LOS ANGELES — Day Three of the first-ever virtual XBIZ Berlin trade show transitioned smoothly from meet-and-greet sessions to a series of deep dives, led by industry thought leaders, on topics that ranged from industry advocacy to billing innovations and up-to-the-minute legal updates for the European market and beyond.
"FSC Europe: A Special Forum"
As the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) looks to expand into Europe, Executive Director Michelle LeBlanc held a panel with stakeholders in the region like producer, performer and director Paulita Pappel of Lustery and Hardwerk; producer Amelie Mo of Ersties; performers Gabi Gold and Brittany Bardot; Dreams of Spanking creator and activist Pandora Blake; and Joybear founder Justin Santos.
LeBlanc opened the panel, titled “FSC Europe: A Special Forum,” by sharing a bit of the history behind the FSC. “It actually started with fighting all the obscenity laws in the U.S.,” she said. “We have been fighting against harmful legislation and for legalization of this industry.”
That mission of pro-industry advocacy is shared by Pappel and Mo, who brought on Gold to work with them towards establishing a chapter of the FSC in Europe.
"Our motivation for years, is we’ve felt quite isolated and the industry in Europe is very scattered across the countries,” Pappel said. “We want to bring together everyone to the table, and create a stronger network between performers, companies and buyers."
“We believe it would be fruitful to establish standards across Europe and we hope that in the long run we’re creating a unified voice with mutual representation, better equipped to fight for better legislation,” they added.
Pappel then encouraged panelists to brainstorm about the major challenges impacting everyone, with much of the ensuing discussion centering on the value of knowledge-sharing, standardized testing protocols and collaborating on an industry-wide code of conduct for ethical business practices.
By having a centralized means of communicating and co-creativity, Mo hopes that FSC Europe will help bridge divisions. “We don’t know how to reach out to other producers and actors in the industry,” she explained, before confiding, “as a producer, my main challenge for work is actually the discrepancies in the testing situation between countries and the standards."
Given the health risks and lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, testing disparities and regional differences in travel restrictions have made it difficult for a systematic approach to verifying negative statuses or avoiding quarantines.
And on an even more basic health level, cultivating best practices for performers’ well-being, especially for new talent, has proven difficult in a continent comprised of so many cultures, governments, languages and business policies.
Gold hopes that creating a tighter community would alleviate this.“I think that would be so much safer and so much better if we had a network of people who can help us, who work in the same field as we want to work.” Bardot agreed, chiming in that a lack of knowledge about anal prep, for instance, is prevalent.
LeBlanc offered the FSC’s INSPIRE program as a solution. “It’s specifically for providing information to new and prospective performers,” she said, while underscoring the distinction between what passes muster for recreational sex is not always what is ideal for sex work.
Beyond fostering better communication and standard health guidelines, FSC Europe would strive to champion industry rights, from fighting draconian age verification measures to undoing the stigma that banks and credit cards use to unfairly penalize adult businesses.
“After 17 years of trading, we’ve recently lost our main bank account,” Santos said, noting that Joybear was abruptly served a letter from a longtime bank they had used, telling them they had 60 days to move everything over. “In our situation, we fortunately have a workaround, but you feel like you’re running an illegal operation with the way they treat you, not even having the opportunity to talk to someone at the bank."
The conversation then pivoted to talent rights and issues of consent, with Blake stating, “I’d be really excited about standardizing performers’ well-being practices on set and developing a set of ethical standards created by performers and having sites co-sign it.” Doing so would help combat public policy perceptions that are negative against the industry, she believes, especially since SWERFs, ill-informed academics and out-of-the-loop politicians frequently push for laws that rarely end up serving the very people they aim to help.
All-in-all, LeBlanc hopes that FSC Europe will help build “strength in numbers,” which in turn will bolster advocacy campaigns with extra muscle in effectuating change.
"Billing 2020"
Continuing XBIZ Berlin’s educational sessions, “Billing 2020: Earning Consumer Trust While Pushing Payments,” presented a wide-ranging discussion of the newest trends shaping the transaction processing space, with a focus on the European region.
Featuring Cathy Beardsley of Segpay; Thierry Arrondo from Vendo; Jonathan Corona from MobiusPay; Jeff from CCBill; and XBIZ’s Stephen Yagielowicz as moderator, the panel began with a look at PSD2 and its expected implementation by year’s end.
PSD2 is the double authentication requirement for any consumer-initiated transaction within the EU and processed by a EU bank. It is also a definite concern for those with their own merchant account, wherever they are located.
The possible impacts of Brexit as well as the upcoming U.S. Presidential election were also discussed, with little clear consensus other than they are events for merchants and processing pros alike to keep an eye on.
COVID’s role in the current marketplace was also explored, with the panel revealing an early surge in purchases as the lockdown spread, but a wave of chargebacks and refunds as the quarantine continued and economic uncertainty escalated.
As the dominant payment type, all things Visa entered the discussion, with a look at how Visa registration fees in the EU are inflicting the same small-player barrier-to-entry that U.S. merchants have long faced, while Visa’s new trial membership rules, set to take effect in April, are a glimpse at further tightening of transaction policies.
Focusing on the future for 2021, the panel was presented with a series of questions from XBIZ.net members who were asked about their adult billing wish list. Beginning with PayPal, which continues to show cautious interest in expanding its services; to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are now growing in popularity as a payout mechanism for international performers and affiliates, despite lackluster demand from consumers and merchants, the panel responded to all points on the wish list.
Hopes of better throughput and fewer declines will be tempered by increased scrutiny over transactions, which will help reduce fraud and control chargebacks; while easier to use billing tools will provide more control to merchants, balancing the equation.
The topic of billing tools again arose over requests for more data, with wish list items such as receiving emails when users cancel and having a reason for cancellation and the original sign-up date shown on the cancellation emails to aid in tracking whether a user cancels within their initial month or cancels afterward. Likewise, similar details were requested regarding declined transactions, including the reason for the decline.
The panelists agreed that these services and more are already being offered by their companies, but noted that many merchants don’t take the time to use established tools or to educate themselves on the power that these tools offer.
As for adult merchants being treated equally to their mainstream counterparts, the group agreed that this was not likely to happen due to the high-risk nature of adult products and services.
"Legal Panel: European Edition"
Moderated by XBIZ News Editor Gustavo Turner, this panel included Larry Walters of the Walters Law Group; Corey Silverstein of Silverstein Legal; Paul Cambria of Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria LLP; Myles Jackman of Myles Jackman Law; and Jerry Barnett, author of "Porn Panic." While the panel covered an array of topics, two issues were front-and-center: COVID’s impact on the legal system, and upcoming legal battles.
In regards to COVID’s impact on legal operations, many on the panel shared that cases are extremely backlogged in the U.S. and in the U.K. Myles Jackman shared that criminal cases are back-loaded more than he’s ever experienced. Unfortunately, the situation is not expected to improve because judges and other court staff are still being paid, so they have no financial incentive to speed up.
In the U.K., a concern is that the "Online Harms White Paper" will move forward. This proposed law is so broad that it could undermine encryption and private messaging. U.K. legal experts are also concerned about Brexit’s upcoming impact stemming from the uncertainty that will follow as the U.K. figures out digital policies it will form with the EU.
Back in the U.S., the panel was concerned about the increasing attacks on Section 230 by liberals and conservatives. Section 230 is not only foundational to how Americans interact with the internet, but it has been copied by other democracies. As such, the panelists believe an attack on Section 230 is an attack on free expression on the internet.
Visit XBIZBerlin.com for the week's full events schedule and stay tuned to XBIZ.com for the latest updates.
