Legal Industry Primer
Lesson #03 
18 U.S.C. 2257 - It’s the Law
Written By Titmowse
What is 18 U.S.C. 2257? It’s something you need so you had better learn about it or you’re just setting yourself up for peril.
For the sake of brevity we’ll just call is 2257. 2257 is a part of US law. It covers record keeping requirements for people who produce, deal and sell sexually oriented content in a building, on film, through the mail and now, on the Internet. Basically, the law is there to protect minors from getting involved in the sex trade. The intent of the law is noble and we’ll let the hierarchy of the law speak for it’s severity:
United States Code (of laws)
TITLE 18 Crimes and Criminal Procedure
Part I Crimes
Chapter 110 Sexual Exploitation and Other Abuse of Children
§ 2257 Record Keeping Requirements
While it’s a very good idea to read the whole law in context, 2257 is the part you better follow to the letter and keep an eye on the letters. Right now, the US Department of Justice is making changes to the 2257 record keeping requirements. There’ll be no change in the basic intent of the law but there will be more rules to follow and more responsibility on the part of every adult webmaster.
For the moment, here’s a skeletal synopsis of 2257:
If you display even one dirty picture of human beings on the Internet, you had better have proof that those humans were of legal age to pose for adult and to sign contracts. 2257 is US law so that age is 18.
Whether you create the content, buy the content or borrow the content from a sponsor, you need access to this proof of age. You need to know the name of the person that took the pictures. You need a copy of that producer’s model release; a scan of the model’s ID plus a photo of the model, posing with his/her ID in a clearly visible image. You need to have this information readily available for any law enforcement official.
You need to post text naming your Custodian of Records on your page in a prominent position, preferably your Warning page. For the moment, 2257 is pretty simple to follow.
Right now, you don’t have to name the model in your 2257. That information is between you, the content producer and the model. Most of us buy content and when we do we usually receive 2257 information as part of the package. A lot of times the content producer will black out the address of the model in order to protect his/her privacy. That might not fly with the upcoming 2257 regulations. We might have to go as far as to keep real addresses, numbers and names of models on publicly accessible pages within our sites.
When you’re looking to buy content or agree to use content from other companies, always look to see if that content is 2257 compliant. Until the new regulations are in place, you have to comply with the current 2257. It’s located here:
As stated, at the time of this writing, the regulations are about to change. The DOJ closed public commenting on the changes last summer. Now, we are waiting for this to become official. We at Cozy Academy advise you to read the proposed changes to 2257 as made by the US DOJ. At the same time learn about an organization that fights for our interests, the Free Speech Coalition. You can find the proposed 2257 changes and the FSC’s response to them at:
Be sure to visit our Legal Help guide on Cozy Frog for tons of related articles and links!
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