Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 164 with Corey Silverstein of Silverstein Legal – Part One

Speaker 1 (0s): This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker, and welcome to adult site broker talk, where each week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry and we give you a tip on buying and selling websites This week. We'll be speaking with adult attorney Corey Silverstein of Silverstein Legal in part one of a two-part segment. At Adult Site Broker, we're proud to announce our latest project, the War on porn.com.

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Thanks for being with us today on Adult Site Broker. Talk

Speaker 2 (3m 9s): Pleasure's online. Bruce, I, I've actually been jealous 'cause you've done so many of these episodes and finally you decided to invite me. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (3m 17s): I know. I'm terrible. So let's tell everyone about you. Adult industry lawyer, Corey D. Silverstein is the managing and founding member of the Law Offices of, you guessed it, Corey d Silverstein, also known as Silverstein. Legal. Corey is licensed to practice law by the states of Michigan, Arizona Georgia, New York, and the District of Columbia. His practice focuses on representing many areas of the law that impact the adult industry. Its clientele includes hosting companies, affiliate programs, content producers, payment processors, website operators, dating websites, webcam sites, ah, traffic brokers, affiliates, ad networks, social media sites and performers just to name a few.

Corey regularly provides legal services related to age verification, record keeping requirements, intellectual property, D M C A, section two 30, the Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act. That was a new one on me. F T C, compliance First, Amendment and Free Speech Obscenity, corporate Law, criminal Defense, internet Law, domain Disputes, data privacy, and various other areas of the law you mean there's more. He's an acclaimed litigator and dispute resolution specialist.

His practice also concentrates on complex contracts, business structure, and business formation. Corey prides himself on providing prompt and aggressive representation tailored to each of his clients individual needs. and I can vouch for that. He's regularly featured in adult industry periodicals, such as a V n Xbi and Y not, and has been quoted and published in mainstream media, including the New, York Times, Fox News, M S N B C, the Miami Herald, the Washington Post, the Detroit News Home Game there, and the Associated Press.

He's a regular speaker at trade shows and conferences across the world, including internet, the late Great Phoenix Forum, the F S C Summit. The XXX B show Webmaster access, the L A L Expo, the European Summit, and the Quebec Expo amongst its numerous professional affiliations. Corey is a member of the First Amendment Lawyers Association, the foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the Free Speech Coalition and the Association for sites Advocating Child Protection or A S A C P.

He's a board member with Pineapple support. Corey has won numerous awards, including being distinguished as a Super Lawyers rising star in 20 15, 20 16, 20 17, 20 18, 20 19, 20 20 and 2021. I guess you're not rising anymore. He's also won awards from the national trial. Lawyers Lawyers of distinction. Who's who? Legal. The American Institute of Criminal Law Attorneys and the American Society of Legal Advocates. He has a perfect 10 out of 10 rating with the leading attorney review website, avvo.com.

Corey has also been a guest on Talk Radio, local news, and a guest speaker at the University of Michigan and Michigan State Universities. You can follow him on Twitter. At MyAdultAttorney. His website is adult law. And I'm sorry, Corey. That's all the time we have for today.

Speaker 2 (6m 29s): Awesome. Excellent. All right. It's been a pleasure to be here, man. My main website is actually MyAdultAttorney dot com Adult law is my website that was created for performers.

Speaker 1 (6m 40s): Got it, got it, got it. Hey man, I'm just reading what you gave me. So

Speaker 2 (6m 47s): I may or may not have been fully awake when I sent you that email.

Speaker 1 (6m 53s): I'm gonna bet against it. So sleep is extra. Right. Tell us a bit about your background. Anything I didn't mention and your education.

Speaker 2 (7m 4s): I mean, I, you know, I gotta be honest with you, Bruce you, you, you kind of covered most of my professional life there, but education wise, I studied at Purdue University for undergrad. I was very proud to be a boilermaker, still very attached to the university grad. Graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Technology,

Speaker 1 (7m 25s): So a BS basically that's perfect for an attorney.

Speaker 2 (7m 28s): It's a bss. I got my Bachelor of Science and then I went on to go to law school, which at University of Detroit Mercy, which is a private Jesuit school.

Speaker 1 (7m 38s): That's pretty interesting for a Jew.

