Once again held in the Hollywood Ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel, coffee and refreshments were served before the first panel of the day took their places.
Moderated by Maleflixxx’s Director of Account Management Brent Meredith, the seminar was entitled: “Billing: Dollars and Sense.”
On its panel were Brian Silver (NetCash), Jeff Thaler (Epoch), Laurie Biviano (CCBill) and Mitch Farber (NetBilling).
The panelists discussed what webmasters should look for in a payment processor. “Stick with one that has history,” Farber said. “Do your homework.”
Biviano said, “Longevity is important. You need to look for someone to partner with you - someone you’re comfortable with.”
Farber then brought up the topic of merchant accounts, chargebacks and selling tangibles. Discussion then turned to billing outside of the U.S., primarily aimed at Europe, Japan and China.
Thaler said, “Everyone wants to tap into the Asian market. But over there, some content is illegal.”
“It’s very expensive over in China,” Biviano said. “It doesn’t make dollars and sense. There’s a lot of fraud.”
The topic of telephone billing was presented, but Biviano said that“it’s just another option. We only get paid for about 20-percent of telephone billing. The rates are slightly higher and it’s more of a risk.”
Silver had positive last words. “The industry is always looking for ways to improve.”
The second seminar, “Alternative Revenue Sources: Let the Good Times Roll,” was moderated by AVN Media Network’s Farley Cahan. Panelists included Brett Drysdale (Fleshlight), Gary Jackson (CCBill), Jack Shamama (NakedSword), Joe Sterner (PrideBucks) and Rachael Jones (Netbilling), and they discussed alternative ways of making money.
Everything from choosing VOD sites to utilizing discount coupons was touched upon.
“When you go out to the movies, you generally get popcorn, candy and a drink,” Drysdale said. “With Fleshlight, we try to partner up with companies that will compliment us. Lube companies, production studios - they’re our popcorn and candy. The consumer will need things for his adult viewing experience and if you can fill all their needs in one spot, you’re making money.”
Jackson offered webmasters to “create a sale where there isn’t one. Offer solutions to your customers’ problems.”
Drysdale said “Don’t limit yourself to where you market your product. Take advantage of the mainstreaming of adult.”
The panel offered solutions on how to capitalize on older product.
“Take the older content and reconfigure it,” Jackson said. “Do a ‘Best of” series, throw up favorite scenes. Make the older content new. Develop compilations.”
Advertising was discussed, as well as product placement and posting short clips on video streaming sites such as YouTube or UStream.
Cross sales and rebilling were the final topics of the day.
One thing all the panelist’s agreed upon was for webmasters to make sure that customers “got their money’s worth.”
The final seminar of the event was titled “2257 Legal Specific: What You Need to Know,” but many more issues than just 2257 were discussed.
The seminar was moderated by attorney Clyde DeWitt and featured attorneys Jeffrey Douglas and Chad Belville, Joan Irvine, Executive Director of the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) and AVN Senior Editor Mark Kernes.
Jeffrey Douglas was given the floor by DeWitt immediately after opening introductions.
Having just arrived from Phoenix, where the case ended Thursday, Douglas projected a glow of satisfaction as he recounted the salient points of the JM/Five Star obscenity case, in which the jury handed the government a sound defeat by acquitting the defendants of all charges but one, and that against a company and not a person.
Douglas made special mention of the “extraordinary incompetence of the federal anti-obscenity task force,” which directed the JM case and according to Douglas is at least partly responsible for the defeat.
Douglas made special note of the fact that one of the government witnesses revealed during testimony that the FBI does have specific criteria for choosing whom it will charge with obscenity. The type of material they look for includes defecation, urination with sex, bestiality, violence and multiple partners. (That last one drew a gasp from the audience.)
“They associate more than two people with violence,” explained Douglas. The message to take from it, he said, is that the government will probably continue to focus its obscenity spotlight on sexually explicit material it thinks exhibits “violence against women.”
He did not, however, see any particular attention paid to gay content, and the reason he gave was anecdotal and sarcastic but funny and maybe true at times.
“[FBI agents] may not target gay material because then they would have to watch the stuff and may have to shoot themselves if they start getting hard,” he said.
Douglas gave special credit for the Phoenix victory to Ohio-based attorneys Louis Sirkin and Jennifer Kinsley.
Mark Kernes then recounted his editorial efforts to expose a possible connection between some of the firings of the U.S. attorneys this year and the anti-porn crusade by Brent Ward of the U.S. Department of Justice. Kernes’ articles highlighted several emails sent by Ward to the person in charge of picking the U.S. attorneys to be fired, and his obvious attempt to influence the decision in order to get rid of two attorneys he thought were dragging their heels with obscenity cases.
Joan Irvine then spoke eloquently about ASACP's efforts to expose child pornographers through their CP reporting hotline, its work with the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography, its work compiling data that shows the adult industry non-affiliation with the creation or distribution of CP, its work keeping ASACP sponsor websites safe and in accordance with responsible adult webmastering, and more recently its work promoting child protection issues, devising a website label (RTA) for the industry, and its increasingly effective lobbying efforts on behalf of the industry.
Finally, the original subject matter – 2257 – was addressed and the rest of the session was taken up with it. Before Chad Belville began a presentation on some basic but detailed information about how to stay compliant with 2257, brief but important mention was made of the other big news this week, the Connections case in Ohio, wherein the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals found 2257 unconstitutional, holding that the law is over broad and facially invalid.
Despite stern warning that one decision, which can still be appealed, does not fully invalidate a statutorily obligated federal regulation, DeWitt had the final say.
“When a federal statute is held unconstitutional,” he said, “it is pretty significant.”
Belville also made available for the audience a series of handouts with further details about staying 2257 complaint, which he said were also available on the AVN website.
