Ofcom Discussion

(08-02-2011 21:59 )Gold Plated Pension Wrote:  

(08-02-2011 02:42 )Gold Plated Pension Wrote:  

(07-02-2011 03:07 )vostok 1 Wrote:  

(07-02-2011 02:39 )Scottishbloke Wrote:  I believe in time we will see a more gradual move towards proper R18 material as it is achievable. Other countries in Europe have questioned the censorship rules and have won. To defeat Ofcom you have to take a stand and exhaust every revenue that is possible, which none of them have so far done.

There is a gentleman's agreement between Benelux Ltd (Playboy/Adult channel) and Northern and Shell (TVX). Both Broadcasters have agreed to stick to a fair game and not show hardcore. Northern and Shell (TVX) did play dirty and briefly show hardcore to entice new subscribers, Benelux Ltd cried to Ofcom: a record fine.
The biggest critic of allowing Hardcore subscription TV? Not the religious nutters or the Mary Whitehouse brigade or Ofcom but the AITA, the trade body that represents licensed sex shops. They were the ones who publicly claimed that encrypted/subscription based R18 on TV is harmful, yet a hardcore DVD from a sex shop is safe.

The backbone of the response by the Adult Industry Trades Association back in 2004 to Ofc@m was about inadequate pin protection and that broadcasters would have an unfair advantage both financially and legislatively over licensed sex shops.

The full response can be found here

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binarie...s/aita.pdf

..................

The Video Recordings Act (1984) restricts the sale of R18 movies from licensed sex shops ONLY and the transaction must take place, face to face, in store to ensure the customer is over the age of 18.

The same companies that the AITA represent and on whose behalf they made the above statement have also been penalised by trading standards officers for supplying R18 content through the post in breach of the VRA and also advertising mail order R18 and then supplying 18 rated content. They currently supply mail order (R18 equivalent or stronger) content through a third party from overseas (Customs and Excise prevailing) even though the financial transaction is carried out in the UK. So yeh they realy have the protection of the under 18's to heart. Get real Ofc@m.


If this organisation, through their consultation representation swayed Ofc@m in maintaining their stance on the prohibition of R18 material on encrypted TV without a shred of stated evidence then Ofc@m seriously need to listen and act upon the own consultants recommendations.

http://www.babeshows.co.uk/showthread.ph...56&page=48


It's time for change.

There have been many prosecutions, more than 1600, since the Video Rexording Act 1984 was placed on the statute list by Leon Brittan, Conservative Home Secretary. Unfortunately in his haste to rush through this Act to address the so called 'video nasty' certain provisions of the 1984 Act should have been notified in draft to the European Commission.

This notification should have happened before that Act was passed in 1984 in accordance with the Council Directive 83/189/EEC of 29th March 1983 (the technical standards directive).

Failure to notify provisions in accordance with the Technical Standards Directive had the effect that the provisions were not enforceable against individuals.

The reason why the act should have been referred to the European commission is because it constitutes a restraint on intra-EU trade, in that it entails that videos or DVDs which have not been certificated by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) cannot legally be imported from another EU country and then sold or rented in the UK.

So 1600+ successful prosecutions against individuals using an Act that was not legally enforceable, the majority of these carried out in Central London.

The effect of this government error not only allowed persons to sell unclassified DVD’s etc to persons of any age but any proposed prosecution or ongoing enforcement against premises concerning the sale of unclassified DVD’s had to be withdrawn and stopped.

I contacted a Senior Trading Standards Officer from Westminster City Council today regarding this situation and he confirmed that any summons served or ongoing actions against individuals had to be withdrawn.

All raids on unlicensed premises to confiscate unclassified DVD’s also had to be stopped as officer authorisations under the Act were no longer valid until legal opinion was obtained to get a work around this government error.

The work around was prior to a raid the team had to obtain a premises specific entry warrant from a magistrate under part 2, schedule 3 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982. This allowed entry and inspection power to team members into premises and any unclassified DVD’s on the premises could be confiscated but it did not permit them forced entry, so if the door was locked but the premises was operating they could not force their way in, or if the stock room door was locked they could not force entry to check stock for unclassified DVD's.