Speaker 2 (7m 41s): It's, you know, it it, it's a combination of being interesting for a Jew and for someone who ended up being in the adult Entertainment industry. So it's kind of a combo there. But

Speaker 1 (7m 52s): Yeah, I tell you,

Speaker 2 (7m 53s): It's, you know, lot of school, long time. I'm, I'm, you know, bittersweet, happy that I got it done. At the same time, very happy that it's behind me. I went, I went into practicing law on my own and started my own firm almost immediately after law school and, and jumped right into adult Entertainment work just because of my prior work in the adult Entertainment industry as a non-lawyer.

Speaker 1 (8m 17s): Yeah. You worked your way through school with adult sites, right?

Speaker 2 (8m 22s): I did. It was, it was kind of a weird thing. I was in, I think it was late in my first year of law school when I realized that going to law school without really having any sort of stable income was not exactly the, the easiest path to go. Yeah. And, you know, I had an idea. I I I was always, you know, frankly, Bruce, I started off like many of the people in this industry did. I was a computer dork. I I, you know, I loved surfing the web, I loved everything about it. I still remember my first 9,600 K US robotics modem.

You, you might remember that Bruce. 'cause you're old enough.

Speaker 1 (8m 60s): I'm, I'm well old enough,

Speaker 2 (9m 2s): But so, you know, so during, you know, that time I, I was fortunate enough to make some acquaintances and, and ultimately what I did was I was running adult Entertainment websites. I ran a affiliate program called Cuck through Law school. So yeah, some, some people remember it, some people may not. It was rigid. Brad Mitchell originally created it and he wanted to work on concentrating on his hosting business. And so worked out a deal with Brad, where I took over Uck and ran it for basically the duration of law school.

And so while I was getting my education from law school, I was also getting my education in the adult Entertainment industry at the same time. So it was a, a very, very, very busy few first years. So

Speaker 1 (9m 47s): That's how you met Brad?

Speaker 2 (9m 49s): Yeah, it, you know, I met Brad in an interesting way, actually. Did you

Speaker 1 (9m 53s): Guys do time together or something?

Speaker 2 (9m 56s): No, no, we didn't do time together. But my first experience in the adult Entertainment industry, like actually many peoples was I actually got ripped off on a deal. I was introduced to a person who was supposedly a respected person in the industry. And, and I actually put together, I borrowed my last, I, I can't remember what it was now. It was like 15 or 20,000, which, you know, at that time, 15, 20 grand was a, you know, it, it was, it was very different than what it is now.

So I remember putting that money together and I and I gave it all to this guy and I trusted him. And unfortunately, he, like, my trust was misplaced, lucky for me. There were some people in the industry who at the time, as funny as my friend Jeff Nice. Who's been a long time friend, was working at CC Bill and he was my account manager. And Jeff actually gave me the heads up and said, Hey Corey, you know, I I something I just wanna let you know, like I, I, I think something's up here and I think you're getting taken advantage of.

And during that whole kind of course, I, I met Brad. 'cause Brad was, was local to the, to the area where I grew up and lived. And I told Brad my story and you know, for those of you that have met Brad before, you know that the guy has a heart and he's always opening his heart to everybody. And he, he heard my story and he was like, I can't believe it. And that's when I made the deal with him for Uck and Wow. Brad and I have been yeah, since then. I mean, we were, I was best man in his wedding.

He was best man in my wedding. So it's been long time friendship and business relationship. That's something that I'm very grateful for.

Speaker 1 (11m 39s): Yeah, Brad's one of a kind, there's no two ways about it. He's been on this program many times.

Speaker 2 (11m 46s): Yeah. Amazing that he's been on your program many times and it finally took you this long to, you know, get me to be on here for the first, so,

Speaker 1 (11m 54s): Okay. Okay. You're never gonna, lemme hear the end of that. Are you, so what was your journey in the adult Entertainment industry beyond what you already talked about?

Speaker 2 (12m 5s): Y you know, I, before I was running the pay sites, I, I was doing what everybody else was. I was an affiliate. I was a, I was an affiliate for all the, you know, back in the day so to speak. We had, you know, all the, the major big companies in the industry. I was running around doing the same thing that everyone else was launching free sites and creating tgp and trying to make the most and trying to get listed on the hun and funny story about that. My, you know, my, my dear friend Patrick, who he's been a wonderful guide in the industry for me as well.

