Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 22 with Michael Fattorosi of Pornlaw

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This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk where every week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry, and we discuss what's going on in our business. Plus we give you a tip on buying and selling websites. This week we'll be talking to veteran adult industry attorney Michael Fattorosi. Adult Site Broker is proud to announce Adult Site Broker Cash the first affiliate program for an adult website brokerage.

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With Adult Site Broker Cash you will have the chance to earn as much as 20% of our broker commission for referring buyers and sellers to us@adultsitebrokercheckourwebsiteatadultsitebroker.com for more details. First of all, today let's cover some of the news going on in our industry. The Arizona judge overseeing the criminal trial of the former backpage.com. Owners has granted another motion by the defense to move the trial date.

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This time to April, 2021, which will coincide with the third anniversary of Michael Lacie and Jim Larkin's arrest and assets seizure. The trial originally scheduled for May, 2020 had first been postponed by us district court, judge Susan Bercovitch in February until August, and then to January, 2021, due to concerns regarding the COVID-19 health crisis. On September 21st, the Defence had requested a reset due to a medical leave scheduled by one of the defense attorneys that Backpage Lawyers had also argued for the delay as they did during July's request, due to the ongoing uncertainty over the public health handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The latest postponement was first reported by the new site front page, confidential.com, which was published by Lacie and Larkin and edited by Stephen Lemon's and is the last journalistic remnant of their one's powerful village voice media empire, Netflix coast CEO Ted Sarandos spoke at the virtual edition of global content market nip com and he expressed his surprised that the fact that an I quote, we are having a discussion about censoring storytelling in 2020 America.

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After an East Texas grand jury voted to indict the streaming network on felony obscenity charges, local district attorney Lucas Babin filed charges in Tyler County, Texas, a deep red County outside of Houston, close to the Louisiana border, alleging that the French drama cuties, which is currently available for streaming on Netflix appeals to the prurient interest in sex and as no serious literary political or scientific value Sarandos who has comments at Medcom Kim only a few days after being accused by name by da Babin for issuing or selling or providing or delivering or distributing the film in his indictment, da Babin wrote that Netflix knowingly promotes visual material, which depicts the lewd exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clone of that, or partially clothed the child who was younger than 18 years of age.

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At the time the visual material was created, which appeals to the Prairie in an interest in sex. It's a film that is very misunderstood with some audiences uniquely within the United States. Sarandos pointed out adding of the film speaks for itself. Sarandos described cuties as a very personal coming of age film. It's the director's story. And the film has obviously played very well at Sundance in theaters, throughout Europe, as well without any of this controversy, da Babineau a publicity stunt against Netflix is particularly worrying in the context of current debates about the elimination of section two 30 protections.

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Several of the projects that are currently being looked at in Congress include expanding the jurisdiction of local court to decide what internet content is lawful and obscene. Even some supporters of repealing are drastically altering. Section two 30, have expressed concern for what they call a patchwork of local jurisdictions with widely different standards in dieting trying and passing judgment on lawfulness, obscenity, and purines.

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When it comes to online content and obscure investment fund, which defines its mission as investing with biblical principals is a leading donor as a strategic partner of anti-porn organization. Exodus cry currently receiving international attention for their single focused campaign against PornHub in August, Timothy partners limited the advising arm of Timothy plan funds announced that they and their staff had joined Exodus cries, widely promoted campaign to shut down PornHub their press release.

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Explain that Timothy plan funds was launched in 1990 For as an investment product for people who didn't want a profit from activities contrary to J D Judeo Christian ethic, such as harming the innocent. And that pornography was one of the earliest filters employed to weed out culpable companies. Although Exodus cry on their main spokesperson, Layla Mikel wait repeatedly misled the mainstream press by claiming to be a nonreligious nonpartisan organization, their affiliation with Timothy partners and the fund Tel a completely different story or a writer named Robert night who publishes a regular column and the conservative newspaper, the Washington times, and appears to be involved with the investment funds, press copy, confirm the financial and logistic support of the biblically inspired fund to exit us Christ.

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Call for censorship, Timothy partners, limited advisor to Timothy plan fund's is supporting Exodus Christ petition to shut down. PornHub. According to Knight Knight wrote this in an op ed for the Christian broadcasting news site. Now let's be true for our property the week that's for sale that Adult Site, Broker, we're offering a sex toy, a review site dedicated to exploring sexuality and sharing and reviewing the author, his favorite sex toys or the thing that really stands out as the extremely high quality content used throughout the site.

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So the business doesn't hinge on only one main program. This site is also a very diversified in terms of traffic to individual pages. The most trafficked page on the site only makes up 14% of the traffic. So it's not dependent on just one page ranking. Well, all content is exclusive. Nothing has been taken from elsewhere. Pretty much all of the traffic comes from organic Google results. No at our traffic buying has ever taken place. This is an outstanding opportunity for the new owner.

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If they want to further boost the traffic, this outstanding sex toy review site is available for only $225,000. Now time for this week's interview.

