The controversial adult video law, which requires productions to allow for one-month contract cooling-off periods and gives greater powers to performers to prevent releases even up to four months after completion of a shoot, was introduced in June 2022. These well-meaning measures are meant to curb coercion, which has been a rampant issue in porn, but many insiders say that the new law's restrictive conditions are too harsh and risk killing off the JAV industry. Some of the most vocal opponents of the law have been porn performers themselves. Several prominent AV stars launched a petition in ...

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The Economist recently reported on the Japan's porn industry as it continues to respond to the coercion scandals that (belatedly) came out in the 2010s, and the legislation that politicians have introduced, in part, to tackle the issue. Claiming that Japan's porn industry is "coming out of the shadows," the article claims that the 2022 law targeting coercion and allowing performers to withdraw from contracts brought the industry out of a gray zone. We are not sure that's fully true. The industry still operates in murky waters, both in a good and bad sense, and the new law was ultimately ...

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We have written before about the massive impact the new porn law is having on the Japanese adult video industry. But here's a positive impact -- well, kind of. It's a good example of how the adult video industry is always quick to respond to recent events and exploit it as material for its output. And as is often the case, it does this in a parodic way. In a new release (scheduled to come out January 20), the controversial AV law serves as the whole basis for the plot! In the AV from Faleno Tube (1MFO00003), the premise is that the female performer has canceled at the last moment "due to ...

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The controversial new porn law has been used for the first time in Japan to arrest someone. A 50-year-old executive at a video production firm, Takashi Sumiya, was arrested on suspicion of not giving contract documents to three performers (aged twenties to fifties) between August and October, according to multiple media reports on December 6. The Shinagawa resident had been initially arrested and charged with filming "indecent acts" and uploading them uncensored to a video sharing website, the US-based FC2 Content Market. Sumiya has apparently earned around ¥82 million doing this in six ...

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As frequently reported on this blog, the new porn law in Japan has proven very controversial. Though touted as a way of protecting performers, especially younger and debuting performers, by giving them far greater freedom to get out of contracts and by making production and distribution companies delay release, the legislation introduced in June was opposed by many in the industry. While many major production companies have maintained a careful silence, perhaps concerned about stoking calls for a total ban on unsimulated sex in porn and encouraging further regulations to target the coercion ...

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An underground Japanese music idol group has claimed that one of its members will become an adult video star for being the least popular. Announced on September 16 and apparently running until September 19, the last day of a music festival, the Planck Stars said that the member who got the least number of snapshots taken with fans would be forced to debut in porn. Incidentally, the winner gets a free bicycle. The group claimed its members devised the campaign themselves. The original announcement got some attention back in September, but has received renewed outrage on Twitter in the ...

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Earlier this year, a new law was passed with major implications for how adult video productions are made and released in Japan. The legislation gives performers a lot more say over their contract, allowing them to withdraw even after signing a contract and to cancel a contract after a production is completed and released. Producers must also allow a cooling-off period after a contact is signed and after a video is shot, to give performers the chance to change their minds, and provide very detailed instructions on the nature of the shots and activities expected. One type of AV not covered by ...

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As already reported several times on this blog, Japan's groundbreaking new porn law that aims to protest performers' rights has now passed the Diet after approval in the Upper House on June 15. The legislation, which was initially proposed by opposition lawmakers and taken up by a cross-party group, was sparked by the realization that lowering the age of adulthood to 18 would have implications for previous safeguards for young people working in porn or the gravure industry, and fears that teenagers would be exploited and coerced into contracts they either did not understand or did not really ...

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As widely covered on this blog, the lowering of the age of adulthood in Japan from 20 to 18 has sparked a scramble to create a new exemption for 18- and 19-year-olds in regard to contracts for adult video. As was belatedly discovered, the new age of adulthood would make legal contracts fully binding, removing the previous safeguard that allowed teenagers to back out of contracts. After initially hoping to introduce a simple exemption mechanism, politicians have eventually moved forward with an entirely new, more ambitious new law aimed at adult video performers that enables all performers to ...

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Given the wide-ranging discussions now taking place about introducing a new law with major implications for the porn industry in Japan, we wanted to share a related reform proposal from a few years ago. Given that the potential new law is intended to protect young and vulnerable performers from coercion, increase performer rights, and give them more control over how their bodies are used, we wonder if anyone is taking note of what a former adult video actress suggested back in late 2018, when the initial coercion issue was in the spotlight. Aged 43 at the time, the retired porn star Yuri ...

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