Pervlens Meets with ATVOD to Discuss VOD Service Regulation…

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 4th, 2013 at 12:49 pm

Firstly, allow me to explain where I stand on ATVOD and why I chose to meet them now. ATVOD served me a first contact letter in late February, I engaged with them a little and at first temporarily shut my web site down, in mid-march I decided I wasn’t ready to leave the industry just yet and chose to reactivate my site albeit removing the video content.

As it stands, from mid-march to present I am not considered a Video On Demand service as I no longer distribute video content online.

I am trialing what effect this will have on my conversions and revenue. I expect it to be as negative as I think it will be.

I do not want to move abroad, I do not want to add additional cost to a project that barely breaks even so unfortunately, I now find myself in a situation where ATVOD is involved and I am sooner or later going to have to come to a compromise with them or close down. The later really isn’t an option.

The meeting was my choice and I voluntarily set it up as I am working in Windsor, ATVOD are just around the corner. Had I still been based in Manchester, I would not have. The cost would have been too great.

I approached the prospect of a meeting seriously and professionally, after all ATVOD are a quasi-government body and their approach would be similar (the collation of correspondence, reports on how my content is damaging vulnerable people and minors etc etc).

I must stress the purpose of the meeting was not to argue whether ATVOD should be here or try to have them change the notable rules such as credit card payments only and hardcore content before the paywall. Those rules are enshrined in legislation and ATVOD do have to work to them, it would have been foolish to think they were on the table for negotiation. However, I wanted to get a better understanding of how ATVOD view them in relation to their remit and how they enforce breaches of those rules.

I arrived for my meeting at ATVOD’s Windsor offices, excluding the board they a small operation consisting of a compliance investigation officer, an investigations officer manager and a secretary to Pete Johnson. They are crammed into a small office space in a building not immediately obvious as a quasi-government body with a remit to police the entire UK originating internet.

The two people I met with were in fact lovely, ATVOD involvement aside they were personable and friendly. For some reason I was expecting a big board room with me on one side and two people staring me down from the opposite side – that was not the case at all. I met with the compliance investigations officer who issued my first contact letter and her manager.

I had took with me a document I compiled in the week leading up to the meeting with ATVOD. The document took every part of my site, broke it down into three key areas of focus for the meeting, those areas were

a) the free preview / guests area
b) the members area
c) cash and affiliate program

Each area was fully explained along with screenshots and supporting text, it was a guided tour through the site and content levels that are available in those sections. As well as explaining how each could (or couldn’t) be accessed by the general public and possibly children.

We started with the free preview area of the site, at present it does contain material that would fall under ATVOD’s remit should video content be made available through my service.

I asked, what is the highest level of content permitted pre-paywall? Topless, nude, insertions? ATVOD responded, “up to R18”

Further discussion around the subject of content level revealed that ATVOD are fine with full frontal nudity, including clearly visible genitalia. However, extreme closeups are likely to be considered R18 content just as they would be classified by the BBFC.

As we navigated my free area of preview the content that would need to be removed from the free area would be any shot of penetration and extreme closeups of genitals, although breasts and nipples would be acceptable in closeup format. My site did not feature any boy/girl content but penetration with toys, fingers or other other objects would be considered R18 content and therefore not acceptable by ATVOD.

My single updates page where I present four free images for every set was discussed in detail and we agreed that currently my current format would meet ATVOD regulations given that I typically show two thumbs that link to two uncensored preview images at full size that do not exceed full nude. The remaining two thumbs link to two larger images that are censored by my logo and some ‘fog.’

ATVOD agreed this approach could be a likely compromise as long as the ‘censoring’ method was strong enough to completely obscure the adult related part of the image.

We progressed quickly through the frontend guests section and ended with the join page where it was clear I would be in breach as there are payment methods available that do not comply with rule 11 ie; debit cards, bank transfers, cheques are accepted forms of payment.

I raised serious concerns on behalf of my site and other sites that this is the one rule that I could not see me accepting in its current form. ATVOD advised that unfortunately it’s not up for negotiation and it comes directly from the legislation. I countered with whether it comes from ATVOD’s interpretation of the legislation rather than their actual remit, they stated that it is ATVOD’s view that ensuring sites only accept credit cards would prevent children from accessing the content at all.

We discussed various methods of verifying the age of debit card holders, I revealed that I had been in discussions with CCBILL already and they can offer a verify feature which will still accept debit cards from certain countries and once payment has been taken successfully, a notification will be sent to me or a member of my team and I could initiate contact for ID documents to be uploaded to me (by e-mail or web based application) and then approve the user account once I’m confident the age has been verified.

