What are the Legal Challenges Facing Adult Companies Today?
This blog post should not be construed as legal advice. But, at Adult B2B Marketing, we are aware of all the risks associated with working in the adult entertainment industry. This blog post is mostly based on our extensive research, our experience, and the help of our staff journalist, who holds a postgraduate degree in public administration and policy. Furthermore, we have close working contacts with a large number of the top attorneys that serve the adult market.
Unfortunately, a number of legal and political obstacles make running an adult website or an organization that owns adult sites more complicated than they need to be. The adult entertainment industry is facing a moral panic due to the efforts of anti-porn activists on the right and left, who see it as harmful. This has happened especially in the US. Despite its imperfections, our industry is among the most lucrative niche entertainment sectors globally. Not to mention that adult entertainment has paved the way for advancements in the internet.
This is not the most visually appealing industry, but it is a professional, regulated set of companies that take social responsibility, free speech, commercial ethics, and culture into account. This blog post examines a few of the legal challenges that adult businesses encounter.
What Legal Problems Does the Adult Industry Face?
As previously said, companies in the adult industry face a number of legal challenges that could have an impact on how they operate and do business. To start with the obvious, all businesses that produce and distribute pornographic content are required by law to maintain records in accordance with 18 U.S. Code 2257 (2257).
A Word About Adherence to 2257
We recently wrote a blog post about compliance with 2257. But we must stress to our readers—especially the new business owners who are thinking about purchasing a property from us—how crucial this regulation is. Both the U.S. Department of Justice and federal criminal law compel creators of pornographic, nudist, and sexually explicit content to keep records in accordance with Section 2257. Age, identity, and performance consent are required for the keeping of records as per Section 2257.
All records are preserved by a custodian of records (often a chief compliance officer or general counsel) and should be retained for processing and audit. Any official of the federal Justice Department may request access to all data at any time. For security purposes, all studios, websites that generate original porn, photographers, and porn producers (among others) must retain all identification and age documentation.
Civil Litigation Trends
Trends in litigation and legislation suggest that attorneys may be attempting to take advantage of the moral outcry around porn by utilizing a tort liability framework to make claims of harm in one way or another. For example, a number of state legislatures have enacted laws allowing adult entertainment companies to be held accountable for alleged legal damages.
As reported by XBIZ, House Bill 142 was passed by Louisiana’s conservative governor, John Bel Edwards, and it creates legal responsibility for “sex addiction” and “online pornography.” “Civil remedies for parents of minors exposed to online pornography or other explicit material” are provided, according House Bill 142, “if websites do not have reasonable [age] verification procedures in place” to restrict access for small children.
Squaring Federal and State Laws
Some states have attempted to enact similar legislation, but most of these attempts have fallen short because of their arbitrary character. These laws are only in place in a few states, including Louisiana, which leads to yet another patchwork of erratic laws concerning alleged online injuries brought forth by guardians of kids. In this case, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 would take precedence over state legislation.
This is so because most internet platforms’ liability safe harbor is upheld by Section 230, which itself is a result of federal law taking precedence. This rule shields web platforms, in theory, from responsibility resulting from content published on adult websites by third parties. Businesses will face needless risks and liabilities as a result of the discrepancy between federal and state laws.
FOSTA-SESTA
Another legislative barrier for companies in the adult entertainment industry is FOSTA-SESTA. We recently reported on Section 230’s relationship to the controversial anti-trafficking law.
The amount of persons FOSTA-SESTA has successfully punished and used as leverage against shows how it undermines Section 230 protections, and we have actually done more harm than good with that blog post. The Department of Justice reports that few convictions have occurred under the statute, and that the application of FOSTA-SESTA has proven to be extremely uneven.
An example of this is the Backpage.com trial. Prejudice, external and internal meddling, and prosecutorial incompetence are plaguing the Backpage case in a federal district court in Arizona that is renowned for its conservatism. The prosecution hasn’t done anything to demonstrate that the owners of Backpage.com were involved in any criminal activity other than running the business, despite their denials of guilt in a case where they are accused of widespread and massive human trafficking. For those who don’t remember, Backpage.com was a popular classified website similar to Craigslist, where sex workers could post ads for their services.
Businesses in the adult entertainment industry have been further charged with crimes they did not commit by means of FOSTA-SESTA. FOSTA-SESTA is the product of the activism of several anti-porn organizations, including NCOSE, as well as Republican President Donald Trump and his far-right and socially conservative allies. Despite being signed into law, there is compelling and growing evidence that FOSTA-SESTA has hampered the capacity of sex workers to interact and promote online, as well as impeding their freedom of speech. FOSTA-SESTA is now in force. However, a congressional proposal calls for the federal government to conduct studies on the consequences of FOSTA-SESTA from the fields of criminal justice, economics, and sociology. Regretfully, no action has been taken on this concept yet.
Copyright Information
The adult entertainment industry still has a lot of intellectual property-related legal obstacles to overcome. IP rights and content piracy have been written about by the employees at Adult Business Consulting. But this is a legitimate issue. One important piece of regulation that governs intellectual property protection in the adult industry is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. We’ll merely restate what we’ve already said regarding IP and DMCA here. Adult material piracy is addressed by the DMCA. All of the main entertainment industries use the DMCA as a mitigation mechanism to protect their proprietary content.
Should I Hire a Lawyer?
The adult entertainment industry faces a never-ending array of legal issues. However, you undoubtedly want to know: Should my company engage a lawyer? In a nutshell, you absolutely should. A lawyer specializing in digital free expression, intellectual property, and criminal defense can be of considerable assistance to the owners and operators of pornographic websites. The best lawyers in the adult sector are on hand to offer assistance.
Visit the Adult B2B Marketing blog for more information.
We appreciate you reading this blog post, Adult B2B Marketing. Kindly contact us in case you have any inquiries.