COME CELEBRATE FREE SPEECH IN CALIFORNIA
        It’s time to mark your calendar to attend our acclaimed lobbying training program, Celebrate Free Speech Lobbying Days (CFSLD), in Sacramento, California. The dates are Monday and Tuesday, April 18 and 19, and as always, space is limited.
        The two-day event will include a full day of political action training for participants, as well as our popular cocktail reception for legislators and staff. In addition, this year we are adding a Community Forum to the schedule, where the public will be invited to join adult industry professionals and speakers from the Capitol in a discussion of issues of concern regarding free speech and adult entertainment.
        Deadline for applications has been moved up to Saturday, March 5, 2005.  Call the Legislative Affairs Office at 1-800-476-7813 or e-mail Sunlove@direcway.com for more information and an application form.
        CFSLD continues to be an inspiring and empowering activity for those who attend and is a great staff development opportunity for industry leaders. Don’t miss it in 2005!
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COMPANIES BOW TO ECONOMIC REALITY
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA – The cable company Adelphia Communications, famously conservative under founder John Rigas (convicted last year of looting the company and nefarious accounting) is now for sale; and the new management, in an effort to improve Adelphia’s bottom line, will offer hardcore adult entertainment to 1.2 million Southern California subscribers. As radical as this decision is for Adelphia, perhaps even more surprising is that the video-on-demand programming will be provided by Playboy Enterprises, which under Christie Hefner has resisted going hardcore. Playboy has traditionally been one of the most conservative companies in adult entertainment. Playboy executive James Griffith explained the decision: “We’re all public companies that want to make a lot of money,” Playboy needs to supply whatever programming our distributors need to be successful. What do customers want? All you have to do is look at what’s available on the Internet.” From Sallie Hofmeister, The L.A. Times, 2/2/05 http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-adelphia2feb02,0,7840216.story?coll=la-home-headlines
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INDECENCY LEGISLATION ON FAST TRACK
WASHINGTON, DC ­ The House Energy and Commerce Committee will bypass subcommittees and vote quickly on legislation to boost fines for broadcast indecency for stations and entertainers to as much as $500,000 per violation, up from the current $32,500, according to Representative Fred Upton (R-MI), chair of the panel’s subcommittee on telecommunications.
        Efforts to pass similar legislation failed last year when the House and Senate were unable to reach a compromise. The Senate version this year has proposed $325,000 per violation with a $3 million cap for repeated violations.
From Reuters, 2/2/05
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=industryNews&storyID=7519281
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MIXED NEWS ON PIRACY BILL
WASHINGTON, DC -- An anti-piracy bill which will (mostly) please entertainment producers, has been approved unanimously by the U.S. Senate. Under the bill, those who secretly videotape movies when they are shown in theaters -- using camcorders to tape directly off the screen -- could go to prison for up to three years. In addition, penalties were stiffened under the bill for those who distribute music, movies or other copyrighted works before their official release date.
        A less popular provision of the bill -- for the entertainment industry and for anti-censorship groups -- shields services such as ClearPlay that remove violent and sexually explicit scenes from movies. The censored films are then marketed as “family-friendly.” Hollywood groups say such services violate their copyrighted works by altering them without permission.
From Reuters, 2/2/05
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=7517991
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NORMAL, HEALTHY ADULT ACTIVITIES UNDER FIRE
SEATTLE, WA -- A community review board here must decide if the early morning “Mike Hunt Show” on cable channel 77, a community channel, is legally obscene. Ann Suter, director of the public access channel, says the content of the show consists “only of sexual arousal and intercourse.”
        “I show two people reaching out to share pleasure, and you want to look at me and say that’s obscene…” says Mike Aivaz, the show’s producer. “I show normal, healthy adults, doing normal healthy adult activities."
        It’s the fifth time in eight years that someone has tried to shut down the show, which features nudity, live sex acts, and adult entertainment clips. Aivaz says you can see everything on his show all around the community in videos and magazines, so it can’t be obscene.
        The decision from the review board is expected in a week.
From Leslie Knoop, KOMO TV, 2/2/05
http://www.komotv.com/stories/35102.htm
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BFD AT THE TFD
TAMPA, FL -- Tampa Fire Department Captain Al Suarez, a 20-Year veteran firefighter, has been fired (!) for allowing two topless dancers to pose for explicit photos alongside a fire truck inside a fire station, photos which subsequently showed up on a website belonging to one of the dancers. Four other firefighters were suspended.
