Flutterby™! : We don't need no steenking First Amendment

Some changes to U.S. Code Title 18 Section 2257 go into effect tomorrow (June 23^rd, 2005). You can see a summary of the Attorney General's Changes to the Section 2257 Regulations, or, to put it in context, AVN talks about the impact and meaning of this law:

The adult industry, on the other hand, does not, as a rule, make child pornography. It has long made an effort, even well before the first record-keeping law was passed in 1988, to avoid using minors in its productions, whether or not it kept records of that fact. Moreover, in the 20 years since the first underage performer scandal hit the industry – the one involving Traci Lords – there have been, including Traci, exactly four (4) underage performers who have managed to sneak into the business. The others were Alexandria Quinn, Jeff Browning and Precious, and each was discovered, not by police officers or federal inspectors, but by adult industry producers themselves – who promptly announced to the adult world that the minors had been uncovered, and had all product in which those performers appeared pulled from store and warehouse shelves.

And dissects how the law changes for "secondary operators" (like web site publishers) and points out that it'll be hard to do this part-time:

Whereas the earlier draft required someone to be on-premises 10 hours per day, seven days per week, the published reg limits that to "normal business hours", which are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., local time, Monday through Friday, "or any other time during which the producer is actually conducting business relating to producing depiction of actual sexually explicit conduct. To the extent that the producer does not maintain at least 20 normal business hours per week, producers must provide notice to the inspecting agency of the hours during which records will be available for inspection, which in no case may be less than twenty (20) hours per week."

Wired grabs some quotes:

"If the original content producer can't be found or went out of business or is unwilling to release information, that causes this content to become criminal overnight," said adult industry attorney Lawrence Walters. "These webmasters are facing felony charges if they continue distributing images they've been distributing for the last five to 10 years."

The Free Speech Coalition could use some bucks. As web publishers, this has an effect on us even if we aren't the originators of the content. And it's also clearly being used for fishing expeditions and atacks on procedure, not actual child pornography. This is, plain and simple, censorship.

Thanks to Sensible Erection for putting this all in one place (and in perspective).