The FBI announced today that Ira Isaacs has been sentenced to 48 months in prison “for engaging in the business of producing and selling obscene videos and distributing obscene videos.” Alongside the prison sentence, Isaacs was also sentenced to three years of supervised released and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.

Evidence presented at trial established that beginning in or about 1999 and continuing until at least 2011, Isaacs, doing business under the name LA. Media, operated numerous websites, through which he advertised and sold obscene videos that he acquired from other people. The obscene videos included a video approximately two hours in length of a female engaging in sex acts involving human bodily waste and a video one hour and 37 minutes in length of a female engaged in sex acts with animals. The evidence presented at trial also established that in approximately 2004, Isaacs began operating under the name Stolen Car Films and made obscene videos in which he instructed women to engage in sexual activity involving human bodily waste.

As is the case with all obscenity trials, the poor jurors had to sit through Isaac’s films to determine if they had any artistic value whatsoever. Then they had to apply a three-step test that was first laid out by at the time Chief Justice Warren Burger in 1973′s Miller v. California:

The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

If Isaacs could prove that his films fell under one of these three exemptions, he would be found innocent. The jury obviously felt that his films lacked any kind of artistic value, and the obscenity conviction was upheld.

It’s increasingly rare to see convictions for obscenity in our nation. I’ll leave what that means for the moral fiber of our citizens up to you. That being said, you probably shouldn’t start a career in directing scat porn anytime soon.

[h/t: LA Weekly]

TorrentFreak reports that Comcast has requested that the court quash the subpoenas being used in an Illinois District Court. The subpoenas, like others before it, are demanding that Comcast identify the people behind the IP addresses that have been found downloading content over BitTorrent. The reasoning behind the quash respect is sound which Comcast’s lawyers lay out in easy to understand terms.

They argue that the subpoenas are “overbroad and exceed the boundaries of fair discovery.” As for the other argument, let’s have Comcast speak for themselves:

Third, plaintiffs should not be allowed to profit from unfair litigation tactics whereby they use the offices of the Court as an inexpensive means to gain Doe defendants’ personal information and coerce “settlements” from them. It is evident in these cases – and the multitude of cases filed by plaintiffs and other pornographers represented by their counsel – that plaintiffs have no interest in actually litigating their claims against the Doe defendants, but simply seek to use the Court and its subpoena powers to obtain sufficient information to shake down the Doe defendants. The Federal Rules require the Court to deny discovery “to protect a party or personfrom annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense.” This case requires such relief.

Interestingly enough, AF Holdings accuses the defendants of participating in a BitTorrent “swarm.” The idea here is that everybody who downloaded a movie from AF Holdings did so together with the intention of turning around and seeding it as soon as they had finished downloading it. It seems that pornography studios don’t understand the Internet and how BitTorrent works, but Comcast apparently does.

The plaintiffs allege in their complaints that the Doe defendants “took concerted action” and “were collectively engaged in the conspiracy even if they were not engaged in the swarm contemporaneously.” However, courts have found that “[m]uch of the BitTorrent protocol operates invisibly to the user after downloading a file, subsequent uploading takes place automatically if the user fails to close the program.” Simply alleging the use of BitTorrent technology … does not comport with the requirements under Rule 20(a) for permissive joinder.”

If accepted by the court, it would help shape the definition of what kind of BitTorrent activity is actually considering piracy. A lot of people don’t find the act of downloading content illegally over BitTorrent to actually be piracy, but the act of uploading the content to share is. The problem comes from the fact that many BitTorrent clients automatically set the user to share the content over BitTorrent upon finishing the download.

In short, this case is absolutely fascinating. Unlike Verizon who just refused the subpoena, Comcast is making a great argument for the rights of their subscribers and BitTorrent users everywhere. We’ll keep watching the case to see what verdict the judge returns. Either way, it’s encouraging to see ISPs fighting for consumer rights. Now if they could just get rid of data caps.

