Buying R18 videos by post / phone / internet

[lovingboth]

You're not supposed to sell R18 videos (porn, basically) in any other way apart from a licensed sex shop. A web browse or a look through the pages of various magazines, including the free gay press, will reveal that that's a condition that's not been listened to much.

So last year, when two firms were convicted of breaches of the Video Recordings Act 1984 for selling by post, they appealed. It's taken a while for the judgement to be published - the appeal hearing was three months ago, but the judgement only came through yesterday.

But the verdict is clear: for UK suppliers, even sending a catalogue of R18 videos is enough to get you fined - the act of offering to supply is just as naughty as actually doing so.

Similarly, loaning a copy of your R18 video to someone else is covered: "'Supply' means supply in any manner, whether or not for reward, and, therefore, includes supply by way of sale, letting on hire, exchange or loan..."

One of the arguments is that this will mean the business goes to suppliers in the Netherlands and elsewhere, and unless HM Customs and Revenue change their policies, this will undoubtedly happen. I'm tempted to try ringing our local sex shop (a branch of CloneZone) and seeing if they'll post me something.

And there are two firms who no doubt wish they'd checked the address they were being asked to send videos to against a list of trading standards offices...

Comments

[skibbley.livejournal.com]

... and sex shop licenses are unavailable or prohibitively expensive in some parts of the country so you would need to travel to get your porn. Expensive licenses also put commercial pressure on sex shops to sell the most mass market items at maximum price rather than focusing on higher quality items or minority tastes.

[lovingboth]

Yep. Much the same with sex toys too.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

I find the thing about lending stuff particularly interesting because they're effectively saying you have a more limited license for that material than on other copyrighted material. Also how do you dispose of them? I suppose you could throw them in the bin, but if someone else then got hold of them could you be done? Are you supposed to shred them or burn them or bury them in the back yard? And what *should* I do with those Private videos anyway...

[lovingboth]

Interestingly, porn seemingly doesn't get any copyright protection in the UK! There's case law going back to 1916 saying the courts can (and should) refuse to intervene where the work was of a grossly immoral tendency (Glyn v Weston Feature Film Co [1916] 1 Ch. 261).

For mass market porn, I always quite liked Private, so I'll dispose of them for you...

[inquis.livejournal.com]

Mew? Not supposed to share? *blink* Even if you want to share porn with a policeman? ;o)

[scopo.livejournal.com]

Here in (ever-less-liberal) Australia the porn laws are quite messy - technically, all material needs to be submitted for classification: 'R' is Restricted, 18+, but can be sold in any State (or screened publicly if it is a cinema release like '9 Songs'); but 'explicit sex' gets an 'X' rating (or is refused classification altogether.

Legally, X-rated ('non-violent erotica') material can only be sold in two places: the ACT (ie, Canberra, the nation's capital) and the Northern Territory (ie Darwin). Not surprisingly, a flourishing mail-order/catalogue business sprang up in these two places in the 80s and continues today - although somewhat diminished by the Net, of course.

In practice, all manner of X-rated and clearly un-rated material is available very publicly in sex shops, certainly in Sydney and Melbourne, with virtually no regulation or prosecutions that I know of.

[lovingboth]

We only have the R18 classification because some producers took the censors to court.