YNOT – FreedomStreams, a project to benefit the legal fund at adult industry trade association Free Speech Coalition will take place online April 15. First organized in 2006 as a landmark fundraising event to support industry lobbying efforts, FreedomStreams is the brainchild of online video-on-demand provider HotMovies.com.
This April 15, HotMovies’ studio partners who elect to do wo will donate their one-day VOD earnings to fund the FSC’s legal challenge to Los Angeles County’s Measure B, a controversial new ordinance which mandates the use of barrier protection on all adult movie sets in L.A. County. In addition, the measure instituted a film-permitting and -inspection process that is financially onerous for both content producers and taxpayers.
HotMovies will match all donations to the FreedomStreams fund up to $10,000.
“We are elated to bring this important event back to life,” said Director of Business Development James Cybert. “Now is the time to do it, as our industry is entrenched in a crucial fight. We need the FSC on the front lines more than ever.
“We want every single content provider we work with to participate,” he added. “We are now strongly encouraging them to send us permission to support our efforts.”
The first FreedomStreams fundraising event occurred in 2006. For three years, the annual event raised tens of thousands of dollars for FSC, which lobbies in Washington D.C. and other key battlegrounds to protect First Amendment rights.
According to Cybert, the most important battleground in 2013 is Los Angeles County. In November 2012, voters approved Measure B, a ballot initiative funded and supported by mainstream charity AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The measure, presented as a move to increase worker safety, requires all adult performers to wear protective barriers such as condoms and dental dams when performing any act likely to result in an exchange of bodily fluids. Measure B also prescribes oversight by already overworked law enforcement and local-government agencies at an estimated cost to taxpayers of more than $300,000 annually.
“[AHF’s] idea of safer sex and a safer workplace would seem to mandate that all performers wear hazmat suits or goggles while working on set,” Cybert said. “Worse, it creates an enforcement issue. Who will be responsible? Potentially it takes officers off the streets where their presence is badly needed and directs them instead to invade porn sets where nothing nefarious happens. It completely ignores all common sense and, perhaps most importantly, the overwhelming desire of the performers themselves.
“This organization, AHF, which purports to protect sex workers, is the very same one that recently shut down the most reliable test facility to protect these individuals,” he added.
In 2011, AHF president Michael Weinstein took the first major step in what Cybert termed “his personal crusade against the adult industry.” By funding and encouraging a series of legal complaints, Weinstein and AHF successfully perpetrated a campaign to shut down AIM Medical Associates, the adult industry’s primary health-testing facility. AIM had served the industry with an admirable record of success in preventing or curtailing disease outbreaks for more than 13 years.
Marci Hirsch, Vivid Entertainment’s vice president of production and licensing and newly elected FSC Board of Directors member, served as a catalyst in reviving the FreedomStreams fundraiser for FSC.
“We all know how vitally important it is for the industry to succeed in overturning Measure B through our lawsuit,” Hirsch said. “This program enables us to unite and pull together, and I know we are going to see great success when we do.”
Studios already slated to participate in FreedomStreams include Vivid, Ed Powers, Girlfriends Films, ErosArts, Porn Pros, Homegrown, Forbidden Fruits Films, Mile High Media, Combat Zone, Brandon Iron, Evil Angel, New Sensations, Kink.com, West Coast Productions, Zero Tolerance, Private, Adam and Eve and CWoody Photography.
Any content producers who wish to participate in this year’s FreedomStreams benefit may email HotMovies support or contact the HotMovies studio team at 1-800-611-MOVIE.
Others wishing to contribute may log into HotMovies or FreedomStreams.com on or before April 15, buy minutes, and then watch porn on tax day at the sites on tax day.
“Break out the lube and indulge yourself for a great cause on April 15,” said Cybert. “With your pleasure, you’re saving porn in L.A. and rescuing a hugely underappreciated portion of the Southern California economy. This might be the one issue where most Americans can actually agree these days. If these rules are strictly enforced, production companies will either leave Los Angeles or go out of business. That isn’t good for anyone.”