I have a running joke with him when I was just a, you know, a lowly affiliate. I, I was so desperate to get listed on, on The Hun and Patrick just kept on rejecting me. He, he never thought my gallery was good enough. So we still joke about it to this day. And, and now though, I've actually, I've had the pleasure of, you know, giving him a little legal advice here and there and, and working with him. Such a great guy. But it's just, you know, who knew that back then, I'm an affiliate and who knew that that later on this is where I would go. But you know, my path was a lot, like a lot other people's.

It was, you know, a lot of struggle, a lot of heartache, a lot of working crazy nights, traveling to trade shows, desperately trying to make contacts and, and, and learn and grow and yeah. Took a long time. But

Speaker 1 (13m 24s): Like many of us, yeah,

Speaker 2 (13m 27s): It's, you know, it's an interesting career. 'cause people always say in the new, you always always hear mainstream media saying that the adult Entertainment industry is a multi-billion dollar a year industry, which is actually true. But the actual business end of it is actually a relatively small community.

Speaker 1 (13m 46s): It is. And let's face it, those dollars are pretty concentrated.

Speaker 2 (13m 50s): Yeah, they are. And, and that's, and you know, so it's, but it's one of those things, Bruce, where I've been very fortunate to have gotten to know a lot of people over the year. I, you know, I've been able to watch many people have great success in this industry and, and helped 'em with that. I've also had my share of seeing people, you know, fall in this industry and, and I've, you know, I've been able to, to be there for them when they've had to dust themselves up and get back up. But phenomenal industry. I love all the people in it and, and you know, when I'm traveling all over the world, you know, however many times a year it is now, it's, it's always good just to, to be with these people because believe it or not, it, even though, you know, to a certain degree everyone is competitive, but at, at the same time, it's an industry that people really do actually care and, and look out for each other.

Speaker 1 (14m 37s): Yep. There's a lot of love in the industry. and I say it over and over and over again. We're a family,

Speaker 2 (14m 46s): A family of mis what is it, miscreant toys, like from that, what was, what was that cartoon?

Speaker 1 (14m 52s): I forget. But you're right, there's a lot of ways you could say it, but yeah. Yeah. We're an interesting family, an ancestral interesting family. So what types of clients are you representing now?

Speaker 2 (15m 8s): Well, I mean, that, that's a a crazy question because, you know, Bruce, one thing that's happened over the, the years is, if you remember when time before time, going back almost 20 years ago, the idea of a tube site didn't exist. No one could fathom such a possibility. The idea of campsite, the size of chatter bait was unfathomable. Or, you know, fan sites like only fans. Again, these were all things that people back then really couldn't even imagine. So, you know, when I first started, although my clientele in many ways, it stayed the same in many other ways.

It's changed remarkably because so many people's businesses have evolved. And so these days I find myself working with a, a ton of fan site operators, campsite operators, model management agencies are massive right now. Huge, huge, huge, huge base there. I mean, my phone's ringing every day about that stuff. And when I first started, there was less of a market for legal services for performers than it is now because performers quite candidly are now in business for themselves.

So times have changed. So, you know, I'm even doing a lot more performer work now. So the thing that I've come to expect though Bruce about this industry is that, you know, one day I might be representing a massive amount of certain types of sites, like, you know, go back eight years ago and my entire calendar every day was filled up with representing tube sites and dealing with intellectual property and copyright litigation and, and, you know, well that's died out. So what are we dealing with now? It's, you know, data privacy is, is is the hot legal topic.

So it just, it's, it, it evolves and, and it's, you know, that's one of the things of, of my career that I'm lucky. Keeps things interesting, keeps me fresh on my toes, obviously. And, and so it, it really changes. And, and I suspect, Bruce when you, when we listen back to this podcast a few years from now, we'll, we'll listen to what things we were addressing now, and we'll be like, holy shit. Like, no, nobody runs those sorts of sites anymore. It's just how the industry goes.

Speaker 1 (17m 17s): Yeah. And we really have no idea in the next five, 10 years how things will morph. That's for sure.