        Said Tampa fire chief Dennis Jones, covering his own ass: “It’s embarrassing. I really hope that the community doesn’t judge their fire department by one event. Certainly this is a very small group of employees of our 628 that were involved in it.”
From Tampa KYW News radio, 2/2/05
http://www.kyw1060.com/news_story_detail.cfm?newsitemid=43765
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STUDENTS EARN “F” ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT
DELAWARE ­ A two-year study by University of Connecticut researchers shows that high school students know very little about the First Amendment and apparently could care less. A third say the First Amendment goes “too far” in the rights it gives Americans. Half erroneously believe the government can censor the Internet. Half of American high school students think the government should be able to approve newspaper stories before readers see them.
        Although a large majority of students surveyed say musicians and others should be allowed to express “unpopular opinions,” 74 percent say people shouldn’t be able to burn or deface an American flag as a political statement and 75 percent mistakenly believe it is illegal.
            “I’m stunned,” said Drewry Fennell, executive director of the ACLU of Delaware. “Our First Amendment rights are really bedrock principles for this country. All of us -- parents, community leaders, the press, teachers, educators -- ought to be responding to help these kids understand how fundamental the First Amendment is to their country and the freedoms they enjoy.”
From Cecilia Le, The Delaware News Journal, 2/2/05
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2005/02/02kidsknowlittlea.html
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DANCE CLUB 4, COUNTY 0: ROUND FIVE COMING UP
McCOOK COUNTY, SD -- A proposed county ordinance here requiring exotic dancers to wear pasties and G-strings is transparently aimed at Bob Rieger’s Racehorses Gentlemen’s Club and Adult Movie Theatre. It is not the first time the county has picked a fight with Rieger. When he was denied a liquor license in 2003 he opened a juice bar dance club. When the county said a commercial business could not operate in an area zoned for agriculture, Rieger fought them in court and won. When voters passed an anti-nudity ordinance last year, Rieger discovered a loophole that exempted movie theaters, so he started showing adult movies in the club. Now this! No wonder he feels somebody is picking on him.
            “At this point, it’s harassment,’’ says Rieger, referring to the county and the group Citizens Against Nude Juicebars and Pornography. But Rieger isn’t giving up.
            “I’ve been to court with them four times, and I beat them every time,’’ he says.
From The Associated Press, 2/2/05
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nude-Juice-Bar.html?oref=login
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A MODERN VIEW FROM THE HEARTLAND
WICHITA, KS – There is no community consensus on the latest crackdown on adult entertainment here. Immediately after cops cited five dancers from Babes and Booze Cabaret for public nudity, Mayor Carlos Mayans announced that he wants to toughen current zoning ordinances and also ban any new adult book or video stores.
        However, some merchants do not agree with the proposal, according to a local reporter.
         “I don’t want Wichita to be a backwards town. I want it to be a forwards town. I’d like for us to be a little more relaxed on things like that,” said Byron Fick, who owns a bicycle shop not far from Babes and Booze Cabaret.
        “I’d rather, in my neighborhood, it not happen,” said Fick. “So I may be a little hypocritical when it comes to having a nudie bar right down the street from my business. Yet I don’t want there to be censorship of what we’ve got going here in the city.”
From Vanessa Flowers, Wichita’s KSNW-TV, 2/1/05
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6898922
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SPAM LAWS NOT WORKING
CYBERSPACE – According to Microsoft and other sources, in the year since the Can-Spam Act took effect unsolicited junk e-mail on the Internet has increased from 50 percent to 60 percent of all e-mail.
        “We’ve thrown everything but the kitchen sink at this problem,” said Chris Smith, a director for Postini, a company that filters e-mail for corporations. “And yet, all of these efforts have yet to make a significant dent.”
        Some account for the intractability of the problem by citing the fact that spammers increasingly have access to offshore servers for their websites. Also, some bulk e-mailers have teamed up with writers of viruses to hijack the personal computers of millions of unwitting Internet users, creating the “zombie networks” that now serve, according to some specialists, as the de facto circulatory system for spam.
From CIO Today, 2/2/05
http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Losing-the-Spam-Battle&story_id=144.4347360&category=ebiz

UpComing Events

MAR 18-20 – Adult Expo USA, L.A., CA http://www.adultexpousa.com/

MAY 19-21 -- Erotic Expo, Hotel Pennsylvania, N.Y.,NY http://www.eroticexpony.com/

MAR 31-APR 2 – The Phoenix Forum, Tempe, AZ http://www.thephoenixforum.com/

APR 18-19 – Celebrate Free Speech Lobbying Days, Sacramento, CA, 800-476-7813

JUNE 10-12 – Erotica L.A., www.Erotica-LA.com

JULY 11-13 --  ANME, Mandalay Bay, Vas Vegas, NV

JULY 18-20 – AVN Adult Novelty Expo, Pasadena, CA.www.adultnoveltyexpo.com

JULY 26-28,  -- VSDA's Home Entertainment 2005, Bellagio Resort, Las Vegas, NV, http://show.vsdahomeentertainment.com

AUG 5-6 – Internext, Hollywood, FL., www.Internext-expo.com