Public Comment

["Diane Duke" <diane@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear ICANN Board,

I am writing on behalf of the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) the trade
association for the adult entertainment industry.  FSC submits the following
comment on ICM's application for a .XXX sTLD.

 

On the issue of "Sponsorship community," ICM's President Stuart Lawley is
fond of saying, "the matter is fully and properly settled."  On the
contrary, FSC and the adult community believe that the facts surrounding the
level of support, or lack thereof, for ICM's proposal within the sponsorship
community have been and are being con-fused or misrepresented.

 

XBIZ.net is one of the premium and most well-established adult-industry,
discussion boards.  It is a members-only board, and membership is restricted
adult -industry professionals.  Stuart Lawley must agree with that assertion
because xbiz.net is the only network he joined and the only adult board on
which he decided to contribute.   On July 5th, a member of the adult
community posted a link to a Business Week article entitled, "The Man Who
Would Be .xxx King."  Stuart Lawley joined the discussion, which extended to
July 13th.   I have included a link to a screen shot taken of that thread,
and I am writing to ask each and every member of the ICANN board to
carefully read this thread in its entirety.    

( <http://freespeechcoalition.com/images/pdf/XBIZ.net%20Thread.pdf>
http://freespeechcoalition.com/images/pdf/XBIZ.net%20Thread.pdf)

 

This thread reveals a number of problems with a .XXX sTLD and demonstrates
the utter lack of support from within the online, adult industry.  In fact,
members of our industry felt so strongly about this conversation, that they
made a movie out of it!  Larry Flynt (owner of Hustler), John Stagliano
(owner of Evil Angel Productions), Peter Ackworth (CEO of Kink.com), Allison
Vivas (CEO of Pink Visual), and many other industry leaders felt strongly
enough to appear in the movie.  I have provided a link to the movie for your
consideration, as well.   (http://dotxxxopposition.com/)

 

In the thread, adult industry professionals discuss ICM's .XXX proposal and
in the process question the sincerity and practicality of ICM's promises and
refute ICM's assumptions and claims.

 

ICM Assumptions and Claims

ICM claims that it would provide benefit to the adult entertainment industry
through a "Legal Defense Fund."  General consensus is that the legal fees
required to fend off increase censorship from various governments would far
exceed the funds ICM and IFFOR "set aside" for that purpose. Fighting these
battles in numerous countries would be costly and onerous.

  From post #140:

 "You have also not fairly addressed the concern of censorship.  It is far
easier to filter via domain than it is ANY OTHER METHOD.the more service
providers, companies etc., looking to filter adult content from their
establishment/service will consider the option of just blocking .XXX, as the
implementation is stupid simple.  The penultimate, Armageddon version of
this is when federal governments decide they want to shut down porn."

 

ICM claims that a .XXX sTLD will bring additional traffic and revenues to
the industry and that it would market the TLD through venues such as
sporting events.  The industry believes that ICM is ignorant about the adult
entertainment industry and that .XXX will increase the cost of doing
business with no additional revenue.  As post # 120 and #101 state:

"Your reasoning is very flawed.  Customers can already find the adult
content they want .There is no new business to make the industry as a whole
grow in your proposition.  Sure it has the potential to shift some market
shares from one player to the other, no NEW business will be generated.So
the end result will be that ICM Registry will make money and the market will
have shifted between existing/new adult content providers."

 

"My God, you really haven't worked in porn, have you? Legitimate sporting
events aren't going to accept porn money for sponsorships.  I know you don't
care in the least, but just so you are perfectly clear here, I've been
solely earning a living in the adult online industry for over 6 years.
Nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, about you or your organization represents
me."

 

In post #70, Stuart Lawley suggests that, "Many parties will be appreciative
of labeled content and efforts of those in the industry who wish to
demonstrate meaningful and credible self-regulation."  According to ICM this
self-regulation includes, child protection, copyright infringement, spyware
and malware and billing practices.