Speaker 2 (17m 24s): I mean, you've seen it in your business, Bruce, I mean, just from the, from the different types of sites that you've, you've brokered, I mean it's, you know, how much of your business is really brokering tube sites anymore? Probably not that much.

Speaker 1 (17m 35s): Mm. Yeah. No, not as much as it was before. There's no, there's no two ways about it. There's not as much calling for it, let's face it. Especially with a lot of the things that are happening out there. The market has changed, there's still people who want tube sites, but it isn't quite as mass anymore. It's a little more niche, kinda like escort sites.

Speaker 2 (17m 57s): Well, you can thank FOA Cesta and the United States government for that one.

Speaker 1 (18m 2s): Kamala Harris. Yeah. But I won't get into my, to my rant.

Speaker 2 (18m 6s): Is it Kamala or, or Kamala. I, I, I always get it wrong.

Speaker 1 (18m 10s): I don't really give a shit to be honest with

Speaker 2 (18m 11s): You. No. Okay. Okay. That's good.

Speaker 1 (18m 14s): I didn't vote for her in the primary.

Speaker 2 (18m 18s): I think she's on TV right now actually running around.

Speaker 1 (18m 20s): Oh, lovely. That's a good reason not to be watching tv. So what are some of the biggest disputes that you see in the industry now?

Speaker 2 (18m 30s): Oh, man, right now, a lot of internal strife within companies themselves, ownership disputes. One thing that tends to happen, there's two events that, that make business partners start acting in ways that are not what's best for the business. One is you're, there's not enough money, and the other is there's too much money. And so, you know, successful businesses and, and businesses that run smoothly with lots of partners tend to run very smooth when they're right in that sweet spot.

But when there's too much money or too little money, un unfortunately, people sometimes forget histories and relationships and, and, and all of a sudden things can get very keyed. So, you know, I still see it a, a ton of internal disputes in terms of control of, of adult Entertainment companies. Man, right now though, I mean, with all this data privacy stuff, seeing so much in terms of both private action, whether that's through private lawsuits or whether it's through government investigations, I mean, the, the number of subpoenas through both private litigation and issued by government agencies is through the roof right now.

So Really? Oh yeah. Seeing a ton of that. Honestly, I, I couldn't even tell you how many different government agencies I talk to in a week just dealing with, you know, different types of subpoena responses and such. So that's huge. There's obviously a lot of issues right now as we're talking today related to all the new age verification laws that are coming out from the individual states. So, you know, I would say the last month and a half or so, 70% of my day is being spent on the phone with clients talking about whether these different state laws apply to them, what they have to do, getting them ready for when they become effective.

So, ton of compliance work for a purification. Where

Speaker 1 (20m 25s): Do you see all that going?

Speaker 2 (20m 27s): You know, honestly, I, at Tabers First of all these laws in my, in my opinion, and this is just my humble legal opinion, I believe they're unconstitutional. The United States Supreme Court has already ruled on these, the, these sorts of issues. I think what the state lawmakers are doing is disgusting. I think what they're doing is they're trying to push their own anti-free speech, anti-porn agendas. And well

Speaker 1 (20m 53s): Look at Utah. My god.

Speaker 2 (20m 54s): Well, it's, I mean, you see, it's nonsense because they can run, they can run around all day and they can say that this is about protecting children. And you know, this is about putting the responsibility on social media platforms and, and such. And, and I say, well, wait a second. You know, how about putting the responsibility on the Utah parents, on the parents that, you know, ultimately are responsible for these minors and how the use their devices. And, and there's a huge discussion to have there, Bruce. But I'm gonna tell you right now, that forced lawmaking that suppresses speech time and time again, has been a failure for the United States government.

And so, you know, while the states might be pounding their chest right now and celebrating that they're, you know, making the internet safer for children and such, they can, you know, take these little victories all they want. I'm very confident that when push comes to shove and these things end up in, in the judiciary and they end up in federal court, that the state laws will ultimately be deemed unconstitutional and they're not gonna be pounding their chest too much longer. Sure,

Speaker 1 (21m 57s): Sure. But what's interesting about age verification, I believe that's an area, and granted the states, the Republican states, let's face it, these are the right wing people that are doing this. But I think the people in the adult industry, I know the people in the adult industry don't want kids on our sites. So in essence, in some ways we agree, but we certainly don't agree with these laws and the way they're being carried out. What do you think the answer is?

