There seems to be some confusion about how the proposed new condom law is going to work.
Most people think that the condom use will be tied to getting the filming permits from the city, this is not exactly the case.
As I read it companies in L.A. who are shooting hardcore are going to have to have permits, for which they will pay a fee and be held in compliance with workplace safety regulations, failure to do so will result in fines and potential revocation of the permit. Think of it more like a license to shoot porn instead of the traditional one time shooting permits, so it doesn’t matter if you don’t get a one shoot permit or you shoot on private property, the very product you produce could be used as evidence that you aren’t in compliance.
This approach makes it much easier to police and enforce the permit requirements.
Sadly this will be the last nail in the coffin for some of the companies in Porn Valley. Even more sadly we could have avoided this but we never listened. for as long as I can remember I have been say that if we cannot regulate ourselves government will do it for us.
The chickens have come home to roost.
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Agree with Dirty Bob, there’s no reason to go all “Porn production is dead!” It’s sure the hell better able to survive in Cali than in states (counties in states) where you go to jail, do not pass go, if you are simply caught shooting people fucking. let alone uploading it. You’ve bene lucky so far South, and I commend you for that.
This permit BS is only an LA City thing for now, let’s not forget that. We all have to look ahead and plan, but for now the whole state of California is not involved in the permit issue and it likely will never be. I could say a lot of things that negate the whole issue, but obviously won’t in this forum. LOL
As for over-all condom regs concerning workplace safety matters in the city, county or state levels, Cal OSHA is still working on whether performers are “employees” or not. And that puts a lot of the regs they were talking about at the various meetings here into a tenuous position, since most performers are smart enough to be “self employed”, many have their own companies, and therefore are independent contractors. No different than when a web designer works at a contract gig for x-days on site, but is still not an “employee.”, but a B2B provider.
I agree porn losing battle with California what can and can not do in short matter time in porn industry. If any one think not gone be effecting porn at all in state California need quite live in state denyle. Becuase well not matter person private contrracter or big porn company if caught make porn any where in California with out condom break law Cal Osha find out your for major issues with them . Easy rat out any one in porn in California make porn with out condom pick cell phone report Cal Osha there done. Becuase porn lost battle so easly with city of La I would be suprise if cash deprived state California came up same measure just becuase they all readyn try tax money out porn with measure they could easly collect money from like this to.
To those keep live in never never land in porn industry who chose beleave that nothing bad happen in there indusrty refuse listen take measure stop bad thing from happening porn indusrty. Than I hate say this deserve those bad thing happen to them when happens to them. The days of well those thing are no gone happen me excuses are over.
I do not know the law in California, but in most states, it does not matter whether someone working for you is an employee or a 1099 contractor. An employer is still responsible for their workplace safety. For instance, an employer has to provide workers compensation coverage for 1099 employees in most states. Arguing that a porn company is not responsible for the safety of performers simply because they’re independent contractors just won’t fly. In the alternative, porn companies could try to do what some companies do, which is require independent contractors to provide proof of insurance – liability, workers comp, etc. – before they are allowed to work on the premises. But, if you’re going to require performers to carry insurance, you’re going to have to pay them more. Let’s face it, no porn performer will be underwritten for coverage if their job exposes them to communicable diseases because their contract employer does not comply with federal workplace safety rules.
Condoms in the Work Place: Law May Shake San Fernando Valley Porn Industry; Will Ryder: “You’ll See The Rogue Element Creeping In”
–on the web
Follow AdultFYI on Twitter @Adultfyi1
from http://www.dailynews.com – An ordinance that requires condom use in adult film productions is all but certain to gain final approval by the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday.
The San Fernando Valley-centered, X-rated entertainment industry could respond to the new law in a number of ways.
“If it does pass, some of the companies will, obviously, follow the law and use condoms, which is fine,” said director and producer Will Ryder, whose company X-Play specializes in porn parodies such as “Not The Bradys XXX” and “Not The Cosbys XXX.”
“But many, many producers will go underground, they’ll go to other cities, they’ll shoot without testing to save expenses, and you’ll see the rogue element creeping in,” Ryder warned.
For many years, the adult industry has required performers to take monthly tests for sexually transmitted diseases. Producers consistently do not hire anyone who turns up positive.
