Ron Jeremy, Jenna Jameson – get ready to stand and be counted.
The Department of Justice wants to come up with an official list of every porn star in America – and slap stiff penalties on producers who don’t cooperate.
Porn Valley- The new rules, proposed under the Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act, would require blue-movie makers to keep photos, stage names, professional names, maiden names, aliases, nicknames and ages on file for the inspection of the department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.
“The identity of every performer is critical to determining and ensuring that no performer is a minor,” according to the new proposal.
The adult film industry plans to challenge the new rule as a violation of the First Amendment, said Paul Cambria, a lawyer for Hustler and other adult film companies.
He sees it as a way to harass legitimate stag-film producers.
“If they can’t get you for obscenity, they’ll get you for violating record-keeping,” he said. Such a violation would carry a five-year penalty.
The proposed rule would require porn producers to give the title of the video or magazine, or the Web address where the actor appears.
The Department of Justice has shown some sensitivity for the performers’ privacy, however. All information not essential to proving their age and identity, like phone numbers and addresses, can be withheld.
Distributors of foreign pornography aren’t off the hook – they must still produce a copy of the foreign actor’s identification card. The department estimates that there are 500,000 Web sites, 200 DVD producers and 5,000 businesses nationwide that would be subject to the new rule.
The department did not respond to requests for comment, but in its proposal suggested that the benefits outweighed any negative impact on the porn industry.
“The benefit of the rule is that children will be better protected from exploitation in the production of visual depictions of sexually explicit conduct by ensuring that only those who are at least 18 years of age perform in such depictions. The costs to the industry include slightly higher record-keeping costs,” the agency argued.