The following is a continuation of YNOT’s interview with content producer and Web site operator Steve Sweet of Sweet Productions, Inc. Steve is talking with YNOT’s Connor Young about his recent court victory in which he was acquitted on 20 charges of producing and distributing obscene videos.The following is a continuation of YNOT’s interview with content producer and Web site operator Steve Sweet of Sweet Productions, Inc. Steve is talking with YNOT’s Connor Young about his recent court victory in which he was acquitted on 20 charges of producing and distributing obscene videos. If you have not already done so, please first read Part 1 of this interview.

YNN: When you’re talking community standards in your case, what was the community? Was it the local town, the national community? What did they use to define the community?

SS: The community determination here in Canada is what Canadians will allow other Canadians to view. So not necessarily what they will view, or not necessarily what they like or enjoy or moralize or don’t, but it’s what Canadians will allow other Canadians to view…

YNN: But I mean, was it about what Vancouver residents would allow, or all of Canada, or…

SS: Canada wide.

YNN: What would be the effect of this case on the rest of Canada?

SS: I think the effect is worldwide. I think ultimately it really opens the door for people to enjoy adult material in a much more open fashion. Obviously it’s going to take time for all the historical ways of dealing with things to change … People have been accessing adult material online since the advent of the Internet, and that’s not going to change, but at the end of the day producers are going to perhaps feel more comfortable about pursuing things that were sort of in the grey area previous to this decision … I think it’s going to expand the scope of the material that’s out there, which ultimately is a good thing, which was touched on by a few of our expert witnesses in actually showing statistically since 1995 there has been a sharp decline in sexual assault cases as a result of the widespread availability of adult material on the Internet. That correlation was presented to the Court as new evidence.

YNN: You were able to show that sexual assaults had decreased since the Internet?

SS: That’s correct. And in fact we had hired two expert witnesses, and we’re talking PhD level university professors … very intelligent men, very impressive. They basically, one in particular, Dr. Fisher, basically testified to the point that these are the statistics that have been made available, and tests have been done specifically to show that the increase in adult material that’s available online has not changed the way that people perceive women. In fact, as a result of widespread adult material the cases of sexual assault have actually decreased, which is an amazing thing. I think it makes a lot of sense when you put things into perspective. People have desires, and if they need to seek them out then this is a very safe way to do that, whereas if people don’t have a way to channel their sexual energy, and it kinda goes the way, at least in my mind, of the religious groups, and you end up in a situation where something’s not right.

YNN: So what are the chances that this case will be appealed?

SS: Oh the chance is there. I mean, I don’t think that there’s a very strong chance. I think that if they were going to be appealing this case, if they had wanted to appeal this case, then they would have put together a much larger body of evidence to do that. They didn’t do that. Naturally if the Crown decided to appeal we’d carry on with our fight, but I really don’t think it’s going to go that way.

YNN: If you had received a negative verdict would you have appealed this case?

SS: Absolutely. Our full intention from the very beginning was to take this all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. That was essentially our plan, which ultimately would have been another four or five years in court.

YNN: How financially devastating was this?

SS: I asked my lawyer how much it might cost someone who wasn’t as financially stable as we are, how much it might cost to defend something like this from the outside. We’re very fortunate we’ve been in the business since 1997 and we’ve done well. Oddly enough, as we continue in the business we seem to be doing better and better. I know a lot of people in the industry seem to be doing not so good these days, but for whatever reasons we seem to keep doing better at it business wise. But regardless, when I asked my lawyer what it might cost some individual if, say, the VPD had decided to target an individual or an organization other than us. He estimates the cost art around a million dollars [Canadian] … and we’re not talking about the damages that were done to the business by having all of our equipment seized on two separate occasions and having to replace our entire inventory of equipment.

YNN: Did the publicity from the trial help business at all?

SS: I don’t know. I don’t think that for us there’s ever been a lot of direct business as a result of the publicity … Publicity in the U.S. is much more profitable than it would be in Canada … It’s really nice for me, actually, to see at the end when we’re victorious all of the support from our peers in the adult industry. That’s kind of, you know, really nice. I’m getting all kinds of things like people offering to send me mailings and putting us up on their exits and sending us gifts and things like that, and congratulations… just support from people who are just sending us a, ‘Hey, thank you so much,” and that kind of thing, which is really nice. So that’s kind of the publicity and the sort of the reward that comes with this that I’m enjoying at this point.

YNN: Are you following the Extreme Associates case at all?

SS: Yeah we are, actually. We’re very closely monitoring that, and we’re very concerned with the situation in the U.S. I think it’s very unfortunate that these things are kind of occurring the way they’re occurring. Max Hardcore is one individual, Seymore Butts was involved with that. Extreme Associates also is currently now kind of the big case that’s going down in the U.S. I hope that they’re able to deal with it … at the end of the day whenever someone’s producing adult material that’s consensual, then I think that they should be allowed to do that sort of thing. The consumers that want to view… having the government come in and mess with that, it’s a basic freedom as far as I’m concerned.

YNN: What do you make of the fact that the adult industry itself can’t even seem to agree if some content is too extreme or not? Many Webmasters argue that Extreme’s content crosses the line.

SS: Of course, it doesn’t surprise me. At the end of the day we had all kinds of people talking about us in the exact same fashion. It’s no shock, it’s no surprise. People may be, at least in my perspective, a little short-sighted. At the end of the day, this whole entire industry is basically the Sexual Olympics, and ultimately we’re trying to push things further in whatever fashion we can, creatively, and who’s to say that this is going too far? If people are consenting, that is really the issue, if people want to perform in a certain manner and do certain things, as long as they’re of age and thus making an intelligent decision, I mean why not? I’m pretty open minded … but at the same time there’s also a lot of people that may try to take a stab at people who are trying to push the envelope for whatever reason … Every single form of entertainment out there is always trying to push the envelope … if you look at any of the feature films that are out these days, I mean Kill Bill, there’s a perfect example of something… there’s Tarantino trying to push the envelope with his latest martial arts film. Why shouldn’t there be a parallel with the adult industry? And why are people criticizing? Well, because it gives them the platform to [express] their opinions and ultimately their agendas, but I don’t necessarily share that. At the end of the day, my only issue with Extreme would be, ‘Are they doing things that are consenting?’ And if they are, why are people saying that’s pushing things too far? When someone wants to do a simulated rape scene, well maybe that’s what somebody is interested in doing, maybe that’s somebody’s sexuality, and to say that that’s not appropriate, I don’t think that that’s really fair … I don’t have all the answers, but I try to look at things at least in an open way.

YNN: Now that you have this behind you, what will Sweet Entertainment focus on?

SS: Well, we’re continuing with our line of adult pay sites, we also have our line of content. I’m planning on shooting some new content products for our pay sites that we wanted to shoot for quite some time but we’ve been holding back on … I’ve got some other things that I’m working on that I can’t really talk about right now, but let’s just say there’s even bigger fish to fry in this particular legal case, but that may take me some time.

YNN: Thanks so much Steve for taking the time to share your story with us. We truly appreciate everything you’ve done for the adult industry, and once again, congratulations on winning your very important case and helping to set a new more permissive standard in Canada and hopefully beyond.

Comments concerning YNOT News stories can be sent to editor@ynotmasters.com, or you are welcome to discuss all YNOT News articles on the YNOTMASTERS message boards. Sweet Productions can be visited on their Web site, SweetEntertainment.com