After the standing room only crowd that gathered for the legal roundtable seminar at Internext Expo on August 14th, a sparser audience remained for the following “Industry Straight Talk” seminar, which kicked off at 3:15 in the afternoon.After the standing room only crowd that gathered for the legal roundtable seminar at Internext Expo on August 14th, a sparser audience remained for the following “Industry Straight Talk” seminar, which kicked off at 3:15 in the afternoon. The low attendance did not escape the notice of the two-man panel for this discussion, which included Brandon Shalton of both FightThePatent.com and 2257Lookup.com, and Spike Goldberg of Homegrown Video. Goldberg is the primary public voice and face of the defense group that is currently facing Acacia in court proceedings related to Acacia’s controversial streaming media patent claims. In their presentations, both Shalton and Goldberg decried the online adult industry’s collective tendency to “stick their heads in the sand” when problems arise, rather than banding together to present a coordinated, pro-active response to challenges facing the industry.

Shalton took the lead for the first portion of the presentation, turning things over to Goldberg after an in-depth look at the technological tools Shalton has been working on as a tool for establishing and maintaining 2257 compliance. While the earlier legal seminar focused on the language, meaning and eventual consequences of the proposed new 2257 regulations, Shalton’s focus was on discussing the practical matters of complying with the 2257 regulations, and technical/software solutions that could potentially aid webmasters to establish and maintain compliance.

Shalton was careful to point out that while he has endeavored to learn as much as possible about 2257, both the current and proposed future regulations, he is not an attorney, and his statements did not constitute legal advice. Nonetheless, he did offer sage advice in terms of how each individual should approach 2257 compliance.

“Educate yourself as much as possible about 2257 issues first, and then speak to your attorney,” Shalton said, noting that learning the basics first can save you time and money when addressing the issue with counsel, and lead to your asking better questions of your attorney during 2257-related consultations.

Shalton emphasized that the first thing everyone in the industry must come to terms with, be they a primary or secondary producer (a category that will include most American adult webmasters under the language of the proposed new 2257 rules), is the seriousness of the regulations, under both the current language of the law and the proposed new regulations.

“You can go to jail for being lazy about record keeping,” Shalton said, pointing out the potentially grave consequences for what might seem like a minor technicality or arbitrary bureaucratic requirement.

Coincidentally, prior to the announcement by the Department of Justice concerning the proposed new/additional 2257 regulations, Shalton was already hard at work in developing a software solution to aid in complying with the 2257 requirements. Shalton characterizes his solution, in essence, as “teaching a computer to see.” The algorithm he developed makes possible a spidering technology that can crawl the web, matching unknown images against a database of “master” images supplied to 2257Lookup by content producers. (For a list of the content producers who have already registered with 2257Lookup, please refer to http://www.2257lookup.com.)

Shalton added that his system will only be able to identify content that has been cataloged/indexed by 2257Lookup, obviously, and while the system presents a strong potential tool for webmasters and clients of content producers, the onus will still be on the producers to maintain organized and comprehensive records of model releases and identification.

The second half of the seminar focused on the Acacia case within the larger framework of dealing with similar situations that will inevitably face the online adult industry in the future. In Goldberg’s opinion, Acacia is just the first to come along with a patent-based challenge to the industry, and he believes others will follow.

Goldberg, while appreciative of the support that the defense group has received from within the industry, sees a general apathy in place that he finds disheartening.

“There are companies out there – and I’m talking about some big players – who are just waiting in the wings watching because they don’t want to spend money fighting this,” Goldberg said, adding that on the one hand, there are big companies that have the money to spend but simply aren’t contributing to the effort, while on the other hand there are relatively small-time individual webmasters making contributions they can barely afford. “It’s disgraceful, shameful,” Goldberg said, in reference to the larger companies who could afford to contribute substantially, but are not.

“I don’t have a problem with the people that settled with Acacia,” Goldberg said, “Everyone has to make their own decision as to what’s best for their business, and I can respect that.” It’s the general lack of concern and apathy that bothers Goldberg, which he sees as having disturbing implications for the future. “We have the opportunity to come together as a community and fight for the common good, and we’re just not doing it.”

While unable to address many specifics with regards to the Acacia case in progress, Goldberg did report that thus far the Markman hearing has gone in favorable fashion for the defense. Among other things, several of Acacia’s claims have been rendered “indefinite”, which essentially means these claims have been found to be invalid and/or unenforceable. “It’s far from over,” Goldberg said of the case, “but so far, so good.”

Goldberg cited Shalton as an example of an exception to the industry’s general apathy where the Acacia situation is concerned. “Brandon wasn’t in a position where he was going to be sued by Acacia,” Goldberg noted, pointing out that while Shalton has no vested business interest in how the case turns out, “He recognized the threat that Acacia posed” and voluntarily devoted significant time and labor to the search for prior art and other information to assist in the defense efforts against Acacia.

Quentin Boyer is Director of Marketing for TopBucks and OneVerify and can be reached at quentin@seekio.com.