Bill Kelly, a retired FBI agent specializing in obscenity, has said that the sale of hardcore videotapes represents one of the most serious threats to the American family. He has also said that 80% of the hardcore videos on any store's shelf could be successfully prosecuted under obscenity laws.
Set forth below are excerpts from articles, obtained by Morality in Media from various sources, which show the growth of the video porn industry since its inception in the late 1970s.
The statistics and views expressed in the articles show that during the Reagan and Bush administrations:
But, during the Clinton/Reno administration:
"Thanks to new technologies such as video-cassette recorders...sexually explicit entertainment has found a pipeline into the bedrooms of couples across America....And while the overall market is still a small one, it is a period of explosive growth...[T]he number of video-cassette recorders will increase fivefold during the next five years."
"American communities, trying to deal with the effects of a technology that has moved the pornographic movie from the back street to the shopping mall and corner store, have begun to prosecute shopkeepers who rent videocassettes of sexually explicit films...The new efforts are not directed at 'adult' bookstores and 'peepshow' establishments that have sold such videocassettes in the past, usually in downtown urban neighborhoods. Instead they aim at the growing number of rental shops around the nation in middle class neighborhoods, suburban shopping malls and other places previously 'off limits' to 'adult' businesses...Tim Baskerville, editor of Video Marketing Newsletter, an industry publication, said pornographic tape rentals nationally probably brought in more than $100 million at the retail level and accounted for about 15 percent of the overall rental market."
"As more video cassette recorders are sold, adult video sales are likely to pick up again, but not to soar...The pornographic industry's plight is due partly to legal challenges...With a little help from the Reagan administration, an unlikely alliance of conservatives and feminists has persuaded many retailers to stop carrying adult magazines and videos. The Reagan-appointed Meese Commission, headed by Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d, has issued a scathing report on pornography. Such pressures 'have had a tremendous effect on sales,' said Martin W. Turkel, general manager of the Video Company of America, one of the largest distributors of adult videos in the country. 'Next year is going to be the roughest year in history of the industry'...Reluctantly, most people in the business have written off the prospect of an X-rated video boom."
"On Oct. 22 the U.S. Justice Department announced its plan to implement the recommendations of the Pornography Commission. The plan basically consists of a task force of assistant prosecutors who will...help the local U.S. attorneys...in prosecution of...adult obscenity...When FBI agents bring violations of the interstate transportation of obscene material to the local U.S. attorney, he will have the help he needs to prosecute. The X-rated movie and video tape industry is producing 150 new films in the United States each month and shipping millions of copies over state lines each month."
"United States Attorney General Edwin Meese has declared war on you. During the last few months, the results of the Meese Commission's recommendations and conclusions have become apparent...Highly punitive federal prosecutions against sellers of X-rated videotapes have been filed in Alexandria, VA and Las Vegas, NV. More are threatened...The Department of Justice has established a separate division to prosecute obscenity. The government is focusing on X-rated videos in video stores because the rental and sales are so huge."
"The lights are dimming on the porn industry, and it's not to create a romantic mood either. Adult videos are under fire from every direction, and their future may be as thin as their plot lines...[A]lthough obscenity laws have been on the books for some time, they are coming out of mothballs...'The situation as I see it is improving greatly,' says Paul J. McGeady, general counsel for Morality in Media...'We're getting a wave of enforcement across the country'...Rick Karpel, regional director of the Video Software Dealers Association, summed up: 'The court cases could have real bad portents for video-store owners for the future.'"
"After years of steady growth, the adult video industry is smarting. Industry insiders say the number of new feature-length titles released this year should turn out to be half the number released last year...'There has been a change in the atmosphere,' says David Kastens, an executive for Video Corp. of America...'Some retailers are intimidated and will stick their tail between their legs,' says Kastens...According to the trade publication Adult Video News, sales at the wholesale level grew from $220 million in 1983 to $450 million in 1986. Last year, the figure dropped to $386 million, and is expected to fall even further this year ...Suppliers play down the legal pressure being mounted in some parts of the country to prevent retailers from carrying explicit material."
"When people in the pornography industry talk about why its so much tougher to make a buck these days, Mark Curtis' name inevitably comes up...Curtis is a video porn prince who has flooded the market in recent years with inexpensive X-rated videocassettes...He says his sales figures rose from $3 million less than a decade ago to more than $30 million last year...That was last year. Since then...his mail-order company...is just one of 30 companies that have been searched by FBI agents and Los Angeles Police in recent months as part of a crackdown on L.A. area porn companies that ship their products to other states...'It's a holocaust,' says John Weston, Beverly Hills attorney who has represented members of the hardcore industry...Patrick Trueman, director of the Justice Department's child exploitation and obscenity unit, says California pornographers should no longer feel invincible just because they are based in...Los Angeles...X-rated videos are still a billion dollar business, but, says Gene Ross, an editor at Adult Video News, the business 'peaked a couple of years ago and is on a downward trend.'"
"As this goes to press, Janet Reno has been crowned the Attorney General without one dissenting vote...To respond to the obvious question, we have compiled the answers from the Judiciary Committee hearing concerning the issue which is central to the readers of this publication...There were only two questions during the two days of confirmation hearings bearing on the obscenity issue...[Questions from Senators Hatch and Specter regarding obscenity prosecutions and Ms. Reno's responses were reported by Mr. DeWitt]...Draw your own conclusions! But obscenity prosecutions certainly will not have the priority with General Reno that existed in the last two administrations...Amen!"
"An optimistic note was sounded by the next speaker, David Wasserman, an attorney and First Amendment activist...Wasserman stressed the accomplishments of Congress under the Clinton administration, in considering a new crime bill that did not subject the adult entertainment industry to new forms of attack...In an interview after the meeting, Wasserman added that his sense of the direction that will be taken by the Justice Department's Obscenity Unit is that changes will be made, backing off from the ferocity and multiplicity of attacks...but that the adult industry should 'expect' it [the change] to be quietly done."
"After all, coast-to-coast sales and rentals of adult videos, most of them taped in the San Fernando Valley, have risen 75 percent since 1991 -- topping $2.1 billion in 1993 alone...Before Clinton took office, Los Angeles police were deputized by the federal government so they could help prosecutors conduct monthly raids on Valley pornographers. Under Clinton, there have been no raids, said Los Angeles police Lt. Ken Seibert, head of the administrative vice unit. Also gone are monthly meetings with federal prosecutors to chart strategy, Seibert said. 'Adult obscenity enforcement by the federal government is practically nonexistent since the administration changed,' Seibert said. 'Now they are focusing on kiddie porn.' Leaders in the Valley's adult video and film industry say they also notice the shift to child porn."
"The adult film industry had its best year ever in 1994 with sales of adult films zooming to 27.5% of the U.S. video market, up from 21.6% in 1993 and 17% in 1985, according to the trade magazine Adult Video News. Sales and rentals totalled $2.5 billion."
"It is perhaps is no surprise that the Meese Commission report resulted in a spate of Federal anti-obscenity legislation and a Federal obscenity-prosecuting juggernaut, which continued to expand until President Clinton took office. While it is still going on, it certainly is without the furor associated with it during the Reagan and Bush years."
"According to AVN projections, 5775 new adult releases will hit the market this year...[T]hat number includes not only new features, but also explicit tapes, compilations, fetish tapes, amateur tapes from outlaw companies and releases, as well. That's a staggering 79.1% increase from 1994."
"When all is said and done, there have been fewer federal prosecutions of the adult industry under the Clinton administration than under Reagan and Bush, and since if elected, Clinton will be a lame duck with no reason to change his hands-nearly-off porn policy, vote for him."
"Nationwide, the adult video trade has grown dramatically, ballooning from a $1.6 billion industry in 1992 to $3.9 billion industry last year, according to Adult Video News...About 7,800 new adult titles were released last year."
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