Mapping out undiscovered territory is damned fun. We’re doing that you know. We -as a civilization- ran out of uncharted land a long time ago. The Internet to many is a world on it’s own. It’s a virgin wilderness with little regulation and no real owner. The Internet dissolves the barriers of culture, country, sex and skin color. The World Wide Web is a brave new world and some of us are braver than we ought to be.

The fact is the laws haven’t caught up with the web. The public Internet grew faster than anyone could project. If lawmakers could have put regulations in place beforehand, they would have. They would have ordained what we saw, what we could search for and what we could purchase.

"The Internet to many is a world on it's own. It's a virgin wilderness with little regulation and no real owner."

Now the net is a 900-pound gorilla in the hands of the masses. Lawmakers are trying desperately to figure out how real-life precedents apply to the untraveled Information Highway. They can’t just make up new laws for the Internet that don’t exist in the brick and mortar world.

What you need to keep in mind is that they will catch up eventually. The Internet is mostly unregulated right now but it won’t be forever. This free-for-all can’t last and you should be prepared.

Intelligence agencies are already using surveillance/data-mining software/hardware in order to translate arbitrary communications and e-commerce transactions into possible security threats. China has shut down Internet cafes. The state of Utah has a Porn Czar that monitors the web. VISA shut out a lot of individuals and non-US residents with their new third-party regulations. The days of working in the shadows are just about over for us as an industry. When the light shines on you, what will we see?

You can hope and dream that someday the world will be free of the bonds of sexual oppression. You can envision a utopia where porn is no longer scorned, where you can step out of the shadows and take your place among respectable society.

Society’s attitude towards sexual entertainment is changing and the web is helping to demystify it. Just the same, it’s not changing quick enough to forget thousands of years of shame-based sexual indoctrination. Our field is an easy target for puritanical lawmakers.

Terrorism might be in the front of everyone’s mind but the scourge of online smut will rise to the forefront as soon as the hostility dies down. We have been compared to terrorists and drug dealers and the Cyber Security Enhancement Act permits surveillance of us as it does any criminals. We as a race may get past medieval sexual mores but this writer predicts the fight will get worse before it gets better.

What can an adult webmaster do to keep the porn cops from beating down their door?

The first thing you need to do is learn the laws concerning obscenity where you live. Learn whether or not you can operate a business from your home in your district. Understand fully the legal implications you face if you hire and shoot models for content.

Are you considered to be a panderer if you shoot penetration scenes and pay actors to have sex? Are you forbidden to sell anything stronger than softcore content in your town or country? Are there special taxes that apply to adult business transactions that your are not aware of?

The obscenity laws where you live affect you the most. Those are the laws you can’t hide from. Familiarizing yourself with them will reveal your vulnerability to actual prosecution.

The second step is to consult a lawyer. Everyone bashes lawyers until they need one. The smart businessperson obtains counsel to prevent need. It’s best to find a lawyer who specializes in adult Internet-related cases but those are few are far between.

Many times our cases involve free speech issues so lawyers who have experience with civil-rights might be an alternative. Others will turn to professionals who practice business law. Whoever you choose, make sure you choose carefully. After all, lawyers are the agents of the lawmakers.

Your third solution is to look for all the articles and lessons and tutorials you can find about legal issues and the adult Internet. Fortunately, Cozy has a superior collection of just such reading material. At Cozy Frog, we have a whole Legal Help section in our Cozy Guides that contain several articles about the law, porn and you.

We also have a Legal Services page among our renowned Frog Listings.

At Cozy Academy we have a classroom called Legal Industry Primer.

You can even come to the Cozy Campus Message Board and ask your legal question in either our Newbie forum or our Cozy Discussion forum. The Cozy staff and members will do our best to answer your queries and point you to reliable solutions.

Someday this cyber wilderness will get sheriffs and marshals and laws. The days of unchecked behavior amongst our kind will end. We will all have to reign in our roughshod ways or they’ll do it for us. An effort on your part to make sure you are operating legally on your end will protect you for years to come.