I raised with ATVOD, that this method would increase the burden on me if I was to check ID documents as I would then be subject to ensuring compliance with data protection. As I would need to maintain those records for a period of time in case ATVOD wanted to inspect them.

ATVOD stated that they the documents wouldn’t need to be filed as long as I could demonstrate a reasonable system existed and there was a mechanism of approval following sight of Government issued ID and that there was a way of ensuring that that user was the one logging in, such as a username and password.

ATVOD pointed out that there are third-party companies that can take on the verification burden and they would be subject to data protection compliance as opposed to my service.

I agreed that those companies could be looked at but both agreed that the cost to implement such a solution would likely be too high and just as burdensome.

As we discussed CCBILL’s web verify features ATVOD confirmed that they have recently took legal advice on Debit cards being accepted at all, even from International customers under International jurisdictions.

“ATVOD’s responsibility covers Childen and vulnerable adults everywhere” so basically ATVOD will not accept debit card as a form of payment from ANYONE unless there is a system in place to check and verify their age.

I stated at this point that ATVOD’s decision to apply rule 11 to international customers would definitely prevent me from becoming a notified service and in my view made the whole thing completely unworkable.

Although I didn’t raise this in the meeting as I wanted to research the matter first, but I feel that Rule 11 applied to International sites and webmasters may breach the rights of not only the producer/webmaster but also their customers, I had in my mind rights such as the US constitution’s first amendment and it may be worth publicising to the likes of XBIZ and FSC. It may be the issue that drives bigger companies to take the legislation to court.

UPDATE: I later did raise the point above with ATVOD, ATVOD stated that as the content they are restricting is in the UK and editorial responsibility resides under UK jurisdiction they were free to impose regulation of this kind.

We moved on to the members area and did not have a lot discuss regarding the content or setup. We discussed content levels once more and ATVOD confirm that they are using the R18 as a “guideline” of whats acceptable. They also stated that any content considered obscene by BBFC and that wouldn’t be allowed in an R18 release may be reported to the relevant bodies but would not be enforceable by ATVOD directly.

Content levels that were pointed out as examples of potentially obscene content was; where performers appeared to be being forced or coerced even in roleplay, watersports, beastiality, extreme insertions and the usual anything likely to cause damage to breasts, genitalia or anus.

On to the cash program, this was by far the most difficult to run through as most of the terms I was using such as Free Hosted Galleries, Video Ads and the questions I asked they hadn’t come across before.

It was largely agreed that ATVOD would consider banner ads part of the service that they appeared on rather than where they linked to and that in the main ATVOD would not enforce advert content but the ASA would.

It was also stated that explicit adverts before a paywall would likely fall foul of ASA guidelines but the service provider choosing to display the ad would be at fault not the service provider whose ad it was.

For example if I displayed a hardcore ‘MonstersofCock’ banner in my free preview area. I would be at fault for making that decision. Not MonstersofCock for providing it as they had no control over its placement.

So, I (or an affiliate) could in theory post an explicit hardcore ad on an international site that linked into my site. But not feature the hardcore version on my site.

Video ads such as embeddable flash banners that played video content would be classed as an advert too and not video content.

Next, hosted galleries, which took some explaining. It was largely the view of ATVOD that hosted galleries would be classed as part of the service they were featuring content from as they are “effectively a mini site” aimed at driving traffic to the service provider. Therefore ATVOD said the content would need to stop short of R18, or content that would need to be behind a paywall.

ATVOD seemed fine with my affiliate program setup, banners and link codes being the only area accessible by ‘free registration’ with the hosted galleries requiring approval, and although I do not check ID and verify ages of affiliates I do have a manual process of checking the web site, owner of the web site out before approving them as an affiliate and providing access to the hosted galleries, this process is in place to ensure only affiliates with quality traffic and affiliate sites can access my free content.

ATVOD stated that they were confident that providing I accurately checked the registrants out and confirmed they were running/producing adult content that that would suffice as an adequate measure.

It’s also worth noting that if FHG’s have to comply with ATVOD’s content rules then providing free/non-paywall access wouldn’t be a problem anyway as there would be no R18+ content featured.

Also worth noting the same rules apply for hosted video galleries too.

UPDATE: However, it gets a little more complicated as downloadable stills and video content that the affiliate can download and host on their own server would not be considered part of my service and would therefore be free from ATVOD regulation.

Twitter marketing and Social media posting was next on the agenda which completely took the two ATVOD Officers by surprise. They had not been asked anything regarding posting of content and links on social networks, but I felt it was important to get a clear steer on ATVOD’s thoughts.

ATVOD have yet to clarify whether they would consider social media posts as part of an ODSP’s service or not. The implication was that they felt it would be something for the social network to police and enforce rather than ATVOD.

