Adult DVD Empire, Wicked Pictures and Zero Tolerance have joined forces to promote the use of 2257xml.org, a standard that they believe would streamline the record keeping data into an easy-to-use format.
Adult DVD Empire’s John D’Arcangelo told XBIZ the current system places a huge burden on industry producers.
“Currently, retailer 2257 compliance is more than a headache,” he said.
“Retailer's receive 2257 documents in all type of formats from producers ranging from PDFs to excel files, and even worse, simple directory dumps. Retailers have to then re-key that data into their system to be compliant and to meet the indexing and cross-referencing requirements in the regulations.”
D’Arcangelo said there are multiple downsides to this extra work.
“One is complexity. The amount of data that most be combed through by retailers makes it harder for producers to get their content out into the marketplace and encourages retailers to sell only a small, select list of SKU barcodes. Further, it makes it almost impossible for big box retailers like us, who strive to carry every DVD every produced, to keep up with the never-ending stream of 2257 documents.”
There are other issues, he said, such as performer privacy and the extra cost in hiring more staff results in higher prices for consumers.
The 2257xml standard seeks to eliminate these issues.
“Once a retailer alters their computer system to accept 2257xml documents, they can accept any 2257xml document — no matter what producer or source it came from,” he said.
“Retailers only need to incur the expense of updating their system once. That is a small, fixed expense, rather than the ongoing [forever] expense of data entry they have now.”
He said one of the notable features of a 2257xml document is that the digitized age- verification documents (scan of driver's license, passport, etc.) are stored directly in the document.
The 2257xml document for a particular piece of content is complete in every way, he said, and does not contain links to other resources.
“What gives any standard its strength, is how widely it is adopted,” D’Arcangelo said.
“If, theoretically, every producer and retailer had adopted this standard, compliance across the entire industry would be as easy as the click of a button. Actually, it would not even take a click of button — it would happen automatically, computers exchanging data.”