The error was finally realised in September 2009 when the government was consulting on the classification of computer games under the Digital Economy Act, some 25 years later.

This matter has now been rectified with the introduction of the Video Recording Act 2010 which received royal accent in January 2010 and repealed and revived the VRA 1984 AND has been notified to the European Commission.

So lesson learned that Authorities and the Government are not always acting within the law, and this can be said of Ofc@m when introducing new guidance that is in conflict with existing codes especially hours in addition to the watershed hour without proper consultation or reflecting public opinion.

Hopefully a broadcaster will grow some balls and confront Ofc@m face to face.

Well said. It's as if the decision makers at ofcon see this loophole, and are able to sneak around it, knowing that most people won't understand the laws or question what they are doing. This is what happens when there are too many laws, and too many acts and too much complicated nonsense. America is like this too, but it always sounds more ridiculous in the U.K because of the old fashioned wording that is used, especially when it comes to the babe channels. If things were simpler, ofcon would not be able to so easily make these decisions without repurcussions. Too many people in the world, too many people to employ, and too many reasons to complicate things in order to create more jobs.

(08-02-2011 02:42 )Gold Plated Pension Wrote:  The backbone of the response by the Adult Industry Trades Association back in 2004 to Ofc@m was about inadequate pin protection and that broadcasters would have an unfair advantage both financially and legislatively over licensed sex shops. ...

The sex shop owners real point was a plea for restraint of trade to protect their own sales, and should have been treated as disgraceful self interest. The bit about inadequate pin protection was just a fig leaf to give the first part respectability.

Good point about convictions for illegal postal sales of R18 DVDs. It would have been interesting to see if this trade body consisted of small independents or companies also operating babe channels. Unfortuantely the AITA seem cagy about their membership. Surprising that sex shop owners should want to hide behind the blacked out windows of anonymity.

eric_yt Wrote:Apologies if the link did not work. I have changed the privacy settings and tested it. The doc analyses various aspects of Ofcom operations and waste. It is in Word format but can be viewed direct from the Google Docs site in a browser.

Revised link: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=e...NmZk&hl=en

eric_yt Wrote:You may find this document interesting. Feel free to use it as you will. This has been sent to the DCMS for action.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=e...y=CJqv6ZsP

PS. Do not reply to my account as any reply will not be read. If required post in the forum.

you may want to tell others that it only work's in internet explorer and google chrome.

i already figured it out and read it/ well most of it this morning...
theres a slight problem in that it sinks into ofcom bashing when what it should be doing is getting to the point without any bias.

anyway it isnt a bad read with some valid points but could do with some of the bias being removed if you want it to be taken seriously.

(08-02-2011 19:45 )RCTV Wrote:  

(08-02-2011 01:07 )HenryF Wrote:  Yes, but: A it was shit; B no way was it equivalent to R18; C since when has implied urination been R18.
It is as nonsensical as the ruling against Asian Babes, which claimed skin toned underwear when seen from a distance left a complainant sure that the model was not wearing underwear.

There is plenty of material on the net. If these service providers are not prepared to grow a pair and work in the interest of their customer base, they should be shunned and deprived of revenue.

And just to emphasize the hypocrisy of this investigation, I've just watched Bear Grylls pull two hand-fulls of camel shit from a dead animal and squeeze the juice into his mouth, before promptly removing his tea shirt and pissing on it - definitely not implied.

who are you to judge what the content is? that's ofcoms job, they know what is and what isn't, they've broken the rules, they should pay for it, simple as. it don't matter if it was shit it was R18 material

RCTV, I declare you an official, Ofcom arse-licking troll. I propose every post you submit to the Ofcom threads from now on is ignored completely.

Just to clarify this matter Stan it was RCTV and not Henry F who wrote this quote:

"who are you to judge what the content is? that's ofcoms job, they know what is and what isn't, they've broken the rules, they should pay for it, simple as. it don't matter if it was shit it was R18 material"

This is just in case anybody get's the 2 posts mixed up as I certainly had to check back through the posts to see who wrote what.