Because I think everyone would like a solution. And my personal feeling is I think if our industry had gotten together, which that in itself is a little bit of a joke, but if our industry had gotten together a long time ago and come up with some kind of an age solution, they wouldn't be able to pass these laws now because it would already be settled.

Speaker 2 (22m 51s): Well, I don't, I don't think it would stop 'em. I mean, you know, one thing that we've noticed is that when, you know, I'll, I'll give you the fo cesta example. The, the US government had more than enough ammunition to be able to go after website operators that were operating sex trafficking operations and so forth. They, they had more than enough ammunition. There's been plenty of historical convictions where they didn't need fo cesta. So I don't really agree with that, that it, you know, if we came up with something, the government would just back off. And unfortunately, what we've seen time and time again with the government is that when there's a political agenda to be pushed, the government is always there to push that political agenda.

But the crux of it is, what you said a minute ago is actually spot on. The fact is, is that responsible adult Entertainment companies have no interest in minors coming to their sites. They have no interest in having people at their sites whose parents or guardians don't permit it. There is no desire to, you know, try to lure children to adult websites

Speaker 1 (23m 55s): Or at least certain politicians, no toys about it.

Speaker 2 (23m 58s): Yeah, because I, I mean, look, Bruce, historically, if you look at how the mainstream media and the government has portrayed the adult Entertainment industry, they want to portray it as a, a dirty mattress in the middle of a dungeon summer with heroin needles lying around everywhere and dead bodies. And, you know, the stereotype and the notion that's been created is so far from reality that it's just, they're, they're so far off. And when these government officials and these legislators get together and they come up with these statutes, this, these state statutes that we're seeing right now for age verification, what's missing from the equation?

Bruce, they're not talking to anyone in the adult Entertainment industry. They don't come to any of the big companies and say, Hey, what do you guys think? They just pass laws and they seem to know better. They know absolutely nothing about the day-to-day operations. And I'll tell you something else while you're on the subject. I have a lot of friends that are actually in politics and a lot of friends that are in law enforcement, and they will off the record, because of course going on the record with anything adult Entertainment related is dangerous. But they will, off the record, tell me constantly that fo Cesta, for example, is one of the worst laws that's ever come out because it is actually hurt law enforcement's ability to chase down real sex traffickers and real criminals out there,

Speaker 1 (25m 23s): Right? 'cause they used to have sites like Backpage, which Backpage is a whole other story, but sites like Backpage and other escort sites, they were able to use those sites to find the sex traffickers.

Speaker 2 (25m 36s): That's correct. And the thing they don't talk about is how much cooperation there was. There was a high level of cooperation because responsible websites, if they heard from law enforcement that someone was abusing their platform for some nefarious purpose, they were happy to turn over that data to get those people prosecuted.

Speaker 1 (25m 54s): I'll tell you something, I know of a escort site owner, you might know who I'm talking about, but I'm obviously not gonna give the name. And the day that Foster Esta passed, I ran into the owner at the Phoenix Forum and he said, I turned my website off yesterday when they passed the law. He said, I don't, I don't look good in orange. And I'm sure you probably figure out who I'm talking about. And this guy had testified to the grand jury. He had on a regular basis cooperated with law enforcement over sex trafficking cases.

And this guy was law enforcement's best friend. And now they didn't have the sight and they didn't have him because of fo cesta. They couldn't be happy about that.

