From general free porn sites that cater to every taste, to niche, premium porn sites that members must pay a subscription fee for, there has been a growing popularity of adult porn sites. They are a lucrative business that, when done right, can help owners rake in the big bucks. But where to start?
Owning a porn site isn’t as easy as just buying a web domain, selecting your content, and uploading it. It’s a business that requires daily legal compliance and best practices to ensure success and avoid breaking the law. The adult industry is a highly regulated industry, from age verification laws to copyright and GDPR protections, both for users and the porn stars themselves.
In this article, Adult Site Broker will walk you through all you need to know about owning an adult porn site. From legal considerations to our best practices, so you can hit the ground running.
One thing to note: since we are not attorneys at Adult Site Broker, please don’t take any of this as legal advice. Consult an attorney to make sure you’re in compliance with all laws in your areas of operation.
Age Verification and Consent
Whether you are buying porn videos and images from porn license companies or working with models directly, having a strict age verification process, where each model must show a verified and in-date ID proving they are 18 or over, will protect you in the long run.
Additionally, ensuring each video includes a model release form confirming consent to appear in the content and its distribution will protect you from future lawsuits.
Content Rights and Copyright
Whether you distribute your content made by pornstars on your payroll or buy the clips from a third-party porn license site, making sure you own the content rights is necessary. Without these licenses, you are illegally pirating the content, which can lead to legal consequences that range from fines to imprisonment or having your site taken down.
One of the main concerns when distributing porn on your site is the issue of pirated content. Such as users uploading content they have stolen from OnlyFans or even revenge porn. If this happens, it is up to you to ensure the content is taken down; otherwise, you may face a DMCA takedown order from the parent site on behalf of the model. Or worse.
Compliance with National and International Laws
Although we are speaking broadly about complying with legal requirements to set up a porn site in this article, it is crucial to be aware of the specific laws in the jurisdiction where your website operates. If you are US-based, you should know the laws of your state, including taxes, age verification, data protection, and business law.
Suppose you plan on distributing your porn site across multiple states or countries. In that case, it is also necessary to know and comply with the laws of every state or country where you operate, as well as regional and international laws, such as EU regulations and human rights laws. By ensuring your website operates legally within each legal jurisdiction in which your website operates, you are less likely to face legal consequences in the long run.
Privacy and Data Protection
With porn sites being more popular than sites like Amazon and Netflix (Pornhub alone gains over 3 million users daily), upholding privacy and data protection for users’ personal details is crucial to being a legitimate business.
Whether you’re complying with the EU’s GDPR rules or the US Privacy laws (which can change state by state), knowing when and how you can use and store users’ data, especially sensitive content like emails, personal details, and financial information, is needed in order not to face legal consequences.
Data protection includes being open and honest about the types of data you collect, storing it securely so you are not sharing it with third parties illegally, and limiting the amount of data you collect.
You should also show how you’re holding yourself accountable for the collection and handling of data. For this, you should have a dedicated privacy policy on your site that explains how you comply with the applicable laws under which you are subject to jurisdiction.
Challenges and Risks
Staying up to date on new legislation can be challenging, as courts try to keep pace with the evolving digital landscape and the rise of adult content creators. Laws are changing to limit and control the industry.
As the owner of a brand-spanking new adult porn site, upholding your legal responsibilities should be a priority. It means that not only is everything above board, but none of your content can lead to fines, takedown notices, or strict criminal charges for distributing child pornography or depicting rape, revenge porn, or human trafficking. Ensure you know all applicable legislation that could affect your business, and regularly check that your content aligns with current laws.
Best Practices
Although it can feel like there is a huge weight on your shoulders when it comes to upholding your legal responsibilities as the owner of an adult porn site, by sticking to these best practices, you can easily stay above board without it impacting your day-to-day operations and causing you stress.
These include staying up to date on legal changes in the countries where you operate, such as the latest age-verification laws in the UK, the EU, and the US. Or any changes to data protection.
Have regular legal consultations to ensure your policies and contracts reflect current legal standards and that all licenses remain up to date.
Finally, implement stringent age verification and consent processes, such as requiring each model to hold a signed model release form and to state on video that they consent to the filming and distribution. Additionally, you can set up a team to monitor and moderate the site regularly for the upload of illegal or copyrighted content, and to take down anything not in compliance with copyright policies.
These are small, everyday things you can do in the operation of your porn site that will take the stress off of you in the long run.
Conclusion
Although it can feel never-ending, the importance of upholding legal diligence throughout the lifespan of your adult porn site can save you in the long run.
By making sure you comply with age verification and consent clauses, ensure your content isn’t stolen, and that you comply with the best GDPR practices both within your country of origin and internationally, you can prove your legitimacy as a site of legal, high-quality porn and save yourself the time, money and headache that comes from facing legal consequences like DMCA takedown notices or even going to court.
Owning a porn site can be a lucrative business, but it should not be a choice for the faint of heart. You not only have to find quality content that brings the masses to your site, but you must uphold the legal responsibilities that come with it in the long run to avoid legal action.
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