Internet Porn War Has Been Won—by the Pornographers

The February 2008 issue of the ABA Journal has an interesting article entitled, The End of the Net Porn Wars.

Remember adult pornography being some serious crime? Forget about it. The government isn’t watching any more, and no one is getting prosecuted.

The latest revenue figures for the industry are $2.84 billion in 2006. Technology moves faster than legislation, the money is gushing in, and few prosecutors want to bother with adult porn.

When Alex Acosta, interim U.S. Attojavascript:void(0)
Publish Postrney for the Southern District of Florida, tried to assign pornography cases to members of his staff, complaints to the Associated Press were made along the lines that the young prosecutors were “stunned” that they should be asked to prosecute adult porn.

Clyde Dewitt, an LA lawyer who represents adult industry producers and performers, “[Prosecutors] have gang activity, fraud, organized crime, drug cartels . . . nobody wants resources redirected to dirty movies. Whoever gets that assignment is the laughing stock of the department.”

All this reminds me of my days as a mom and pop ganja growers’ defense lawyer in Humboldt and Mendocino counties.

In both cases people are making large sums of money engaged in activities that many others do not engage in because they believe these activities are crimes.

In both cases, ungrounded fear of criminal consequences both lowers supply of product or services and drives up prices.