For those interested in the civil litigation against Too Much Media / NATS, there is a web site apparently published by NR Media (NRM), the original plaintiff. With the case now amended to a class action lawsuit, the web site serves as both an information resource and plaintiff recruitment vehicle.

While the primary focus of the lawsuit centers on the highly publicized NATS security breach, the NRM complaint also alleges NATS software does not calculate commissions reliably and accurately, and that the biller admin does not interface effectively with all processors, resulting in the under-reporting of sign-ups and rebills.

The Free Speech Coalition has just released an on-line copy of their annual State-of-the-Industry Report for 2007-2008 in pdf format.

I just received this announcement from the FSC.

FREE SPEECH COALITION MEMBER ADVISORY

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Dear FSC Member,

Today the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cleveland struck down 18 U.S.C. 2257 on its face as unconstitutional. At this early stage, it appears that the decision in this case that began 12 years ago is a solid one. Our industry owes a great deal of gratitude to the incredible work of attorney Mike Murray and the courage and tenacity of the plaintiffs Rondee Kamins as well as the unnamed plaintiffs. Thank you.

Within the next few days, FSC will provide a more detailed analysis of the decision, the FSC legal team’s responses to “Frequently Asked Questions,” and an outline of possible next step scenarios. In the meantime, FSC, acting in its role as the industry trade association, will continue to keep members informed about this and other important developments affecting the industry nationally.

The Free Speech Coalition has released its “2257 Guide for Public Comment” and launched a campaign to garner industry participation during the DOJ’s public comment period for the 2257 proposed rules and regulations.

The guide educates members of the adult entertainment industry about how and what to communicate during the public comment period. Input about the new rules and regulations released July 12, 2007, will be accepted by the Department of Justice through September 10, 2007.

For more details, visit Free Speech Coalition web site.

The Free Speech Coalition announced today that, according to the Federal Register website, some of the rules and regulations associated with 2257 will be released by the Government on Thursday, July 12th.

Jeffrey Douglas, Free Speech Coalition Board Chair, and Reed Lee, FSC Legal Committee Chair and President of the First Amendment Lawyers Association, will discuss initial analysis of the regulations at the XBIZ Summer Forum 2257 Seminar, being held in Las Vegas this week, at 11:00am Thursday.

FSC will communicate initial analysis of the Regulations, to its membership and the industry, as soon as they are released.

FSC will continue to provide regular updates on the status of 2257 as the case unfolds through our weekly X-PRESS newsletter, e-mail advisories to our members, and posts to our website,” said Diane Duke, FSC Executive Director. “We are committed to providing accurate, up-to-date information to our members and the industry.”

Maleflixxx has announced they are working with the Association of Sites Against Child Pornography (ASACP) to promote their new RTA Label program.

Sureflix Digital Distribution, owners and operators of the Maleflixxx global network believe that the health and longevity of the adult industry depends on its commitment to ensuring child protection - led by the activism of industry supported groups like the ASACP. Maleflixxx has long been a supporter of the ASACP’s efforts in protecting minors from being exposed to, or exploited by, adult material.

“The RTA Label is an example of applying best practices in our industry,” stated Eric Johnson, President of Sureflix Digital Distribution. “The RTA Label is already incorporated into Microsoft technology, and sponsored by other online child protection agencies. As a method of self-regulation, it is both simple to implement and simple to use. It is an important step for our industry to take together. Self-regulation in the adult entertainment industry is essential to ensuring the safety of the community at large as well as the survival of our industry.”

The online child pornography reporting hotline operated by the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) has now processed more than 200,000 reports.

ASACP’s online CP reporting hotline fields thousands of reports each month, from web surfers who encounter illegal images of child sexual abuse and exploitation on the Internet. The ASACP hotline is easy to find, since queries for terms like “report child pornography” inevitably find ASACP’s website ranked high among search engine results. This is in part due to the many ASACP member sites that link back to www.asacp.org.

ASACP investigates these “raw” reports to determine the hosting, billing, IP address, ownership, and linkage of suspected CP sites. Red Flag reports are then automatically forwarded to domestic and international agencies and groups such as the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).

ASACP Compliance Director Tim Henning oversees the hotline, and has been with ASACP almost since its inception in 1996. According to Henning, the hotline originally received only 10 to 15 reports per day. “Back then all submissions received hand-typed responses,” he said. “Validated reports were emailed to the authorities. But then as ASACP gained more and more exposure and support from adult companies, the number of sites linking to the hotline increased rapidly – and so did the volume of incoming reports. Today we’re also able to track and document hotline trends and statistics automatically, which means we can identify new scams and tactics used by CP operators.”

I just got this important notice from the Free Speech Coalition. I hope you will take a few minutes to read about Ohio Senate Bill 16, and how you can help to defeat it.

The information below is an excerpt sent to me from ACE Executive Director, Angelina Spencer. Please take take a moment to review the issue and take action. Understand that any victory by the enemies of adult entertainment endangers all of us. Please send a strong message to the Ohio legislature that this oppressive bill is a BAD IDEA.