Speaker 2 (26m 40s): And what did fo cesta really do? What fo cesta actually did? The government seems to inaccurately think that a sex worker's gonna say, well, okay, there's fo cesta now, so I'm gonna stop being a sex worker. It's the contrary,

Speaker 1 (26m 52s): No, it, it pushed them onto the streets,

Speaker 2 (26m 54s): Pushed them back to the streets, pushed them back to organized crime, back to the pimps, because these sex workers have bills to pay. And they're not just gonna say, okay, well I'm just not gonna be a sex worker anymore. Because, you know, the federal government came up with Fota and Yeah, I'm

Speaker 1 (27m 11s): Gonna go work at Costco. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27m 12s): Well, and that's, and and again, this is one of the, this is the narrow-mindedness of, you know, US lawmakers who have absolutely no experience with actual sex work on the ground. None of them took the time to say, okay, you know what, why don't we go ahead and let's actually talk to someone, let's talk to these businesses before we create these laws. And they don't, because truth be told, they're not interested in it. They, they really don't want that. They're more interested in getting their, I call them popcorn headlines where they can run around and scream at the top of the hills that they got this new law passed and they've now succeeded in passing some legislation to protect children or whatever the hell they label it as so that the next time they're running for election, they can run around and throw it in everyone's face.

Ah,

Speaker 1 (28m 0s): I know, I know. It's all for votes and everything these people do is for votes. That's the other part of it. So what are the most common mistakes you see newbies making today?

Speaker 2 (28m 11s): Well, you know, that's another great question because right now, there's so many people that, you know, I I I call 'em kind of the only fans generation because there's so many people who jump into the industry and they see these stories on T M Z and everywhere else about so-and-so jumping on only fans, and they're making, you know, millions of dollars a, a day now or whatever. And listen, I, I celebrate that all the time. I think it's fantastic. I, I, I think it's great what only fans has built. I think it's fantastic that performers have a way to go that they can go into business for themselves.

I think that's all awesome. But the big mistake that newbies make is they think that jumping into the adult Entertainment industry is as easy as take your clothes off, take a picture online, and then just wait for the millions of dollars to roll in. They don't understand how complicated of a business it is. They don't understand the legal aspects of it, the financial aspects of it, the social aspects of it. And they don't think about these things before they jump in. So the, the, you know, the biggest mistake that I'm seeing right now are the, the best thing, or best way I could, I could really put it, Bruce, is a lack of education for new people getting into the business.

They don't understand the business. They don't, they don't wanna take the time to learn it. They're more interested in just, I wanna make money as quick as possible. And some will succeed. Some will make a ton of money and they will lose all that money very fast. Or they'll end up getting sued or they'll end up in jail, or God only knows what else will happen. But the, the mentality of just being able to jump in and make millions of dollars overnight is a bad mentality to have, because that's not reality. It is a myth. It's no different than, than, you know, the, the Yeti or the Loch Ness monster.

They're not re they're, they're not real. And you know, the pot of gold on the other side of the rainbow is not there. The second you open up an account or you start live streaming yourself on a campsite, that is not reality. You have to be smart. You have to be taking steps to secure yourself. When I say secure yourself, I'm talking about keeping yourself safe.

Speaker 1 (30m 14s): Okay? How can they do that? Well,

Speaker 2 (30m 16s): First of all, you've gotta, number one, one thing that I tell all, you know, new people jumping into the adult Entertainment industry is that remember that once something is online, it's never coming back. No matter how bad you want it to. And no matter how brilliant you think you are on the internet, once it's out there, you assume it's gonna be there forever. Number two, if you have anyone in your family, if there's, if, if you are in some sort of relationship with a husband or a wife or a parent, and there is some level of, okay, if that person ever finds out I'm in adult Entertainment, I won't be able to live with myself.

'cause it will destroy that relationship. Don't get into adult Entertainment. You should be having a conversation with the people that you love, the people that you care about, that you know, you want those relationships in your life that you can't live without. You should be having conversations with them ahead of time. It is too difficult to have the conversation after if you make the decision to get into the adult Entertainment industry. At that point, you have to start thinking about safety, safety for yourself and safety for your loved ones. So simple things such as picking the name you're gonna use, you're using your email address, you know, your, your phone number or your home address.

The, there's so many simple mistakes that people make that put them in harm's way. and I'm not saying harm's way from people in the adult Entertainment industry. No. It's in harm's way from consumers and people out there that have bad intent.

Speaker 1 (31m 41s): All the crazy people out there, my God,

Speaker 2 (31m 44s): Listen, I love adult Entertainment consumers, they're fantastic. They, you know, they, with the performers, they make the world go round.

Speaker 1 (31m 50s): They pay us, let's face it.

