Legalities of running an Adult Forum?

Just wondering what kind of legal things I would need to worry about as far as running an adult forum is concerned.

Piracy prohibited, so no need to get into that.

But as far as having nude pictures in posts, would that be the responsibility of the poster, the host of the content, or me?

The TOS of the forums reliquishes responsibility for all posts by users and places sole responsibility on the author like usual.

Also I believe there is protection for this in the communications decency act.


Im just confused with the whole 2257 whatnots in general.


Helpful insights appreciated

 

I don't know much about the Adult side of the net, or what kind of adult content will be on your forum (specific theme, or general, or...) but I would certainly recommend you take steps to make sure that Child Porn is not posted on your forums. This includes lolicon (anime child porn), a lot of people think it's ok, but ANN reported the other day that a canadian guy got jail time for having it.

You may want to find some way to restrict the site to people over 18 or at least make them fill out some sort of age verification. Display information relarting to the law and pornography.

Like I said, that's all I would think of right now with no experience with that niche. But I hope I helped some.

 

I would be inclined to host such a site far away from American servers, lawsuits, DMCA's and suchlike and behind a proxy registrant. Do not use a domain provider from the US either.

If it were me, I would use someone like oneandone in the UK as a domain registrant and host somewhere like majordomo.ru

 

From what I have heard though its where you live, not where you host your things.

ksb2050: Child porn prevention is a given.

 

dmca's come through your host first, and if your host resides out of USA they can safelyignore that dmca while you can't - at least that's my understanding of it.

For all I know you might not have known. Sorry for stating the obvious but sometimes it's necessary



ROFL, some loser neg repped me for helping. sorry for being noob, didn't know you had to be a web god to help someone out. Sheesh...good web manners over the last few years have really gone out the window. Well w/e lol. I hope I helped some, and I hope the neg repper realizes that he also gets neg rep for neg repping me XD

 

Maybe not DMCA's, but if your content is copyright protected, and you or your host is in a country that the copyright laws are enforced, doesn't matter. However, there are certain legal immunities you have when running a forum. It is not expected that you remove something immediately. After a reasonable time it is determined by defualt you know about the content. You should have a landing page that makes the person confirm they are 18, as well as have a forum software (such as Simple Machines Forum) that allows you to prohibit sign ups from people under a certain age, wich SMF you can customize the age.

Your disclaimer means nothing in court, it is your site, your responsibility. Just make sure you keep the board clean of child or animal (animal cruelty) porn and you are ok. Don't be scared to host in the US, you'll be alright.

Also, your TOS can allow for you to receive damages from the poster if you have to go to court for the sum of the legal bills and time spent, if you can prove that stuff.

 

It sounds like running an adult site of any nature is taking a huge risk.
Definitely not one worth taking.
(unless you can get it making money right away lol)