[RawAlex]

I thought a bunch about this over the last few weeks, and I had two very simple questions:

1 - Isn't it the job of the congress and hosue to write, amend, and modify the laws of the nation? I can understand a "clarification" of the rules, but what I see here is a wholesale revision and change to the written law that creates burdens that were not previously in place, and does so without indicating effective dates, or how far back these records must suddenly be kept.

2 - Are these amendments not in direct violation of privacy laws? I don't think that many solo models (Mike, let's use your solo girl sites as an example) would be very happy to have their full names, addresses, date of birth, and such distributed out to thousands of adult webmasters who are using the promotional content. I think that this would create a serious risk for them individually. Further, I could see where anti-porn groups could come in, sign up for a program, and download promo content, get the model releases, and use that to create a list of "porn people" to harass on a daily basis. I know many amateur models in this business that would not only leave the business but be shamed, humiliated, and potentially lose gainful employment and such as a result of such a protest on their front lawn.

I have an idea, but I am not sure that content producers and programs would be that excited:

The records stay where they are. Each time a webmaster uses and image, they are required to send written or electronic notice of the use. Exact web page, etc. For an admin fee of $X per year, the content provider becomes the primary AND secondary record holder for the company.

Now, I can see all sorts of legal issues here, but I see some good things as well, including limited use license controls, etc.

Any of the current "third party" systems are risky. There is no proof that these people will be in business one day from now, and they are under not legal pressure to maintain the records. Only the producer and the end webmaster seem to fall into the scope of the law. A third party is not obligated to keep the records - they could go out of business at any time without any downside to themselves, just to you and your business.

It's a shaky time.

Alex