Porn professionals feel that this has proven an effective safeguard — the last proven outbreak of HIV within the adult film community occurred in 2004, among one actor and three actresses — and therefore makes condom use unnecessary.
“We’re the safest people in the world, we’re tested every 28 days,” adult film star James Bartholet said. “We’re a lot safer than 99 percent of the kids in nightclubs. I don’t think this ordinance is a good idea because it’s going to cause a lot of runaway production. We want to keep as much production, mainstream and adult, here in California as we can because it helps the economy.”
Former adult actor Darren James — the male involved in the 2004 HIV outbreak — thinks the condom requirement is a good idea.
“It’s great, it’s outstanding and it’s about time,” James said. “A lot of people who don’t make money will do a scene just to pay their bills and rent. A lot of them have drug issues, and are not provided with treatment and may not know that they’re carrying something.”
Of course, the vast majority of porn consumers prefer to watch unprotected sex acts, and adult filmmakers fear that adding condoms to their productions will further damage sales figures that have already been devastated by piracy and free Internet porn.
“I don’t really like how it looks, and I prefer not to use them,” Tujunga-based producer Erica McLean said, adding that she tries to accommodate any actor who requests a condom in her productions. “The films are supposed to be in-the-moment, and putting condoms on is distracting. And it just doesn’t look sexy.”
The ordinance will require productions applying to permitting clearinghouse FilmL.A. to agree on paper to employ condoms. While major producers such as X-Play and Vivid Video get permits for location shoots — defined as any filming in the city not done on a studio lot or at certified soundstages — it is generally understood that a majority of adult filmmakers simply don’t bother to pull permits.
Even if the new requirement triggers an increase in nonpermitted adult shoots, though, it could, sooner or later, lead to more condoms seen onscreen.
“It’s a federal OSHA guideline for the existing bloodborne pathogens law that, for the most part, people in the adult industry have chosen to be in compliance with as far as possible by testing,” explained Chatsworth-based Immoral Productions owner Dan Leal, who live-streams hard-core webcasts five days a week and distributes through subscription-based sites, video-on-demand and DVD.
“All (the city) is saying is that they’re going to enforce an existing law,” Leal said.
Cal/OSHA is currently tasked with enforcing the existing condom requirement, but the workplace safety agency for the most part only responds to complaints. And adult film workers almost never complain about something that might limit their employment.
The city is forming a working group that will include LAPD, the City Attorney’s Office and industry representatives to hammer out implementation.
“This ordinance gives us the ability to do our own enforcement,” said City Councilman Paul Koretz, a longtime supporter of condom requirements. “I don’t think we’re going to make it the mission of the city to enforce every porn shoot, but we will do an occasional spot check, I assume, to keep them honest as it were. And we’re going to put it in our filming contract, so that at least on paper they’ve said they’ll use condoms.”
Those who bypass the permitting process, when found, will be fined for that infraction and likely shut down. They’ll have to get a permit — and thereby agree to condoms — in order to resume work, Koretz figured.
The ordinance is the result of a ballot petition drive organized by the Hollywood-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Rather than face the expected expense of $4 million to place the initiative on an upcoming ballot, the City Council decided to take up the issue. It passed on preliminary 11-1 vote last week, and then needs a simple majority of eight votes this week to become law.
And when it does . . .
“The lawsuits will be tremendous,” Ryder predicted. “It will end up costing the city taxpayers millions and millions of dollars, which is unnecessary.”
The adult film industry trade group The Free Speech Coalition isn’t tipping its hand on that possibility just yet.
“We’re looking at all of our options on this,” coalition executive director Diane Duke said. “We’re in discussions with some of the heads of the industry about legal challenges. We haven’t determined yet what our strategy is going to be on that.”
Duke insists that the industry’s STD testing, which the coalition organizes and provides results of to producers, has done a stellar job of protecting its sex workers. She acknowledged the OSHA guidelines, but also pointed out that there has yet to be a court decision in their favor against adult producers.
If and when the new ordinance is implemented, Koretz expects most adult producers to fall into line.
