All right, folks! I've been lurking here a while--minor interest in law stemming from a two-year degree in Paralegal--but haven't had anything to either add or posit yet. Now, I guess I do~! So, ah, hi.
Before I start, a few things to specify:
1) The material I'm asking about would originate in New York State, but be transmitted over the internet (I'm not sure where the host would be off-hand).
2) I realize a large difficulty with this sort of thing tends to be finding hosts and advertisers, rather than specific legal issue. I haven't looked into advertising yet, but I believe I know of a sexual-content friendly host.
3) I have no intent of posting anything pornographic to Eccie, 'cause I like them and want to follow the forum guidelines.
With that said:
I'm an artist. I've long been interested in branching into pornographic images, 'cause... well, dude, it sounds like fun. A lot has been said here about the difficulties in dealing with pornographic photos and film.
However, what difficulties can someone drawing pictures that are not supposed to depict someone in particular look forward to?
Is the answer different if they ARE supposed to depict someone particular?
And finally, let's say that I have a personal, non-published pornographic photo of myself and my husband engaging in sexual intercourse. If I trace over this in a photo-editing program (deleting the photographic layer before I'm finished) *explicitly* and for *no other reason* than to dodge the modelling regulations, is *that* going to cause a problem? (I'm not nearly good enough for it to come across as photorealistic. ...also, I'm not generally a fan of tracing, but come on, work with me here. :P)
I mean, from what I'm looking at, it seems likely that what I'm thinking of would fail the Miller Test, given that it's not even TRYING to pretend not to be prurient (and crossing ALL the interstate boundaries to boot!)--but it also kind of seems like folks aren't going out of their way to chase obscenity charges. (There's the fellow who got his manga confiscated by USPS or customs or something a few years back and regretted it--but it kind of seemed like that wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for the physical nature of the goods, the fact that it portrayed young people, and the fact that it was crossing international boundaries.)
But I haven't actually tried to function in the real world, really, so I'm not sure if there's a ton I'm missing.
So! Legal folks. What do you think I can look forward to?