NEW YORK – A district court judge in New York has ruled a raunchy parody of the Dr. Seuss classic “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” is a “transformative parody” protected by fair use and does not violate the copyright of the original story. In 2016, Dr. Seuss...

MONTREAL – To be fair, my issue with the recent Rolling Stone piece “How the Internet Changed Porn” doesn’t involve its central thesis, or for that matter, involve any particularly significant point made in the article. Now that I’ve copped to the fact I’m nitpicking, here’s the...

LOS ANGELES – Shortly before the debut of Kink, a documentary he produced about Kink.com and the people behind it, James Franco explained his impetus for producing the film. He said he was interested in “how we define ourselves as people, how we interact with each other, and what...

MANCHESTER, England – The problem with having secrets has always been the same: If there comes a day when the secret comes to light, all the effort that went into keeping it was for naught. Often, all the consequences, ramifications, reprisals and criticism one tries to avoid by...

WASHINGTON – Many years ago, a porn company I worked for had an opportunity to create major publicity for itself, but only at the risk of severely angering a prominent local politician. I’m not going to get into the details of the (very long) story, but the gist of it is the...

WASHINGTON – I’m feeling inspired today. Not just inspired, but empowered to the point I believe with the stroke of a pen (if I still owned a pen) I could change the world … assuming the world weren’t filled with a bunch of dummies crying loudly about “freedom of...

TOKYO – Given the American media’s penchant for terming any wealthy person remotely connected to the adult entertainment industry a “porn king,” any time I see the term used in a headline, my immediate response is to grimace and shake my head. “Here we go again,” I think to...

LOS ANGELES – As you have probably heard, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has approved new permit fees for adult video productions, with an initial charge of $1,672 and a renewal fee of $982 every two years thereafter. While I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, the...

LOS ANGELES – If you have followed the evolution of revenge porn as a legal issue, then you’ve probably heard attorneys, activists and victim’s advocates talk about the difficulty of getting justice for victims. Historically, just getting law enforcement to pay attention and...

JAKARTA – A little less than nine years ago, the Indonesian Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (“People’s Representative Council”) passed a controversial piece of legislation called the Bill on Pornography, a somewhat watered-down and re-branded version of a previous proposal called the...