Early on Wednesday morning, Lightspeed Media Corp posted an announcement on a popular industry chat board. The announcement seemed to threaten legal action against Gary Kremen, owner of Sex.com, a vocal critic of Lightspeed Media..Early on Wednesday morning, Lightspeed Media Corp posted an announcement on a popular industry chat board. The announcement seemed to threaten legal action against Gary Kremen, owner of Sex.com, a vocal critic of Lightspeed Media.
“Over the past two to three years,” the notice read, “a number of allegations have been made by some individuals and/or organizations in the Adult Online Entertainment Industry that Lightspeed Media Corp. is supported by, or supports, child pornography. These allegations are patently false. Lightspeed Media Corp. not only condemns child pornography, but also has gone to great lengths and expense to defeat online referrals and links to its Web sites by Web sites that either encourage the proliferation of, or actually provide access to child pornography.”
According to Lightspeed’s announcement, the allegations were recently renewed on industry discussion forums. Some of the allegations had been made continuously for periods of up to two years, the annoucement said.
“Lightspeed Media Corp. is now aggressively investigating the sources and substance of these allegations and is taking all legal steps available to it to ensure that these defamatory allegations are brought to an immediate end, and to seek damages for the significant injuries that Lightspeed has suffered as a direct result of these outrageous accusations,” the announcement said. “On the advice of counsel, and because the results of these investigations will likely result in the filing of appropriate legal actions, Lightspeed Media Corp. is not making any comments on the matter other than this release.”
Last week, a heated debate was sparked on industry chat board GFY. The debate followed an earlier post made by Steve Lightspeed, in which he revealed that searches on Sex.com for the word “lightspeed” display a link to ASACP, an industry anti-child pornography organization. Gary Kremen was a member of the ASACP Board, but he resigned from the Board shortly after Lightspeed’s post, further fuelling debate about the organization’s credibility.
Kremen did not respond to YNOT’s attempts to contact him for comment. Joan Irvine, Executive Director of ASACP, responded by email. “None of this involves ASACP,” said Irvine. “ASACP has a policy of not responding to such threads.”
Reactions from adult webmasters varied. Some webmasters posted messages in support of Kremen, but the majority of voices echoed a similar sentiment: Steve Lightspeed is right to stand up against any allegations that his company supports child porn, whether those allegations are overt or implied. Many comments on GFY reflected the attitude that Sex.com’s practice of directing search results for Lightspeed to ASACP is unprofessional and legally questionable.
“What is important behind this thread is Gary’s systematic association of Lightspeed-related keywords with child pornography,” wrote GFY user WG. “Gary could simply have returned no results or the default search results but he purposely grouped these searches with the same results you would get for a CP-related search.”
GFY user Cavello said he thought Sex.com’s behaviour could affect the image of the industry as a whole. “I was just thinking that having a domain called Sex.com gets a lot of porn surfers just by default,” said Cavello. “So if Sex.com does something fucked up, it makes the rest of the adult industry look a bit suspect, doesn’t it?”
Another poster, Kimmy Kim, also backed Lightspeed, and argued that Kremen’s behavior hurts ASACP’s credibility: “The issue here is that Gary did something extremely juvenile, and given his position on the Board of ASACP, people assumed that ASACP either knew of, or even condoned, his actions. This is not the case. I have spoken with Joan about this issue prior to any of this coming up. Not the Sex.com results, but the animosity between Gary and Steve, and how it produces a negative effect on ASACP with Gary sitting on the Board and giving people the impression that his actions are either sanctioned or appreciated by ASACP. IMO, Gary owes some apologies. Steve, Joan and ASACP, as well as the webmaster community at large, and he should apologize for being a juvenile ass.”
When one webmaster asked what could be done, WG suggested they remember this incident when it comes time to advertise. “One idea is to boycott renewing PPC media buys,” said WG.
Fallout from the situation has resulted in Kremen’s resignation from the ASACP Board, but that development has not stopped all scrutiny of ASACP. Lightspeed argued that the organization should be staffed by an elected body. “If [ASACP] is supposed to be representing our industry, it should be staffed by people in our industry that are elected,” wrote Lightspeed.
“I agree,” wrote Yanks_Todd. “An industry watchdog should always be above politics if it is to be taken seriously. I think that is a major hurdle this biz needs to get over. Some voices need to be impartial and above politics and sponsorship dollars if we are going to ever be taken as a legitimate industry.”
GFY poster Ronaldo expressed doubt about ASACP’s credibility. “I’ve always been a big fan and supporter of the ASACP, but after reading this thread I started to have serious questions about their agenda and whether or not it was the right organization and/or people in charge to do the job they claim to do,” he wrote. “This post helped me believe that some respected members of our community have the same concerns, as well as the ear of those in question. Hopefully an adjustment to the situation will be made, or the ASACP is in danger of losing a lot of credibility in the eyes of the very sites they claim to represent.”
“I feel it is important that ASACP remain a neutral and unbiased organization,” suggested GFY poster Phoenix. “It will be the only way to ensure fair representation for the entire industry.”
YNOTBob also commented on the issue during the Hump Day Lunch Show on Wednesday. He said that industry politics in an anti-child pornography organization is “total bullshit,” and accused ASACP of skewed priorities. “This is about protecting children,” Bob stated emphatically.
Steve Lightspeed called into the radio show and told YNOTBob that it’s hard to pick the right models for the college niche. “I wish someone would send me a picture of what an 18 year-old girl is supposed to look like,” said Lightspeed. “If you put makeup on them, everyone says they look too old, if you don’t put makeup on them, people say they look too young.”
“If the laws changed and the legal age was 21, we’d be shooting barely21,” Lightspeed added. “We have no intention of breaking the law.”
SexyScribe is an Assistant Editor with YNOT News. She is an enthusiastic purveyor of written smut, and an erotica publisher at SexyScribe.com. She is a member of the YNOT News writing team, and can be reached at scribe@sexyscribe.com.
