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Miami- from www.xbiz.com – During a day of seminars, a panel of legal experts discussed the key issues affecting adult entertainment business owners today.

“For adult entertainment business owners, 2012 is presenting a variety of legal challenges,” states the event’s promoter.

“From a pending revamp of the 18 USC ‘2257 federal recordkeeping requirement, to the possible migration of the industry away from ‘Porn Valley’ due to new condom-use laws — along with a fast-changing piracy landscape, election year calls for renewed obscenity prosecutions and other factors that keep decision makers on their toes.”

To help XBIZ Summit attendees make sense of it all, a stellar panel of legal experts provided the latest information and insights to keep them running in the black, instead of running from the law.

Featured speakers included attorneys Corey Silverstein of the Law Offices of Corey D. Silverstein, P.C., along with Michael Fattorosi of Fattorosi & Associates, plus Gregory Piccionelli of Piccionelli & Sarno, J D Obenberger of J. D. Obenberger and Associates, and Paul Cambria of Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria LLP, with Diane Duke from the Free Speech Coalition graciously moderating.

Cambria was up first, discussing the current state of obscenity prosecutions, through the lens of the ongoing Isaacs case, which has recently suffered significant setbacks.

“We always thought we could win in L.A.,” Cambria said. “We were wrong.”

Cambria says that cable and satellite distribution has advantages, regarding obscenity charges.

“We get to say to a jury, ‘now the government is trying to come into your living room and regulate what you watch.’”

Cambria also warned session attendees that the federal government, as always, is concerned with extreme content. It is also targeting websites that allow access by underage viewers, authorized or not.

Silverstein touched on the issue of adequate documentation to support your business goals.

“People are making decisions more impulsively these days,” Silverstein stated, using the example of an adult content buyer.

“Just what are you buying?” he asks rhetorically. “Just because someone offers you a CD full of images, doesn’t mean that they have the right to use them or sell them to you. It is now more important than ever before to get everything in writing, including model releases, ‘2257 documents and more.”

“It’s so important now more than ever that you have your paperwork in order,” Silverstein reiterated. “The ‘handshake deal’ is not working any more. Get something in writing.”

Obenberger was next, beginning his presentation with an impassioned speech regarding the negative influence that the 18 U.S.C. ‘2257 regulations have on American rights; and the many positive benefits gained by the proactive litigation sponsored by the Free Speech Coalition.

“I wasn’t optimistic that this would go our way. The courts, however, are seeing that personal privacy issues are indeed important,” Obenberger stated. “I smell blood in the water. This is the most encouraging thing that I’ve seen about 2257.”

Despite recent successful challenges to the law, however, Obenberger warned attendees that there is no injunction and that affected parties should comply with the statute’s requirements.

“You could go to prison for five years,” Obenberger warned, “For taking a picture of your loved one’s fully clothed pubic area.”

New crowd funding initiatives based on a recently enacted law, are opening doors and paving the way for operators seeking new opportunities — a message that Piccionelli was happy to deliver with a smile — saying it was “good news for adult, for a change.”

“Using the enormous reach of the Internet to fund your projects is adult’s next big profit center,” Piccionelli stated, adding that, “While the Securities Act prevents much advertising for investments, Obama enacted changes that open up the arena.”

“This change in the law is among the most significant advancements in e-commerce since the advent of the Internet,” Piccionelli explained. “It provides the opportunity to leverage the good will of American businesses to your benefit.”

As the final panelist to speak on this panel, Fattorosi chose the most recent topics to focus on the use of condoms and film permits, even for married couples shooting amateur sex tapes in their home.

“In L.A., you’ll need to wear a condom, including if you’re a married couple,” Fattorosi stated, then explained that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is behind this stringent pro-condom lobby.

“AHF isn’t going away,” Fattorosi stated. “It hopes that what happens in adult transfers into what happens in the bedroom.”

On the subject of the filming permits now required in L.A., even for married couples performing webcam shows, Fattorosi offered one sage bit of advice: don’t let performers or others Tweet shoot locations and times, as they can be combined with mobile geo-location data to stage raids, as was recently done in Los Angeles.

Lacking a film permit is a misdemeanor criminal offense.

The legal session’s best bit of advice, however, came from FSC’s Diane Duke, who referencing the previous story opined that, “There are people in this industry calling the police on other people in this industry — don’t do that!”

At the end of a busy and informative day, these were truly words to cherish.