Question...how does requiring age verification do anything to eliminate free porn. Just because one may have to produce a credit card does not mean that one has to charge that credit card...does it?

well i don't have to worry about this shi, so glad i am not living in the USA

But to be honest as long as our three big brothers area around i am sure we are save.

Let me introduce you to them, i am sure you already know them.

Google Bing Yahoo

They will solve this in a heart beat.

In all honesty? I'd go back to buying DVDs.

We wouldn't have to if someone would come over here and kill all da jesus people for us.

It won't, and everyone knows it. Only a complete fucking moron would believe otherwise. You can't regulate a global industry. It is because of these fucking christians, the ones who actually view more porn than everyone else, who are behind this shit. They want to see liberals in jail and the FUCKING bible replacing the constitution.

Yeah, if the industry was confined within the USA. No US laws will shut down the hun though.

I would like to know what they define as 'porn content'. I am strictly softcore. I wonder if Playboy style nudity would be considered 'porn'.

Well who gets to define what is and isn't adult content? Can Maxim publish a magazine on the web with boobie shots? How do free (to the viewer) sites handle this?

in germany we have FSK16 and FSK18 - FSK16 is soft with showing boobies (and pussy with closed legs, no pussy lips) which is free to access by everyone. FSK18 means everything from showing pussy up to full hardcore which can only be accessed after passing age verification. and credit card does not count as valid tool for that.

What does count as a valid tool?

You have to mail in your birth certificate and a vial of blood for the DNA test.

I understand where you are coming from, but as I interpret it (and I could very well be wrong), the language you quoted is stating that it is unlawful to provide minors access to material that would be illegal to sell to them. This is consistent with the laws of the brick and mortar world; it is not any less illegal to give a minor cigarettes, alcohol, porn or any other age-restricted material than it is to sell that material to them. My assumption is that Stupak (or whomever wrote the bill on his behalf) would like that same construction and logic applied to online porn via this bill.

I also don't think it is fanciful to suggest that pornographic pictures and/or videos are a "product" within the context of the statutory language here, because (to me) the language is geared to describe the nature of the material that the statute applies to -- namely materials that are illegal to sell to minors. IMO, the statutory language does not limit the illegality to the actual sale of such materials, it is stating that it is unlawful to provide online access to products that are illegal to sell to minors.

(I don't think I've worded this explanation particularly well, but hopefully it still makes sense...?)

It would also be consistent with 2257 and other laws pertaining to pornographic materials to consider free porn a 'product.' For example, affiliates who display free content subject to 2257 regulations are considered "producers" under the definitions provided in the current iteration of 2257, despite the fact that the plain language definition of "producer" would not appear to include someone who merely displays content that was created by a third party.

At any rate, it's all a non-issue until/unless this bill passes, and I wouldn't be too surprised if the bill is never even debated, much less brought up for a vote.

- Q.

doesn't help you much cause in german: http://www.kjm-online.de/public/kjm/...how_1=91,85,56

most systems basically require a bank account from which they do a 1 cent test transaction in combination with a credit check agency called "Schufa"

or a so called "post ident" method where you get a pin in a registered letter from your mailman which can be only handed to you personally (yeah, i know, this one really sucks)

The reason that 2257, DMCA, etc. do no apply to Google, Yahoo, etc. is because those entities are considered "Online Service Providers" and/or "Internet Service Providers" under the safe harbor provisions of those statutes, not because the access they supply to porn is free vs paid.

Trust me, your porn sites will NOT be considered OSPs or ISPs. If the content in question were posted to your site(s) by third parties, you could make the argument that you are an OSP/ISP, and use the safe harbor provisions to argue that you aren't liable for the content accordingly (what one might call the "tube site dodge"), but if you post the content yourself, there's really no chance that a court is going to allow you to make use of the OSP/ISP loophole.

Again, note the fact that 2257 absolutely DOES apply to free porn sites; the difference between Google providing access to porn (even the caching of sexually explicit images in their image search) and a free porn site offering access to porn is in the way such sites are defined or 'classified' (for lack of a better term) under the relevant statutes.