Speaker 2 (31m 53s): Yeah. And, but there are people out there that are not interested in being consumers. They're not there for Entertainment. They're there because there's something wrong with them. They are, you know, they're criminals. They're, they're sociopaths what have you. And their real interest is to do harm to someone.

Speaker 1 (32m 11s): And they're often armed, let's face it. Well,

Speaker 2 (32m 14s): They're armed, but now a gun or a knife isn't necessary anymore to ruin someone's life. When you see what some people have gone through in the industry with doxxing and identity theft and outing, when, when I say outing, I, I mean someone who may or may not have a sexual preference or a sexual identification and someone, you know, wants to quote unquote out that person for some nefarious purpose. These are all things that, that could potentially go wrong.

And, and so the, the biggest mistake that I see newbies making is they just, listen, I am all for, if you wanna get into the adult Entertainment industry, do it. But you need to be educated, you need to be knowledgeable, and you need to do it right there. There's too many people who are jumping in because again, they're chasing what they perceive as being quick dollar signs. And they're not thinking of what can go wrong. And, and, and that's a big mistake.

Speaker 1 (33m 9s): I think everyone should go through some kind of orientation, which we should make available to newbies.

Speaker 2 (33m 16s): Well, there's some great there, there are actually some incredible people that I've actually come across. Like I, I've come across some people in this industry who, like, legitimately you can reach out to them and you can call them any times if, if you're trying to get on, on the business end of things, you can call Brad Mitchell day or night and have a conversation with Brad about, you know, what you want to do in terms of business. And he will be more than happy to sit there all day long and talk to you about it. I, I, you know, I, I know guys and who have been in the industry, you know, forever.

Guys like Jeff Nice, who I was talking about earlier. Another guy who knows everything about the industry. You could talk to him all day long, just

Speaker 1 (33m 56s): Stop at that bar across the street from Chase Field.

Speaker 2 (33m 59s): Well, he, you know, he'd be more than happy to help you out. There's so many people. I mean, I could go on and on and on about the people who wanna stop and actually have a conversation with you and help you if you reach out. And same thing for performers. There, there are some incredible people out there that I've, that, that I've come across. You know, even currently, you know, people like Melrose, Michael, Siri dah, Nicki Knight, these, these are fantastic successful women in this industry who, who you can, you know, you can go to, you can talk to them and they're there.

This is another myth about the adult Entertainment industry that, you know, somehow people within the industry are, you know, unsociable or, or they're not willing to talk or guide you, but that's quite the opposite. But you've gotta seek out these people. If you wanna be in the business, you've gotta learn who these people are that are the people that you can trust and talk to versus the, you know, the, the people out there that, I don't consider them real adult Entertainment people because they're not interested in adult Entertainment. They're they're criminals. They're, they're interested in taking advantage of people.

Speaker 1 (35m 2s): Yeah. And you can add me to that list by the way. I always tell people that, Hey, look, if you're looking to get, especially into the business end of this business, I am more than happy to talk to you and help you. And of course we've got a general consulting firm that can give formal. I thank you for that 'cause you kind of birthed it because you, you gave me that advice. 'cause I told you, you know, I remember we were talking at the Phoenix Forum and I and I said, yeah, I give people, you know, advice on their businesses. He goes, you said, do you charge? I go, no, you said why.

Speaker 2 (35m 35s): Yeah, I mean, Bruce, you've been, you've been in the business for, for a long time. You're an industry veteran and you know, there's a reason why you have the experience and you can give people quite a bit of information and guidance on things.

Speaker 1 (35m 47s): 'cause I've made all the mistakes possible. And now I know.

Speaker 2 (35m 51s): And that's the other thing, you don't want to be hooking up with the people that just wanna stand there all day and tell you how great they are. That's not what you're looking for. To me, the people that I'm looking for in the industry are the ones that aren't afraid to admit and stand up and say, I screwed this up. I made this mistake. You know, because nobody gets to go straight to the top without falling down 800 times on the way. That's just how it is. But you don't have to do it. See, and that's the part that I always feel bad about, because you don't have, you don't have to learn the hard way. The resources are are out there. You know, my, my dear friends Kathy Bersley from from Seg Pay, you could sit down with Kathy, ask her for advice and talk to her, not just, not just about credit card processing, about all sorts of, of issues in the industry.

