Rob Stone vs the BBFC

[Jacques]

[aj-strictlybroadband]

Ah - those fuckers! Why on earth would they bother doing that? And making him wait so long to get the movie classified... bang out of order.

On the positive side - it's brilliant that most of the material was passed in the end, and I can't wait to see the movie...the trailer looks wicked.

[Benny Brando]

The threat by the Obscene Publications is maybe more than just a threat as they have recently prosecuted someone for having (affiliate) links on a website and they ended up in jail for it.

Another problem for Rob is that he seems to be looking to stretch the boundaries of the censorship laws all the time as he did with Xperimental. It gets great publicity and therefore probably generates great sales and maybe Rob sees himself as a porn version of Stanley Kubrick and Oliver Stone with A Clockwork Orange and Natural Born Killers and that's fair enough as there's always somebody looking to push the boundaries as time and society goes on. But the grief from the authorities who don't take too kindly to this is bound to come with the territory.

I suppose if you want the publicity and sales of doing something risque or ground breaking then you should expect the hassle that is likely to come your way as a result.

[AngieRiley]

Benny Brando wrote:

> The threat by the Obscene Publications is maybe more than just
> a threat as they have recently prosecuted someone for having
> (affiliate) links on a website and they ended up in jail for
> it.


There's a Hell of alot "missing" from that Story, no matter where you read about it, you'll only get to read Less than Half the Truth "as Told by Oneside".

[strictlybroadband]

It's been the situation for ages that the police have the power to prosecute webmasters for content they consider could be prosecuted under the OPA. We have to reject content fairly regularly, especially from mainland Europe.

Not only can they prosecute webmasters: they can also prosecute affiliates linking to "obscene" web sites. So if you're linking to foreign-run porn sites, the webmaster can't be prosecuted for publishing UK-obscene material; but you can. So you need to make sure you know what's on a site before you promote it.

[Phil mCc]

I have spoke with the two plod involved and the obscene PS... I have no fears. They guy was proscuted for selling shitting videos, they did 2 test orders from his web-site which may we have been an affiliate site, the paid for them and they got delivered...bang to rights seems fair. They have also said they are looking to arrest anyone when entering the uk who runs these sites from abroad. They gave me a rough brief on do's and don'ts and I am arranging a meet with them in 2 weeks time. They are interested because my network will be the biggest independant broadcast set-up in less than 2 months and I have already agreed more channels than SKY.

The outcome I will advise,

Phil McC