Comcast Reply

That’s right: Octomom is now ready and willing to take it all off under the watchful eyes of the club’s patrons, according to WPEC-TV. From what I understand, management at T’s Lounge has been quite anxious to get the mother of 14 on their stage. Tireless persistence and a desire to exploit infamy, it would seem, has finally paid off. Whether or not anyone shows up for the performance, of course, remains to be seen.

“I wouldn’t say she’s going to be experienced when it comes to the polework, but I’ll say she’s going to be entertaining,” the club’s manager explained.

Todd Swearington, the club’s DJ, doesn’t seem to be too worried about the Octomom’s ability to generate a little excitement amongst patrons. “I see her being a big draw. As long as she keeps it fun and happy and has a little bit of good times up there she’s going to draw in a lot of people.”

As strange as this whole scenario may sound, this isn’t Suleman’s first foray into the wacky world of adult entertainment. According to the Huffington Post, Nadya just wrapped up her first pornographic film, a motion picture which finds the much-maligned mom exploring the world of self-pleasure while drenched in Spaghetti-O’s.

The Octomom explains, “My first shoot was amazing. Such a learning experience for me in so many ways. I don’t think I could have asked for a better crew to work with. They were so patient and willing to teach me. I owe a lot to Wicked Pictures contract star Jessica Drake; she opened my eyes to a whole different world of self-pleasure that I could have never imagined. They made me look so glamorous, and for the first time in my life, I felt beautiful and sexy. I’m very excited for it to come out!”

Stripping? Pornography? A lot of people believe this sort of behavior isn’t fit for a mother, many of whom have expressed their opinions on Twitter. Have a look at some of the outraged posts below. If you’re in the area and curious about what Suleman has to offer the club’s clientele, she’ll be on-stage between July 11th and July 14th.

Meet 34 year-old Robert Dale Esparza Jr., whose son attended Gateway Pointe Elementary School. At some point during the year, the boy had his iPod confiscated while on school property. Despite claims to the contrary, Assistant Principal Frank Hendricsen says he didn’t take the item in question, which, to this date, has never been recovered. Hostility and vengeance soon took root.

Angry that someone would steal his boy’s expensive gadget, let alone the assistant principal of the school he attends, Esparza decided to strike back against the alleged thief. Instead of taking his case to the school board or, better yet, the local authorities, the father set out to drag Hendricsen’s name through the virtual mud.

In May of 2011, Esparza created a fake profile on a certain pornographic website under Frank Hendricsen’s name. Using photos posted to the school’s official website, as well as random images of naked individuals pulled from various naughty websites, Esparza began to flesh out the fake account. He even went as far as to chat with individuals on the porn site in hopes that someone might stumble across them while searching for the principal on Google. By the time everything was said and done, nearly 20 pornographic videos were attached to the bogus profile.

The account was discovered once Hendricsen applied for a job at an Arizona school. After being offered the position, a parent did a quick search for the poor guy online, only to stumble across the porn site in the process. As a result, the offer was withdrawn, and Hendricsen was humiliated.

Police were contacted, IPs were traced, and the trail eventually led back to Esparza’s work computer. The offending profile has since been removed from the site.

“I think the police did a good job at their investigation,” Superintendent Denise Birdwell explained. “There are other ways to handle things when parents are disgruntled. We’re here to speak to parents when they feel their children have not been dealt with appropriately.”

Esparza was convicted of computer fraud and taking the identity of another. Sentencing is currently scheduled for June 5th.

Some of those who moderate this sort of content are oDesk employees that Facebook employs for a dollar an hour all over the world. It is evident that particular photos of the child might’ve prompted some deletions. At last count, moderators remove roughly 4 billion articles of content posted by Facebook’s 900+ million users, most falling under categories of pornography, racism and violence. After the photos of Grayson were deleted, Heather re-uploaded them, which led to a temporary ban form the site. Heather made a statement to KCTV in Kansas City, “They allow people to post almost nude pictures of themselves, profanity, and so many other things but I’m not allowed to share a picture of God’s beautiful creation.”