(10-02-2011 16:53 )Scottishbloke Wrote:  Just to clarify this matter Stan it was RCTV and not Henry F who wrote this quote:

"who are you to judge what the content is? that's ofcoms job, they know what is and what isn't, they've broken the rules, they should pay for it, simple as. it don't matter if it was shit it was R18 material"

This is just in case anybody get's the 2 posts mixed up as I certainly had to check back through the posts to see who wrote what.

Well said Scottishbloke,but we all should know RCTV by now,and some of the comments she/he makes.
Don`t think myself she/he will never change,after all this is an open forum,so people just say what they want to.
Pity she/he doesn`t realise that everyone is laughing about her/him

But in all fairness with this being an open forum I think RCTV is more or less entitled to her say so whether or not we all agree with her or not. I have a lot of respect for Stan The Man's viewpoint on all of this but this is an open forum and at least RCTV has the balls to come onto this forum and put her view's across unlike a lot of other pro ofcom supporters and as long as RCTV keeps posting maybe us on this forum can maybe convert her into agreeing with our points of view more in the future. I for one do not have anything personally against RCTV and am more than willing to read her point of view's whether or not I agree with any of them or not. Let's remember we all live in a democracy here and try not to cross the line and become slanderous towards anybody on this forum.

(10-02-2011 21:37 )Scottishbloke Wrote:  But in all fairness with this being an open forum I think RCTV is more or less entitled to her say so whether or not we all agree with her or not. I have a lot of respect for Stan The Man's viewpoint on all of this but this is an open forum and at least RCTV has the balls to come onto this forum and put her view's across unlike a lot of other pro ofcom supporters and as long as RCTV keeps posting maybe us on this forum can maybe convert her into agreeing with our points of view more in the future.

I agree that everyone's entitled to their view Scottishbloke, but I don't include RCTV in that because she's a troll and posts her pro-Ofcom comments for no other reason than to try and provoke a response.

(10-02-2011 02:42 )HEX!T Wrote:  

eric_yt Wrote:Apologies if the link did not work. I have changed the privacy settings and tested it. The doc analyses various aspects of Ofcom operations and waste. It is in Word format but can be viewed direct from the Google Docs site in a browser.

Revised link: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=e...NmZk&hl=en

eric_yt Wrote:You may find this document interesting. Feel free to use it as you will. This has been sent to the DCMS for action.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=e...y=CJqv6ZsP

PS. Do not reply to my account as any reply will not be read. If required post in the forum.

you may want to tell others that it only work's in internet explorer and google chrome.

i already figured it out and read it/ well most of it this morning...
theres a slight problem in that it sinks into ofcom bashing when what it should be doing is getting to the point without any bias.

anyway it isnt a bad read with some valid points but could do with some of the bias being removed if you want it to be taken seriously.

"anyway it isnt a bad read with some valid points" kind words.
"could do with some of the bias being removed" tbh fininshing it became hard work and its easier to write something too long than a short focussed doc, but it was that or never finish, and there are plenty of facts, figures and case studies for anyone who wants it.

Dont know about anyone else but I just can't get Google Docs to work, so here is a link to a downloadable Windows Live doc Reforming Ofcom
btw the first page is a title page, mostly blank, it's not a fault.

Or an embedded browser view for a quick scroll


To use it click the folder icon above the word Comments then click the Word icon to open the doc.

(10-02-2011 22:34 )eric_yt Wrote:  Dont know about anyone else but I just can't get Google Docs to work, so here is a link to a downloadable Windows Live doc Reforming Ofcom
btw the first page is a title page, mostly blank, it's not a fault.

Or an embedded browser view for a quick scroll


To use it click the folder icon above the word Comments then click the Word icon to open the doc.

This forum has been a useful tool in exposing Ofcom's inconsistency and selective judgement, via the posts that members have made on here.

If you want to get your points across to people, then posting them here will do that.

So perhaps you may consider cut&pasting the letter into a forum post.