Besides causing a lot of the usual hysteria and inane “what if?” games associated with the current regulation and today’s enhancements under H.R. 4472, not much else happened. The bureau reportedly conducted its inspections politely, professionally and with as little disruption to business as possible – and the companies that were inspected are still in operation today.
The way I hear it, the bureau is doing random inspections in accordance with ‘2257, which is designed, after all, to ensure that producers can verify the age of performers, and as such, there’s no problem when those performer’s ages at the time of production can be proved. If they can’t be proved, then there’s no way to determine that the title does not contain illegal child pornography – and no one supports cp, do they? Thus, legitimate players shouldn’t have anything to fear from ‘2257 or any inspections related to it.
As for the real impact, hopefully it sends a wake up call to those players who still haven’t brought their operations into compliance with the federal recordkeeping requirements and better still, sends the shady operators into retirement.
I’ll put it to you that anything that reduces the number of illegitimate operators benefits us all and if ‘2257 inspections scare a few folks out of the business that shouldn’t be here in the first place, then all I can say is thank you to the bureau for taking this task (which I’m sure they didn’t want to be saddled with) seriously. Yep, ‘2257 inspections may indeed be good for the industry – and if you don’t see it that way, perhaps you’re part of the problem rather than part of the solution...