Facebook responded, stating, “Upon investigation, we concluded the photo does not violate our guidelines and was removed in error.” The Social Network added, alluding to its moderation hovels it bankrolls worldwide, “a billion people share more than 300 million photos a day. Our policies are enforced by a team of reviewers in several offices across the globe – This team looks at hundreds of thousands of reports every week, and as you might expect, occasionally, we make a mistake and remove a piece of content we shouldn’t have. We extend our deepest condolences to the family and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.”

What Facebook likely meant to say is that sometimes porno, racism and violence makes it past the eyes of those workers making $1 an hour, and that said workers likely didn’t know what to do with some of the possibly graphic photos in question. Below is a tribute:

Vito Stellino, a sportswriter for the Florida Times-Union, was attempting to tweet an article penned by Jim Steeg to all of the boys and girls on his Twitter page. Unfortunately for Stellino, the post contained a shortened link to an xHamster video instead of a piece about the rebirth of the USFL. To make matters worse, nobody caught the mistake for nearly 40 minutes, which means quite a few individuals got an impromptu education in what really goes on backstage at concerts.

Not surprisingly, the tweet in question has already been deleted. Now, it’s unclear if the guy was at home on a personal computer or mucking around on questionable sites when he should have been getting some work done. Stellino has yet to respond to the snafu, which, of course, was probably someone else’s fault. It always is in these cases.

As you can imagine, Twitter reactions to the story have been pretty snazzy. A small grouping of these responses have been assembled below.

So there is a bit of controvery brewing in our neighbor to the north. They decided to release redesigned bills, and the one that came out of the twenty has some people freaking out. The new $20 has a picture of Queen Elizabeth II on the front.

The back of the bill features a picture of the Vimy Memorial in France that commemorates the Battle of Vimy Ridge and honors those who fought and died in the WWI in France and have no known grave. But a focus group that was put together found that some of them thought the bill was portreying the World Trade Center that was destroyed on September 11th, 2001.

To top it off, the Vimy Memorial features 2 statues of ladies that are topless. They are known as “the chorus”, ladies that are singing to respect the dead. Here is a close up of the Vimy Memorial for you to decide if it is inappropriate. Keep in mind that some “elderly citizens” of Canada have called it pornographic. Obviously they are talking about a different kind of porn than what i’m use to:

The $20 notes will go into circulation in November. The remaining bank notes in the series, the $5 and $10, will be issued by the end of 2013.

Here is the official launch video from the bank about the $20:

That being the case, various entertainment companies have spent a lot of time and money on lawsuits against those who download their content illegally. You’ve probably heard the stories about the RIAA or the MPAA suing little old ladies or kids or large groups of people all at once for the crime of downloading copyrighted material. There have been dozens of such suits over the last few years.

Interestingly, one wing of the entertainment industry that is particularly protective of its intellectual property is the adult film industry. The porn industry has long been a driving force in the adoptions of new kinds of technology. Prefer VHS over Betamax? So did the porn industry, and that’s why VHS won. Porn sites also pioneered online payment systems and certain features of embedded video that have only just recently made their way to more mainstream video sites like YouTube. They’re even ahead of the game in terms of website security. Yet, when it comes to file-sharing technology, the porn industry is every bit as sue-happy as the MPAA.

Now it looks like one New York judge has had enough. Earlier this week, New York Magistrate Judge Gary R. Brown submitted an Order & Report & Recommendation concerning four lawsuits filed by three porn studios against a total of 63 defendants. Judge Brown savagely critiqued some of the legal maneuvering done in these kinds of suits, and even proposed banning some of tricks entertainment companies use when suing people.

In the 26-page document, which is embedded below, Judge Brown called the cases “part of a nationwide blizzard” of lawsuits brought by “purveyors of pornographic films” over copyright infringement. He decried many of the “abusive litigation tactics the plaintiffs use in the cases – such as filing a single suit against multiple defendants in order to avoid the $350-per suit filing fee and attempting to extort settlements out of people who may be innocent.