And she'll sit there and, and she'll talk to you and, and, and guide you and take your calls. And again, just, it is another example of, of of, of someone in the industry who is on top of her game, but at top of the industry, but at the same time won't hesitate to help someone out who has questions. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36m 49s): And this guy named Corey Silverstein too is another one that I'd recommend talking to. by the way, you mentioned Kathy really love to get her on my podcast. Maybe you can cajole her to coming on. 'cause I would love to get Kathy's view on a lot of things and

Speaker 2 (37m 4s): Top 50 Forbes businesswoman of the year.

Speaker 1 (37m 7s): Yes, I know, I know Kathy's awesome. And Kathy knows, I think she's awesome and I'd love to have her on, on my podcast. And another thing you didn't mention by the way that you probably held back on, because it would sound self-serving, but I'm gonna say it and I say it all the time on xxx bzz, when people are asking about things, talk to a lawyer. You know, if you're starting an adult business and you don't talk to an attorney first, you're making a big mistake. And, and you Corey you know, you know, we've done a lot of work together and you're always available if I have a question and I know, you're not gonna charge me if I send you an email or a Skype.

You know, people need to talk to a lawyer. People need to get legal opinion or they're really blowing it. And the other thing is have agreements. People should, if they go to the trade shows, they should sit in on one of your seminars. 'cause you're very good at explaining all this to people.

Speaker 2 (38m 6s): I, I mean, I appreciate you saying that. I learned a long time ago, I was taught at a very younger age when I first started getting invited to panels and speaking events was never to make it about me. I always make it about the audience. So I, I never go on these things and I, I really have very little interest. And, you know, sitting there and talking about myself, I'd rather, you know, I'm trying to present a topic. But if it, listen, if I had even $5 for every hour that I've spent, you know, giving free advice to someone in the industry, I frankly would probably be in a lot better financial situation than I am at this point in my life.

But truth be told, Bruce, you know, I, I go to trade shows and I, you know, there's a, there's some of my competitors out there that they, if you wanna talk to them at a trade show, they charge you to sit down with them. I, I never believed in that. I thought it was silly. I've never turned down a meeting at a, at a trade show as long as I've gone to them.

Speaker 1 (39m 1s): You sponsored one show and you were sitting there and people would come in and they could talk to you all they wanted.

Speaker 2 (39m 7s): Yeah, I've done that too. I, I've sponsored a lot of trade show. I spent a lot of money on, you know, supporting trade shows that I frankly believe in. I think there's a lot of really good organizations out there that still know how to put on a good trade show and, and frankly, they need the industry's support. I think there's also a lot of bad trade shows too, but that's a whole other topic for another day.

Speaker 1 (39m 30s): My Broker tip today is part six of how to buy a site. Last week. We talked about the sales agreement. So now both you and the seller have signed the agreement. What comes next? There needs to be an escrow setup where you send the money, whether it be a one-time payment or a deposit, if you're gonna be making payments, the seller for their part puts the assets of the sale into escrow, namely the domains being sold and any other tangible assets. Your attorney can give you more information on that we recommend Escrow domains for escrows.

They're a firm out of Washington d c and no, they're not paying me to say this. I just use them, trust them, and I'm delighted by the work they've done for us. Either an escrow agreement will be drawn up by them in the case of a custom escrow, or if it's a simple one, it can be done right on their website. Then you, the buyer, the seller and the Broker will be contacted by escrow domains with further instructions such as wiring information. The escrow is opened and either the deal closes within a matter of days or an inspection period is allowed.

It all depends on what the agreement calls for. Whether you need an inspection period really depends on whether there's still some information you need to find out prior to the deal closing. Your Broker and your attorney can advise you more on this. And it's on a case by case basis. Then the money is transferred as are the domains and the deal is closed. Now, in many cases, in fact, most of the time the seller either stays on board for a period of time to help with the transition or is at least available on an on-call basis to answer questions.

This is something most buyers should ask for, but at this point you pretty much own the website. What do you do now? We'll talk about that subject more next week and next week we'll once again be speaking with adult attorney Corey Silverstein of Silverstein Legal in part two of our interview. And that's it for this week's Adult Site Broker Talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest, Corey Silverstein. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.