The final Internext roundtable discussion met at 11:00 AM on Sunday, August 11th to talk about a pending case which could set a dangerous legal precedent that would affect almost everyone in the online adult entertainment business.The final Internext roundtable discussion met at 11:00 AM on Sunday, August 11th to talk about a pending case which could set a dangerous legal precedent that would affect almost everyone in the online adult entertainment business. Perfect 10 magazine recently got the go-ahead from Judge Lourdes G. Baird to sue Cybernet Ventures, the parent company of the Adult Check age verfication system (AVS), on the grounds that they were illegally profiting from the activities of Adult Check Webmasters who had lifted images to which Perfect 10 held the copyrights. Of extreme significance here is that Adult Check is not accused of direct copyright infringement — Perfect 10 is merely arguing that Adult Check should be held liable for the content posted by Webmasters who use their AVS.

For this discussion, the panel consisted of several prominent adult industry attorneys, including Greg Piccionelli (Brull, Piccionelli, Sarno, Braun & Vradenburgh), Larry Walters (FreeSpeechLaw.com), Fred Lane (SexBizLaw), and Greg Geelan (YNOTMasters.com). All involved seemed to agree that this case, if decided against Cybernet Ventures, could create a dangerous legal precedent that could expose Webmasters to all kinds of new legal risks and liabilities. Essentially, Webmasters could be held liable for the content of sites to which they link but over which they do not have any controlling power. Adult search engines (and even mainstream search engines such as Yahoo) obviously have much at stake in this case, as do affiliate programs, age verification systems, billing companies, link sites, TGP’s, resource sites and just about everyone else who links to other adult Web sites.

Imagine that you have a “links” page on your adult Web site which you use to trade traffic with other Webmasters. Now imagine that you get a new link submission for a site called “Naughty Busty Vixens” which you check out and find to be a general softcore nude model site. All looks well, so you add it to your link list and forget about it. Your link list has grown to well over a hundred Web sites, so it’s rare that you have an opportunity to go back and re-check every site on your list. Yet unbeknownst to you, sometime after you approved “Naughty Busty Vixens,” the owner of that site changed the content and threw up several hundred “nude” pictures of actress Alyssa Milano. Upset by the copyright violation, Milano’s attorney sues Naughty Busty Vixens and every site that links to them — which means you’re suddenly looking for a lawyer (which you should already have anyway)!

You argue that you had no way of knowing that Naughty Busty Vixens was infringing on someone else’s copyright, but Milano’s lawyer points to a case titled Perfect 10 Vs. Cybernet Ventures, convincing the judge that you were illegally profiting through your association with the offender.

The roundtable, having presented the severity of the problem, then moved on to ways in which Webmasters might be able to gain some amount of legal protection — namely a solid “Terms and Conditions” page. Unfortunately, many Webmasters obtain their Terms and Conditions page in a less than solid manner — by lifting it from another Web site. Working with your lawyer to come up with a Terms and Conditions page which is appropriate for your specific Web site and which will reduce your legal risks might be the only way to protect yourself from the actions of other Webmasters to which you send traffic. Proper terminology can be absolutely imperative. Simply calling your affiliate program a “partnership program,” for example, can expose your company to all kinds of liability that you certainly don’t need or want.

Since the roundtable consisted entirely of lawyers, the discussion turned to other legal threats that affect adult Webmasters, the most significant of which is actions being taken by the Attorney General of the United States to “combat” Internet pornography. Excerpts from a recent Ashcroft speech was read in which Ashcroft decried Internet “obscenity,” announced his intentions to prosecute adult Web sites, and expressed his distaste for “spam” emails which he said target children.

An audience member then asked the panel why the adult industry had not yet formed an association that could look out for its members, provide standardized legal forms and other important services. As luck would have it, a Webmaster organization called the Internet Freedom Association (IFA) had recently been formed and held its first meeting one day earlier. Attorney Larry Walters spoke about the IFA, but said that standardized legal forms don’t usually work well for adult entertainment because the wordings for most legal documents will vary from company to company.

Another audience member spoke, wondering why the adult industry had not taken an offensive stance as opposed to always staying on the defensive. Larry pointed out that his firm had, in the past, leveled lawsuits against law enforcement officials who had been involved in obscenity prosecutions, and that often when a valid claim can be made, both parties usually “law down their guns,” and the initial charges are dropped.

The discussion of the political process continued, and Fred Lane encouraged all audience members to get out and vote, and to use all of the resources they have at their disposal to encourage others to vote.

The next question dealt with the possibility of a “.sex” top-level domain name, but the panel seemed opposed to supporting an adult-specific top-level domain name for a variety of reasons, including the difficulty of enforcing such Internet zoning rules, the advantage non-complying Webmasters would have over complying Webmasters, the constitutional issues it would raise, etc. Greg Geelan felt that although we should not support the quarantine of adult materials to specific domains, we should support the creation of a kid-friendly zone on the Internet, such as a “.kids” domain. Greg Piccionelli warned, however, that even if a .kids domain were created, some unethical Webmasters would no doubt find a way around the filtering technology and would sell porn from a .kids domain name.

The topic turned back to the Perfect 10 case for a moment, and one amazed audience member asked how they could possibly be expected to police the content of linked-to sites considering the owners of such sites could change their content at any time. The panel answered that the judge in the Perfect 10 case made a bad decision due to a fundamental lack of understanding of how the Internet works.

The next question involved the FTC, and what role they might play in going after adult entertainment. It was the opinion of the panel that the role of the FTC will diminish under the Bush Administration, and that focus should instead be on the Justice Department. That said, the FTC could play a role in terms of protecting consumers from fraud. It was announced that the FTC had already sent a letter to several prominent pay-per-click search engines informing them that mixing paid results with free results could result in charges of unfair business practices.

Another audience member asked what adult Webmasters can do to combat unethical spam practices by other Webmasters. The answer was short: nothing.

Fred Lane stated that he felt obscenity prosecutions were getting harder and harder to win. He pointed to a past case in Utah in which a video store owner was found “not guilty” of obscenity charges after his lawyer showed that the local Marriott hotel was selling comparable content on their pay-per-view channels. As Fred made this argument, I was rudely reminded that the Marriott in Cincinnati, Ohio recently agreed, under pressure and threats, to remove all adult materials from their pay-per-view channels. I wonder if that pressure was applied so that a similar argument as the one Fred referenced could not be made in any Cincinnati prosecutions?

The final question dealt with content — an audience member wanted to know just how much responsibility is required by Webmasters to verify the legitimacy of any content they buy if they are provided with a contract stating the content is legitimate. The answer here was that the more a Webmaster does to verify the respectability of their content brokers, the better their defense will go if that content is later found to be illegal in some manner. For example, arguing that you did not know the girl was seventeen will work a lot better in your favor if you bought the content from a well-known broker rather than someone in a back alley.

Connor is the Editor-in-Chief for The Adult Webmaster and can be reached at connor@theadultwebmaster.com.