The whole document is worth a read, but here are some of the highlights. On the fact that the plaintiffs are treating clearly individual instances of infringement as a single case:

The factual defenses presented are vastly different and highly individualized. One movant – John Doe #16 – has stated that he was at work at the time of the alleged download. John Doe #2 states under oath that he closed the subject Earthlink account, which had been compromised by a hacker, before the alleged download. … John Doe #29′s counsel represents that his client is an octogenarian with neither the wherewithal nor the interest in using BitTorrent to download Gang Bang Virgins. John Doe #10 represents that downloading a copy of this film is contrary to her “religious, moral, ethical and personal views.” … Equally important, she notes that her wireless router was not secured and she lives near a municipal parking lot, thus providing access to countless neighbors and passersby.

On the fact that the person who pays for internet service may not be the guilty party:

The assumption that the person who pays for Internet access at a given location is the same individual who allegedly downloaded a single sexually explicit film is tenuous, and one that has grown more so over time. An IP address provides only the location at which one of any number of computer devices may be deployed, much like a telephone number can be used for any number of telephones.

In conclusion, Judge Brown recommended that one of the suits be dismissed in its entirety, and that the other three be restricted only to a single defendant – the defendant listed as “John Doe 1″ in each case. He further recommended that plaintiffs be ordered to file any future actions as individual complaints, rather than mass suits against multiple defendants, “so as to avoid unfair outcomes, improper joinder and waste of judicial resources, and to ensure the proper payment of filing fees.”

K-Beech – Order & Report & Recommendation (Ordered 5-1-12)

[H/T: Fight Copyright Trolls]

The question is, will the Egyptian government know it when it sees it? An Egyptian court has ruled to ban internet pornography in the country. The ruling was confirmed by the Egyptian Ministry of Telecommunications and reported by Egypt Today.

The news brings rising concerns about how the Egyptian government will enforce the new law, and who will decide where the line is drawn when it comes to porn.

The issue has been brought up in America thanks to Republican Presidential hopeful, Rick Santorum, who has blamed pornography on everything from divorce to homosexuality. His announcement that he wishes to ban pornography in the United States has caused an uproar over civil liberties and even prompted a campaign on Twitter, #SaveThePorn.

In Egypt or America, where does one draw the line. Will suggestive images or video be next? What kind of punishment can you legitimately impose on people who continue to watch porn? Prison? Will the person be branded as a sex offender? What’s Next? What other civil liberties will a government be bold enough to restrict? A porn ban is certainly a slippery slope.

A ruling was made in Egyptian Court back in 2009, but never enforced. But this is the first time the ruling has been upheld by the Ministry of Telecommunications and Egyptian Parliament. This one has a better chance of sticking.

Justice Antonin Scalia, in his majority opinion, argued that video games must be protected as free speech because of their status as art. This put them alongside things like books, film and music in the court’s eyes.

Another part of Scalia’s argument was that there was no precedent for the restriction of violence to children in the same way that there was a restriction to sexual imagery like pornography. The ruling basically said that it is OK to sell violent imagery to kids, but not sexual imagery.

This distinction has people talking, mostly about the hypocrisy of such a dichotomy. Why, in this country, do we demonize sex much more than violence? Are we a violent culture? Are our sexual sensibilities warped because of our puritanical beginnings? All of these questions were at the heart of Jon Stewart’s take on the SCOTUS ruling on last night’s episode of The Daily Show.

Talking over footage from a recent Mortal Kombat game where a woman is pulled apart at the groin and disemboweled, Stewart points out the strange nature of the ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court determined seven to two that the State of California has no interest in restricting the sale of this game to children, but, if while being disemboweled this woman were to suffer perhaps a nip-slip – regulate away.

Stewart also debuts a new game for Wii that looks promising. Check it out below –

It seems as though people both agree and disagree with Stewart’s take on the SCOTUS decision. Check out these responses from Twitter –

So what do you guys think about the SCOTUS ruling? Is it hypocritical to allow our kids violence but shield them from anything sexual? Let us know how you feel.