99.9% of the following is from another website, and cross posted for your enlightenment adn comment.
What is USC 2257, and how does it affect my website?
For those of you who don't know what USC 2257 is, it's the law that governs the disclaimer you see at the bottom of all the porn sites you visit. The law was created with the intention of stopping child pornography. To be USC 2257 compliant means that yes, all the people having sex on your website are at least 18 years old, and no you're not peddling kiddie porn. Recent changes that became effective on June 24th of this year that set extremely strict guidelines for the management of these age verification records. Now any sexually explicit photo that does not have paper documentation proving all involved parties are age 18+ adults, will automatically be considered child pornography.
So to make sure we're all on the same page, first talk about exactly what the law does and does not encompass...
United States Code 2257 mandates all models, actors, actresses and other persons that appear in any visual depiction of actual sexually explicit conduct appearing or otherwise contained in [a website] were over the age of eighteen years at the time of the creation of such depictions. All other visual depictions displayed on [a website] are exempt from the provision of 18 U.S.C. section 2257 and 28 C.F.R. 75 because said visual depictions do not consist of depictions of conduct as specifically listed in 18 U.S.C section 2256 (2) (A) through (D), but are merely depictions of non-sexually explicit nudity, or are depictions of simulated sexual conduct, or are otherwise exempt because the visual depictions were created prior to July 3, 1995.
Blah-blah-blah, what the hell does it all mean? Well here's the meat and potatoes of it. If you look at
this presentation by Lawrence Walters, Esq., go to page 4 and you'll see, "Rule of thumb: Penetration, Masturbation or S&M" (I shall henceforth refer to these three actions as, "The Unholy Trinity") so if a photo depicts any of these three things then it's deemed sexually explicit. Additionally, one adult site offered the following guidance to it's affiliates...
2257 has and will bring about a lot of changes. We encourage everyone to seek legal advice of how these 2257 regs affect you as a secondary producer. Due to the 2257 regs, we are changing our Terms Of Service, to reflect what we believe will satisfy 2257, and be the best for our affiliates, but mostly what is best for our models. We will not be giving out models id's. What this means for our affiliates effective June 23, 2005 affiliates will no longer be able to use sexually explicit content of our models to promote our sites. If you have any images of our models that are sexually explicit, then they must be removed. Most affiliates will have few changes since 98% of our content was what we believe to be within the guidelines. Our decision is set for 100% of our affiliates, no matter where you are located. For us, sexually explicit means, the showing of pink or pubic area, and actual sexual acts. Bare breasts we do not believe are sexually explicit. Within the week our TOS page and content area(s) will be updated with content that we authorize you to use. On a side note, if you believe that an image / video is sexually explicit, in our free content area, then do not use it... Everyone should take advantage of our hosted galleries. Some content areas will be down for content, but we are working on those.
What it breaks down to is this. Nudity itself is not considered sexually explicit; the naked person has to be doing something to make it sexually explicit. So a girl simply showing tits = nudity. The same girl showing tits while she has a mouthful of cock = sexually explicit. See the distinction? Good.
Here's an example. Behold a picture of a Paris Hilton's nipple slip. Okay, it's her, it's her breast, there's her nipple. We've all seen them before, woo hoo.
Now, as previously stated, just showing the breast itself does not make the picture is sexually explicit, it's just nudity. It's still safe to post this. But let's turn that up a notch. I used to have a picture of Paris Hilton that was a screen capture from the video of her with Rick Solomon - again she was topless so we could see her breasts - only this time she was giving him a big fat sloppy blowjob. We all know that Paris Hilton is over 18, but that picture had to be removed from my website because it's now crossed over into the sexually explicit territory due to penetration and I don't have the documentation to make that photo 2257 compliant.
HOW IT EFFECTS YOU - In short, it probably doesn't. However, it technically applies to all websites on the internet, from your 13 year old's blog to your company's website, to your personal site where you store the naughty pics you exchange with people on the swinger sites.
Now let's talk about the recent changes that came into effect for 2257 and how they impact the internet as a whole.
Let's say that you run a website - an adult website with hardcore pornography - and one of the pictures you have as content to provide to your customers is of Jenna Jameson masturbating with a dildo. Since we know this picture needs to fall under 2257 compliance because masturbation is part of The Unholy Trinity, here's what your obligations as an adult webmaster were and are:
Prior to June 24th, 2005 - you are required to have some kind of an age verification system set up to keep minors from viewing sexually explicit material - enter your birthdate, credit card verification, whatever. The originator of the photos, which in this case is Jenna Jameson, is the body responsible for maintaining a piece of paper that says, yes she is in fact age 18 or older when someone snapped the picture of her flicking her bean.
June 24th, 2005 and later -- you had to have some kind of an age verification system set up, same as before. Only now you have two additional responsibilities. You must have copies Jenna Jameson's personal information: home address, home telephone number, date of birth, and a photocopy of her id, and a copy of the sexually explicit photo in question. If you have 100 photos of her, you have to make 100 seperate records. This information has to be maintained by a custodian in a location that is available for law enforcement inspection from between 8am to 6pm, 365 days a year, for seven years. Then that address where you're storing the records has to be posted on your website for the general public to see.
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