On Jan. 22, 2007, Joe Francis, founder of the popular -- and profitable-- "Girls Gone Wild" series, was sentenced by a Los Angeles federaldistrict court to two years of probation, 200 hours of communityservice, and a $500,000 fine based on his guilty plea to two felonycounts for violating federal record-keeping requirements for sexuallyexplicit material. Francis' company, Mantra Films, was also ordered topay $1.6 million by a Florida federal judge in an earlier caseinvolving 10 felony counts of violating the same law.
These sentences represent the first time that federalprosecutors have sought to enforce the record-keeping requirements. Forwell over a decade, the law, codified at 18 U.S.C. §2257, has requiredproducers of certain sexually explicit material to gather and maintainrecords concerning the age and identity of individuals performing inthose scenes, and to make those records available for inspection by lawenforcement officials. Violations of the law are subject to criminalsanctions, including imprisonment and fines.
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On July 27, 2006, President Bush signed the Adam Walsh Child Protectionand Safety Act of 2006, a portion of which expands the range ofmaterials that may be subject to the record-keeping requirements andtheir corresponding criminal penalties. As a result, the law threatensto reach far beyond adult entertainment to popular movies andtelevision, and other forms of visual art. The act also includes a"safe harbor" designed to offer protection for mainstream media, butthe contours of that safe harbor have yet to be clearly established.