ACE has made it easy for us to help at the bottom of this e-mail is a link to a petition that will send your message to the appropriate people.

Thanks for your help!

Diane Duke
Executive Director
Free Speech Coalition

Ohio Senate Bill 16 is going to the House on Monday after passing in the senate. This bill will put Ohio adult club and bookstore owners out of business (6ft. Rule, hours of op, no tipping, no performances after midnight etc.). It will also give the Citizens for Community Values ( www.ccv.org ) a money-making war path to a state near you. They are giddy that if successful, they can use the Ohio model to move across the nation and close down adult entertainment one state at a time. This is serious.

Please keep your comments professional and nice. It isn’t the legislators who want this…they are capitulating out of fear that the CCV will run ads against them for being soft on porn as they have threatened to do in the past.

Click here to sign the petition: www.stopthehouse.com PLEASE pass it around…

Respectfully,

Ms. Angelina Spencer
Executive Director, ACE National

In a decision made Friday March 30th at the ICANN board meeting, the board voted 9 to 5 to reject ICM’s proposal for a .XXX top level domain. This appears to be the final decision by ICANN as Board Chair Vinton Cerf said that they would not consider another proposal for a .XXX top level domain.

While there were several different bases for the various directors’ votes, the presence of the Free Speech Coalition was definitely influential. The participation of so many webmasters, from the largest to the smallest positively affected the outcome. Due to ICANN’s commitment to bottom-up decision making, the voices of thousands of webmasters voicing opposition was important.

As FSC board member Reed Lee observed, “The ICANN Board members who voted against .xxx did so almost uniformly for one or both of two reasons. They didn’t want ICANN ensconced in content control and censorship controversies. And they recognized that sharp opposition from the community distinguished this application from all others in this sponsored round. These were the issues Free Speech coalition advocated.”

“This process demonstrates the power of the collective voice of the industry. We of the Free Speech Coalition are proud to embody that voice,” said Free Speech Coalition Chair Jeffrey J. Douglas. “Together we can accomplish extraordinary things!”

It was noteworthy that in the only public forum on the topic, ICM Registry’s attorney, flown in specially for that debate, felt it necessary to attack the Free Speech Coalition, and by implication, its membership. For instance, he claimed falsely that FSC’s first rejection of ICM Registry’s proposal was based solely on a failed attempt to have complete control of the dot xxx process. His unwarranted and dishonest comments ultimately reflected badly on ICM Registry.

“When we come together to tell the truth about our industry as a healthy, vital, positive component of today’s business community we have a powerful voice,” said Diane Duke, Free Speech Coalition Executive Director, “Our presence at this conference was a direct result of membership support and what we can do when we come together as an industry, thank you to all who supported us in this endeavor.”

The Free Speech Coalition is the national trade organization to the adult entertainment industry. Its mission is to safeguard the industry from oppressive governmental regulation and to promote good business practices within the industry.

Source: Free Speech Coalition

The .XXX issue has raised its ugly head again. ICANN will vote on the proposed TLD on March 9th. ICANN cannot approve a request if there is no support from the industry; so hearing from YOU is critical to the defeat of this proposal.

The FSC states .XXX is a very bad idea because:

• It “ghettoizes” the industry, making adult entertainment an easy target for anti-industry extremists and government intrusion.
• It will add, unnecessarily, to the cost of doing business. At $60 per URL per year, the cost to a member could reach tens of thousands of dollars annually. Many in the adult entertainment industry will purchase and park addresses, realizing no benefit to this added expense. Finally, there will be countless battles for names, and the resulting arbitration will be costly.
• If a .XXX domain becomes available, it is likely that the United States and other countries will try to make it mandatory and subject to trans-Internet filtering that could effectively eliminate much of the adult content currently available on the Web.
• The .XXX option could enable the industry’s enemies to convert even a voluntary .XXX domain use into an effectively mandatory requirement by pressuring private parties, such as credit card processors, to require .XXX use and compliance. In this way, ICM through unchecked rule making could “back door” all the governmental regulations that we have beaten back. If that happens the industry would not have its most potent weapon, the First Amendment to challenge ICM because ICM is not a governmental entity.
• The ambiguity with which ICM plans to establish its governing board is of grave concern, as there exists strong potential for censorship, which is clearly not in the best interest of the industry or for ICANN.

To voice your opposition, send an Email to ICANN and simply state, “I am in the adult entertainment industry and I oppose .XXX”. If you are a webmaster, state that you are a webmaster in your Email as well as how many websites you manage. Email your comments to: xxx-icm-agreement@icann.org. (Once sent, you must also look for the confirmation Email and respond to that as well.)

Public comments can be viewed at: http://forum.icann.org/lists/xxx-icm-agreement/. Comments received on or before March 9, 2007 will be considered at the next scheduled Special Meeting of the ICANN Board.

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