Rob Black and Lizzy Borden get 1 year and a day in prison
 

The former owners of Extreme Associates, know in the industry as Rob Black and Lizzy Borden, where sentenced to one year plus one day in federal prison after pleading guilty in March to one count each of conspiracy to distribute obscene materials.

Hmmm. Sucks.

Rob has always pushed the envelope on porn, and while I don't always agree with what he puts out he should have the freedom to film such odd acts with consenting adults

I've never seen their stuff but from what I read it depicted acts of non consensual violence like rape in a non fictitious manner. If that is true then I guess it would fall under the same limits of free speech like not being able to yell I've got a bomb on an airplane.

I never saw anything on their videos (a little hardcore for even someone as bent as me to appreciate), but I was led to believe that everything was consensual pre-taping.

There were no surprises in the script to the actors, but they acted like it. What was going to happen was discussed and lengthy legal releases were signed before shooting began. So legally (says the non-lawyer) the entire thing was fiction, even if it was presented differently.

No one prosecutes the soap opera actor for acting like a rapist on camera. Just don't do that in porn, or you go to jail. |crazy|

Maybe I am wrong. I am not that familiar with their material.

I don't know the social damage that stuff Rob makes causes.
(yelling fire in a theater can kill people)
More to domweb's point,
I did see the movie Hostel, and it depicted non consensual violence like the murder and mutilation of imprisoned people in a non fictitious manner. Very realistic with the screaming and the cutting of flesh and the burning out of women's eyeballs with a welding torch. I get your point.

Obscenity charges are different though, they vary from community to community, and are subject to the interpretation of local judges, some of whom would probably like to charge the makers of Hostel as well.

Either way, that's nasty stuff all around, not in my wheelhouse, someone else's battle. I just hate to see the ugly head of censorship poking it's head out of it's cave.

I was under the impression the moral of this story was don't send thru the mail.

They weren't jailed for making it, just for mailing it.

I ain't a lawyer, and ain't sure I'm right, but that's the impression I've gotten.

If anybody finds any biz analysis of the implications, I'd love to see it.

This article says "Mr. Zicari and Ms. Romano were indicted in August 2003 for selling videos and clips online and through the mail."

no early release on fed charges ya gotta do 80% of your time

http://www.extremeassociates.com/ is saying site down

dunno if http://www.extremeassociatesvip.com/ has anything to do with them the 2257 links directly to the other site (booo at 2257.htm not found)

yuk at the peeee ...... never quite understood how someone gets off to that. |banghead|

I do believe it was mailing it that was a problem. There are many states that you just can't mail any type of porn to. I know when I was on tour and I would get Wicked to ship me my films, there were certain States I was in where they just wouldn't ship them to me.

Of course, it's my belief that consenting people should be able to have what ever fantasy they wish, but, unfortunately for Rob and Lizzy, they were already under the fed's radar. They were featured on an America's Most Wanted in association with a wrestler that had gotten his thumb cut off quite some time ago. As far as I know, no one was ever arrested in that situation. And, as far as I know, they could never prove that they were associated. But, moral of the story.................... don't piss the Fed's off.

Yup, same lesson learned by Joe Francis (Girls Gone Wild) and Paul Little (Max Hardcore).

If the Feds put you in their cross-hairs, they'll eventually find a way to lock your ass up.

Mailing may have been what brought them down, but when similar acts of fictional degradation, urination, humiliation were used to prosecute Max Hardcorde, they used both the mail and downloading from the net as evidence to sentence him to four years in lockup.

Writing for Salon, Glenn Greenwald wrote: “So, to recap, in the Land of the Free: if you’re an adult who produces a film using other consenting adults, for the entertainment of still other consenting adults, which merely depicts fictional acts of humiliation and degradation, the DOJ will prosecute you and send you to prison for years. The claim that no real pain was inflicted will be rejected; mere humiliation is enough to make you a criminal."

Both downloading clip and ordering his material in the mail was used by prosecutors to convict him: "According to evidence in the trial, federal investigators in January 2006 purchased an online membership to the Max Hardcore Web site and downloaded five promotional video clips. Then, in March 2007, an undercover postal inspector bought five DVDs from the Web site, having them delivered to a post office box in Tampa."

So....since they used both the mail and online downloads to gather evidence, the waters are muddy again.

The only thing that seems clear is to steer clear of anything approaching BDSM or it's fetishistic cousins.

If your judge has a secret desire to be spanked or let a Dominatrix pee on them (very common fantasy/paycheck as reported by the Dom working girls I have hung with) and cannot deal with it, they just might lash out at the target of prosecution.

Kinda like gay bashing. Just legal and a different sexual 'deviance from the norm' than homosexuality.

That or the judge is a prude and several other words I might use but won't.

I guess I am glad I stuck with solo shemales.

True, dat. But I don't know of too many legal industries you can start a business in with such a low money investment threshold (and such a large time investment).