UPDATE: ATVOD have confirmed in later e-mails that social media content such as tweets with photos in them where the photo was hosted on an image host rather than the service would not be classed as part of my service and would therefore escape ATVOD regulation – the reason they gave was because Twitter and Facebook operate their own appropriate content policies and have procedures in place to report and remove such content.

I then moved off agenda to my image hosting application that I maintain and offer its use up to other producers and industry forum users. This application in my view is user generated content as there is no direct means to approve, reject or delete posts short of manually doing it on the server.

I explained that this was hosted on my domain and servers, branded under my service and provided links back into my site as well as others. It’s primary purpose was to allow people, mainly industry people as well as myself upload images to post on forums, boards and other social media networks such as twitter.

Again, took them completely off guard and they have to get back to me regarding possible compliance issues with it should I notify.

UPDATE: ATVOD did get back to me in relation to hosting my own image application. The images hosted through the application (ie: those that have been uploaded by users) to host on a socila media network or forum would escape ATVOD regulation as it constituted user generated content, similar to a tube site, and would consist of images only which are not required to be regulated by ATVOD so would be exempt. It was noted that I would have to alter the banners to below R18 content, even though they are in rotation among the are hardcore banners for sites like ‘AnalAngels’ which would not be acceptable.

Tacked on to the end of the meeting were a variety of questions that popped up either from ATVOD’s responses or things that I hadn’t previously thought to ask.

In the final discussions of the meeting I asked about their board makeup and how I disagreed with ATVOD’s opinion that they are adequately representing the adult industry and it’s views. ATVOD claim the presence of Chris Ratcliffe on its board demonstrates that the industry is represented. I aired my view that although he is indeed a member of the industry and a maintains a high profile in the industry he is not representative of the smaller producers such as myself.

I put to ATVOD that they approach UKAP and negotiate a three or four producer/webmaster (with UK editorial responsibility) rota for members with sites/business earning less than £25,000 pa (half of ATVOD’s concessionary scale) to sit on the board as a board member and work with ATVOD.

UPDATE: ATVOD stated that this is something they would possibly consider in the future.

ATVOD would benefit from this by having a range of views and backgrounds at the table rather than ‘the elite’ and the UK industry would benefit by better shaping ATVOD’s remit.

ATVOD admit it’s been difficult for them to get buy-in from smaller producers, they say they have organised numerous events to try to engage but few turn up and that I was the first smaller tie ones to instigate a meeting. I offered ATVOD that if they were to attend XBIZEU and industry meetings and met with producers/webmasters on their ‘own turf’ they may improve the uptake and at the very least open a door to communicate better.

UPDATE: Following the meeting I contacted Alec Helmy from XBIZ with the suggestion that ATVOD be invited to hold a Q&A session. XBIZ arranged and confirmed that ATVOD will hold a Q&A at XBIZEU, Monday 23rd September in London.

We also discussed, at some length, editorial responsibility and ATVOD’s definition of editorial responsibility and TV-like. In short, ATVOD confirmed they consider webmasters/producers who port their content or release content via services such as adultwork, clips4sale and others like those third-party services as ODSP’s and aim to treat them in the same way they treat webmasters/producers running their own site. They admit its difficult and near impossible at the moment.

My take on ATVOD’s stance on those clips services is that they will catch up in time, once they learn how they operate and find a way to track back to the source of the upload they will begin to enforce on individuals using those services instead of their own site. Don’t shoot me, this is the way they are viewing them and eventually they will figure out how to enforce them the same way as site operators.

UPDATE: ATVOD still refrain from putting their stance on AW and C4S like sites in writing. I would suggest that able to officially recognise that approach.

VOD sites where I host titles was also discussed as technically I am producing content for VOD service was discussed in relation to my editorial responsibility for them.

ATVOD made clear their definition of editorial responsibility is content production, they do not accept that producing content here in the UK and sending somewhere to be uploaded is enough of an outsource to transfer the responsibility for a service. Again, don’t shoot me. They told me, verbatim.

I explained that my VOD partners; Hotmovies, Gamelink and Anywhere.xxx are international companies who have right of veto and a selection policy in place. Also, any content that I send is subject to a ripping, encoding and uploading process to ensure compatibility with their service. Hence why the revenue share in most cases is 70-40% in their favour.

ATVOD reluctantly agreed but they will clarify their standpoint and may request to see contracts to corroborate their responsibility.

In conclusion my meeting failed to reveal little new information regarding ATVOD and their regulations, it did help me better understand them. I am on their radar now and do not plan to comply and notify with their rules as they are.