“When I held hearings on this subject a number of years ago in Sacramento, there was a unified voice from the industry saying everyone would go underground and you’d have less enforcement,” the former state assemblyman said. “There is a possibility that some of that happens. But I’m inclined to believe that the people who are doing it with permits want to follow the law and do it right. I’d be surprised if that changes.”
Ordinance opponent Ryder admitted that he’d use condoms on his L.A. sets if required to but would also go outside the city limits for noncondomed shoots.
“The general perception of this business is that we’re unbusinesslike and lawless, but the truth really couldn’t be any further from that,” Ryder said. “But I think the City Council should get its nose out of private enterprise; make it easier to do business to make money and generate tax revenues rather than to hinder private business.”
Mike: Help me out here. I read all these posts about how this will drive the porn business underground as if pornographers are gun-runners and smugglers. Explain to me how Vivid, Digital Playground, or Brazzers – companies with millions of dollars in revenue – go underground? These guys aren’t Sons of Anarchy, shooting porn in a warehouse in the California hills while they smuggle guns from the Irish. These are real businesses, with employees, equipment, technologists and distribution networks. They are owners with families, mortgages and kids in private schools. You’ve got performers who live in the San Fernando Valley. You don’t just pick that up and go underground – whatever that means, especially when your finished product is evidence of compliance or non-compliance.
Up through the early 1980s, shooting porn was underground in the sense that if police knew you were shooting a porn movie, they frequently would arrest you. The making of porn was illegal but porn was being publically shown in theatres. The companies releasing the porn movies had public addresses. If porn
movies have to be made outside the United States, Mexico would be a good place to go since it is so close to Los Angeles. One of the things that makes Michael Weinstein a hypocrate is that he fought proposition 8 after it was approved by the voters of California. When things didn’t go Weinstein’s way as far as the government doing what he wanted to force condoms on porn movies, he then went the proposition route. What if the porn industry got the voters to approve a law against mandatory condom use? Would he abide by that decision? Of course he wouldn’t, he would keep on with his condom crusade. There are some things that the majority voters should not be able to decide. Many states would have continued outlawing interracial marriage, if they could get away with it. It’s our court system that allowed interracial marriages across the whole country. If you left it up to the 1960s voters, many states would have banned civil rights and antiwar demonstrations. We need the court system to protect our civil liberties from people like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorium, people who want to undermine our civil liberties. Rick Santorium wants to allow states the choice of banning sodomy, if that’s what they choose. Going by his logic, shouldn’t Muslim countries have a right to ban Christianity? Wouldn’t that be going with the will of the majority? Porn people should go picket Michael Weinstein, give him a taste of his own medicine.
I know Mike has written about this, so I won’t beat a dead horse. There is no right to operate an unsafe work environment or to require employees to be exposed to communicable diseases. It’s no different than requiring hard hats on a construction site or ear plugs at a certain decibel level. Or that your nurse wears gloves for certain procedures or that your dental assistant wears eye protection. Those are workplace safety/public health issues, not issues of civil liberty.
First, I’m not a fan of condoms in film. I just see it as inevitable. As Mike has said repeatedly, porn has brought this on itself.
On helmet laws, I live in New Hampshire, where we don’t have helmet laws – or seat belt laws for that matter – when it comes to private vehicles. Heck, in most communities in New Hampshire it’s legal to be completely naked in public if you don’t act in a lascivious manner. Unfortunately, it’s never the pretty people who decide to strip down on a summer’s day on the town square to get a little sun.
However, we have very strict workplace safety rules and last year, under a Tea Party legislature, the state toughened worker comp regulations making it more expensive for a small business to comply.
Even as a libertarian state, the legislature makes a distinction between personal freedoms and a safe workplace.
Personal freedoms and workplace safety/public health are two different things, just as there are two standards for personal freedom of speech and commercial speech. The first is absolute. The other is highly regulated.
I’m not a lawyer, but I think an actor probably could file a workers comp claim for picking up an STD on a porn set if it restricts their ability to work or results in medical claims.
Similarly, I think a stripper in Mike’s club could probably file a workers comp claim if she is injuried twirling buck naked on a stripper pole or is injured if the edge of the stage collapses when she spreads her legs. If the injury is caused because the club owner cut corners that resulted in an unsafe pole or stage, the stripper could probably file a suit, despite the nature of what she was doing when the injury occurred.