.         The adult entertainment community already has an entity through
which Internet publishers and others can self identify as a responsible
global online adult entertain-ment community the Free Speech Coalition

.         FSC has developed a Code of Ethics that was created with input
from our broad membership and our democratically elected board of directors
(http://freespeechcoalition.com/code-of-ethics.html ).  Stuart Lawley has
used FSC's Code of Ethics as an example of what they could adopt for IFFOR's
Best Practices.  

.         FSC has also developed an industry-wide Anti-Piracy Action Plan
(www.FSCAPAP.com) to effectively address the issue of copyright
infringement. A .XXX sTLD will do nothing to curb copyright infringement,
but does leave countless adult businesses worried about their trademark.  

.         The adult entertainment industry has a much better record than the
mainstream online community as far as malware and spyware. 

.         Child protection advocates believe that .XXX sTLD not only will do
nothing to prevent children from accessing adult materials, but also will
make it easier for children to find adult materials. 

Overall the adult industry considers ICM's .XXX unwelcomed, unwanted and
unnecessary.  As one industry professional stated in post #12, "What makes
you think that not having a TLD somehow makes us less proud of who we are
and what we do?"

 

Misinformation and Misrepresentation

Many in the industry feel that ICM has misrepresented circumstances
surrounding support from the adult entertainment community.  Post #85
states:

"Do you really think that ICM's history might not be our business (the
history of .XXX and the future of our domains), esp. who the alleged
supporters are; whether or not the alleged support is legitimate; or the
process that culminated "in a declaration of facts" was in fact unbiased,
untainted by threats of lawsuits, or benefits doled out to influence votes?"

 

ICM's response post #87 "No lawsuits have been threatened and no "benefits"
have been doled out to influence votes."  Seriously? All that the folks at
ICANN talk about around this issue is if ICANN can afford the pending
lawsuit should .XXX be rejected. We know that ICM has threatened lawsuit
after lawsuit.  As far as "deals".in post #44:

".and no, the proposal presented to FSC members at the meeting was NOT about
$10 intended for IFFOR; indeed, what we voted against was a "proposal" for
ICM to pay FSC for its support of .XXX.  There were a lot of folks there who
will recall the basic "deal" proposed by ICM representatives."

 

Many believe that early deals were offered in 2003 that brought initial
support, but that the 2003 supporters retracted their support after more
fully understanding the issue.  It is believed that ICM is using names of
folks who had expressed initial interest in 2003-individuals and companies
that now oppose .XXX-as proof of community support.  Calls for transparency
and proof have fallen on deaf ears as ICM has refused to reveal its list of
supporters.

 

Mr. Lawley speaks of thousands of pre-registrations.  Adult industry members
who have pre-registered are concerned.  They want to make it clear that
their pre-registrations are defensive in nature and that they do not support
ICM's application. As shown in post #60:

"You are forcing people to pre-reserve their domain name because they are
afraid of others stealing it.  I am afraid too, as a new comer we may not
have to worry as much as a big name, but still.  I don't know what to do.  I
don't want our domain name to be taken but neither do I support what you are
doing."

 

Moreover, it was the adult industry's understanding-as stated by Stuart
Lawley at the 2007 XBIZ
conference-(http://xbizconference.com/videos/XXX/clip11/clip11.html ) that
pre-registrations were not to be used as a sign of support.  Post #44
recalls:

.I thought that pre-registering .XXX domains wasn't supposed to be equated
with stating support of the proposal?  As I recall, Stuart promised that
defensive preregistrations would NOT be used as evidence of community
support while sitting in front of the microphone at the XBIZ Hollywood show
one year.

 

In the interest of transparency and until and unless the aforementioned
issues are addressed to the satisfaction of the adult online community, the
party most affected, we urge the ICANN board to reject ICM's application for
a .XXX sTLD.

 

Sincerely, 

Diane Duke

FSC Executive Director

 

 

Diane Duke

Executive Director

Free Speech Coalition

PO Box 10480

Canoga Park, CA  91309

818-348-9373  Fax 818-348-8893

 

Cursing the darkness only delays the dawn 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson