.XXX Launches Adult Performer Program

.XXX Launches Adult Performer Program

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL—ICM Registry, the company behind the new .xxx top-level domain, today announced details of its Adult Performer Program, which will release more than 3,500 .xxx domain names that were initially held in reserve to protect the individual name interests of performers and personalities within the adult entertainment industry.

“We recognized early on that a significant portion of the core success of the adult industry lies with its performers,” said Vaughn Liley, Sales Director for ICM Registry. “We also became aware that performers do not often have registered trademarks, nor do they retain legal representation to protect their ‘trade name.’ The Adult Performers Program was born from the desire to make a conscious effort to protect these individuals who are truly at the core of the adult entertainment community.

“We offered a similar and unprecedented protection for existing adult domain owners as a part of our Sunrise A program in September and October of last year," he continued. "We feel that these programs, along with our Rapid Evaluation Service (RES) dispute resolution policies, are a positive step toward protecting against infringement as well as a deterrent to would be cybersquatters."

The Adult Performer Program verification process is now available to 3500+ performers and personalities whose names have been reserved in anticipation of this program. These names will be released only to performers and personalities who express their interest here and complete a simple identity verification process and affidavit.

Performers and personalities with more questions about the program can contact performers@icmregistry.com.

In conjunction with Name.com, these names are already pre-paid for the first twelve months (until February 3, 2013) and performers can either maintain the domains at Name.com or, if they prefer, transfer them to the registrar of their choice in the usual way.

“At Name.com, we love creative ideas that benefit everybody involved”, said Jared Ewy, Name.com’s Community Evangelist. “ICM Registry's Adult Performer Program is a brilliant way to promote .XXX within the industry, while increasing web traffic and protecting adult performers. As a domain registrar, we'll support these domains with our world class customer support, security and 24/7 monitoring, so industry talent can rest easy that more traffic won't mean more problems—just more business with .xxx and Name.com.”

ICM Registry had the opportunity to verify Teagan Presley, the multiple AVN Award winning Adam & Eve contract star, during a recent live appearance where she became the first performer to be verified through the program and will be awarded the rights to teaganpresley.xxx.

“With the launch of the .xxx domain names, I was concerned that a squatter would grab teaganpresley.xxx  and try to extort me,” Presley said. “Luckily the guys at ICM were smart and held on to the talent URLs; they allowed me to get it with no mess. Thank you, ICM.”

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Porn industry may boogie out of L.A. over condom law

For decades, the nation's pornographic film industry found a happy, largely accepting home in Los Angeles.

Producers operated lucrative businesses in anonymous office parks in the San Fernando Valley. Available in the city were a steady supply of actors and film production talent as well as opulent mansions that often served as theatrical backdrops. By one estimate, at least 5% of on-location shoots were for adult films.

But this coexistence has been suddenly shaken by sweeping health regulations that, starting March 5, will require porn performers to wear condoms while on location.

The landmark law marks a rare attempt to regulate how films are made, threatening an industry that has been a source of millions of dollars in revenue. AIDS activists are gathering signatures for a countywide ballot measure that would extend the ban to dozens of additional communities.

The industry, however, is fighting back. Leaders say that they could take legal action against the city or move filming out of town.

It's a debate that pits the desire to protect the health of porn actors against the freedom to make films that audiences want to see.

The Los Angeles City Council acted earlier this year after a series of incidents in which adult film productions were suspended amid concerns that HIV had been transmitted among performers. Despite the health risks of having unprotected sex on movie sets, the industry has strongly opposed a condom requirement, saying that monthly testing already safeguards performers and that customers won't pay to see such films.

"It's certainly a fascinating conundrum," said Jason E. Squire, a USC professor of cinematic arts. "You want all performers, whatever they do, to be safe. That transcends content. I don't know what the proper solution is."

AIDS activists say that the fight over condoms is about protecting performers' health and opposing the promotion of unsafe sex.

"The fact that porn sends out a message that the only type of sex that's hot is unsafe ... we think that's detrimental," said Michael Weinstein, president of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

The Los Angeles law was the result of months of aggressive lobbying by Weinstein and other AIDS activists, who have long called on the government to step in and make the porn workplace safer. The council approved the law only after activists pressured it by gathering enough signatures to ask voters to decide the issue at the ballot box. The industry has been forced to suspend production several times amid reports that adult performers contracted HIV. One was Derrick Burts, who tested HIV-positive in 2010 and said clinic staff told him he was infected by a fellow performer.

"It's a broken system that they have in place," said Burts, who backs mandatory condoms. "What performer wouldn't want to feel more safe on a work set?"

Porn industry representatives say the law is unnecessary because they regularly test actors for HIV. They maintain that Burts was not infected on the job, and that they haven't had a confirmed work-related HIV case since 2004. When a performer turned up HIV-positive in another state in 2011, companies here voluntarily halted production until others could get tested.

Steven A. Hirsch of Vivid Entertainment said his company's performers are allowed to use condoms if they want — but most don't.

Filmmakers tried requiring condoms on their own in the late 1990s after an HIV scare, but sales began suffering.

"The viewers out there don't want to see movies with condoms," Hirsch said.

Diane Duke of the adult film lobby group Free Speech Coalition said performers should have the right to have sex as they wish. She compared the issue to boxers who fight for entertainment, even though they risk injury.

"The goal of that is to knock someone out — pound them in the head until you knock someone out," Duke said.

"This is the first step of government overreach into the way we make movies," Duke said. "It's clearly the government interfering where it really doesn't belong.… Because our industry deals with sex … we're vulnerable and easy to attack."

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