By the same token, a worker in an adult book store should be covered for the same workplace injuries as a worker in a Barnes & Noble. For instance, if a rack of books falls over and crushes the worker’s foot, it shouldn’t matter that it was a rack of children’s books at B&N or a rack of porn DVDs, sex toys and dog collars at Porn Is Us. If the worker has medical bills as a result and takes time off work, its a workers comp claim.
My guess is that the reason you don’t see those claims is that strippers and porn actors are afraid they won’t work again. But under the law, if the injury takes place in a legal, regulated establishment, a workplace injury should be a workplace injury, regardless of the nature of the work being performed when the injury took place.
How about adults take responsibility for their own actions? If you’re not prepared to catch an STD, and maybe some you can’t get rid of, perhaps you shouldn’t step foot into the sex industry.
And for the record, condoms will NOT protect anyone against HPV and herpes.
They have motorcycle helmet law in California mandatory that wear one there when ride motorcycle there . They enforce that big time there.
You can’t compare condoms in the workplace to helmet laws, that’s apples and oranges. The issue here pretty clear cut and puffing up your chest and saying we will move out of California isn’t going to help…most of the people passing these laws would laugh and say “good riddance”
As for the emergence of “rogue elements” ya right…..let me name some names for ya….Rob Black, Mark Handel (Khan Tusion), Donny Long, Michael Tierney (Joe Blow). OK are you really saying we are going to get “rogue elements”…hell porn is full of rogue elements that even WE dont want.
If a motorcycle rider does not wear a helmet during a accident, he or she could possibly be severally injured or killed. Many motorcycle riders will accept the risk because they feel more comfortable not wearing a helmet. Many porn actors feel more sexual pleasure when they don’t wear condoms. They know what the
risks are.
You don’t even have to worry about rogue elements. You can just watch more of the production moving offshore, or at least “out of town”. Perhaps this is the real motivation, to drive porn production out of the city limits.
What I think is really funny is this: They will shoot with condoms, and then at the end, rip the condom off and make the girl swallow the load anyway. Not like there is any less exchange of fluids, just perhaps in a different manner.
LA Adult film companies Relocating to Nevada? If So AHF Vows to Haunt Them There
–on the web
from http://www.latimes.com – Threats by porn firms to leave California after the L.A. City Council voted to mandate condom use in porn films could be difficult because such filming is legal in just two states — California and New Hampshire.
A ruling by the California Supreme Court effectively legalized the making of adult films in a landmark 1988 case, which came just as VCRs allowed people to watch explicit movies at home.
New Hampshire’s highest court made a similar ruling only recently, in 2008.
The California ruling is a key reason why L.A. became the capital of the multibillion-dollar porn business. The justices defended the right of film producers to recruit people to act in sexually explicit movies, making it impossible for police and district attorneys to prosecute producers of pornography on charges of soliciting people to engage in prostitution.
The California case stemmed from the conviction in 1985 of Harold Freeman, who had faced a possible prison term for hiring actresses for up to $800 a day to perform explicit sex acts in a movie called “Caught from Behind II,” according to Times coverage at the time.
The court dismissed prosecutors’ argument that the porn performers were prostitutes. Rather, the justices ruled they were being paid to act for the purposes of making a film, and not to sexually arouse or gratify the film producer, which is an element of prostitution.
Meanwhile, the New Hampshire Supreme Court in 2008 said a person who was recruiting talent for a porn film should not have been prosecuted under anti-prostitution laws.
Those court rulings are one reason why the president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Michael Weinstein, said he finds it unlikely that the porn companies will move out of California.
But attorney Marc J. Randazza [pictured] of Las Vegas, whose clients include a porn firm, said he finds it entirely possible that adult film companies in L.A. could relocate to Nevada.
Randazza said he would find it hard to believe that a district attorney in Nevada would target porn producers in a state that permits legalized prostitution in some areas.
But if many porn productions did move to Sin City, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation promised to take the condoms-in-porn issue there.
“When the industry says, ‘We’ll go to Nevada,’ we vowed we will follow them,” said foundation spokesman Ged Kenslea.