I doubt that anybody has a problem with the hun...

You're kidding, right? They promote farm sex shit on that site.

I was more looking at it from the webmaster side and by considering tubes and the damage they do...

Actually, a more direct approach to shield children from adult content, would be to start by making free porn sites and file sharing sites illegal right off the bat, and then go from there.

so scary pornhub just put up a warning page!~

I'll say it again...I hope it passes

This is one of those areas in which the entrepreneurial side of me is at odds with the civil libertarian side of me.

On the one hand, eliminating free porn online could increase the sale value of porn overall -- but that's definitely "could", and not necessarily "would." (As others in this thread have noted, this bill would not have much impact on businesses or individuals who live and operate outside of the U.S., particularly those who aren't selling their porn through US-based processors. The impact on foreign free sites would be slight or non-existent as well; overseas webmasters could still operate free sites, tube sites, etc. and hand out free porn all day long....)

On the other hand, this bill is about a lot more than just porn, or the porn industry alone. I really don't think that as a matter of social policy it makes a whole lot of sense to put the onus on people who distribute beer (or cigars, or any of the other age-restricted products that would be subject to this law) to require age verification from their website visitors in order to display an advertisement for a particular brand of beer that they sell. That idea strikes me as excessive, and as interfering with both interstate and intrastate commerce in a way that Congress should not be encouraged to do.

At the end of the day, whether the bill passes or not, it is likely doomed by its very nature. Per the COPA and COPA II decisions, it just isn't Constitutionally kosher to require someone to have a credit card in order to obtain expressive materials, and/or to require the 'speaker' to obtain credit card info in order to disseminate their expressive materials.

Oh, and btw -- hi Jay. It's been ages since you last drank me under the table (which, granted, is pretty easy to do) and got to watch me puke on my own shoes in public. We'll have to do that again sometime soon.

A good time to move your adult business to the Europe, because the old good US freedom is getting more and more freest every day :)

This bill will do very little to curb actual free porn out there. About half the sites are run by non-US webmasters as are most of the big tubes that post full length movies. They will go on operating as normal. This bill seems like standard issue near election year politics as usual. Right now there is a small group of "conservative" democrats that are going to get put over the fire next year for supporting any kind of healthcare reform. this bill gives them something to crow about.

Just because it has been introduced doesn't mean it will ever see a vote. If it does that is likely to be next year then probably another year before it actually gets through the senate. there will be immediate challenges. As others have said the supreme court has now ruled that requiring a credit card as age verification is unconstitutional. So, unless this bill has some other grand way of allowing people to prove their age I can't imagine it would survive a court challenge. It took years for Copa to get through the legal system, I would assume this bill would have a similar future.

But I guess you never know, anything could happen.

So, let's say it passes and an injunction is requested. Which way do you think this court will go?

We know what happened with the conservative court, but now that you got with your liberal court, what do you think will happen?

goddamn Bart Stupak

I jack off to age-verification pages. The month and day selectors are sexy.

What liberal court are you referring to? The Supreme Court is still majority conservative, and since there is no way of knowing which circuit would hear any eventual challenge to this proposed legislation, there's no way of knowing whether it would play out in front of a liberal court or a conservative one.

Not a good idea. All major illegal porn tubes will comply with the new age verification system and their sites with stolen content will be available for everyone in a same way as now. Nothing will change about free porn. :2 cents:

But I really starting to like the US "freedom" more, more and more... :winkwink: :pimp

P.S. Thanks god I live in non-democratic and non-free country! :)

Actually the bill it would effect most of free porn because most of the big sites host here in the good ol USA. And it would have a ripple effect.Like I had said before porn survived as long as it had because it was sold behind counters,blackened windows and in backrooms. Porn was not meant to be given away so someone could sell a dating membership. Free pics were pretty harmful,now some kid can see full scenes of anal fisting with a click its gotten out of hand. Like the senator told Paul Cambria you dont police yourselves we will do it for you. Looks like for once the government is going to keep its word.

Not a big deal to move over the EU servers :2 cents:

I'm always on the same page as tony404!