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Well, I guess today on Adult Site Broker Talk it's Adult industry Attorney Michael Fattorosi Michael thanks for being with us today on Adult Site Broker Talk thank you for having me. Bruce F it's a pleasure. Mmm. Now the law offices of Michael w Fattorosi were established in 2002, Michael originally set up shop in LA and now lives in the Netherlands. He represents various types of clients and adult entertainment, depending on the issue, we can represent clients within all 50 States within the U S as well as in Canada, Europe, Australia, and the UK over 90% of his clients are companies and personalities in the Adult industry.

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Michael also note on social media as pornlaw has been a licensed California attorney since 1997. And there's been representing companies you're old as you are representing companies in the adult entertainment industry since 2003 is a graduate of the American university in Washington, DC and Whittier or law school in LA, where he was a member of the law review. He has been a seminar speaker, numerous Adult industry events Michael has written articles for X this world and expo this video Adult story by our magazine.

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And he has been quoted on Fox news, CNBC TMZ at the Hollywood reporter Playboy magazine, the daily beast, the daily dot and other various media outlets. He has been interviewed and appeared on KT, L a T V news in LA. And it's been seen on the reality TV shows my bare lady to on Fox reality, as well as the right hand and web dream's on HBO and showcase Canada lately Michael has branched out into the export business and the exports wine, pasta sauce, olive oil, and Mar marmalade.

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That was going to say a marinade to the us and meats and hard cheeses in Europe. Unfortunately, Michael that's all the time we have for today. Thanks for being with us. So, so Michael, over all of that. Okay. Well, you know, it all seemed pertinent. So I did. So let's talk first about your new passion exporting. Now I know like me, you love food and wine. You're a Italian. So you would come about it, honestly.

2 (10m 29s):
How did she get started exporting products from Europe?

3 (10m 33s):
Well, I'm going to have to do the really short version of that. Okay. Yeah. I'd been going to Italy since I was a little boy and probably they, 15 years ago, I started going more regularly. And about 10 years ago, I started doing family research into where the Fattorosi came from in all of this. And I started going back every year, then, and then I was spending about a month their, and just by being there for so long, you come across this great food that we just don't have in the United States.

3 (11m 6s):
And I sort of thought to myself, well, if this is a way that I can kind of fund my trips over here, that would be awesome. If I can like turn this into a business, it would be perfect. And that's what I started doing. I started looking around for small, a family owned businesses, not big companies that really made the best food and I started sampling it. And there's some that I fell in love with. And a now I'm able to not only export it into the United States directly to clients, but I also imported into the Netherlands for restaurants here.

3 (11m 40s):
So, and sort of it's that sorta my retirement plan. I feel as, as much as I loved being an attorney, I don't want to be doing it when I'm 65, you know, or 60, I would like to spend my days traveling the, a, the countryside in Italy, sampling new foods and bringing them to other people and other places

2 (12m 0s):
That's sounds like fun, man. Yeah. Why not? Now? Obviously, its been a very strange year with the whole COVID-19 pandemic. I think strangest, probably an understatement. I'm sure like me you're happiest. Lee you're not living in the U S anymore. How, how are things where you live in the Netherlands?

3 (12m 22s):
Oh it's it's as though there is no such thing as COVID-19 here. We did something. No, no, no, not good. We did something called an intelligent lock down and basically it was the prime minister going to be smart. And nobody really, really was all of that smart. And the Netherlands has recently had a huge influx or a huge amount of positive cases yesterday. We had the most positive cases that we've had since April.

3 (12m 53s):
And so, but you know what? So in Italy, Italy, his back to April may level's the UK. Are you

2 (12m 58s):
Well, so you are making, you're just basically saying the Netherlands X, like Netherlands act like Trump supporters.

3 (13m 5s):
No, their not that there is no, they listen. They, they drop the mandatory know actually the government here is like Trump they dropped the mass requirement because the businesses were complaining because they had set up areas that were most crowded and they made those areas mask mandatory and the businesses complained and the government just withdrew the Masque, a requirement, even though cases we're going up the Dutch or all about money or the Dutch are 100% about making money and anything that the government does to me in any way, prevent that this is them off.

3 (13m 44s):
So the difference here is no one's really, you know, that the hospitals aren't overwhelmed there, isn't a huge number of ICU cases. The debts are really low and to the government's attitude is, you know, let's, let's do business, we're open for business and that's, that's the way the Netherlands is.

2 (14m 2s):
Hmm. It's a little scary though. Mmm. As an adult industry Turney, what challenges do you currently see to our business from a legal standpoint?

3 (14m 14s):
Well, you know, it's interesting because you know, I, I'm not one of those attorney's that go around and going, Oh, the government's coming after you, you know, the big boogeyman is it's going to show up at your doorstep, arrest you and prosecute Hugh I just don't see that happening. I mean, yeah. I wasn't around for the miss commission all the way back then my experiences and the adult industry has been basically from 2003 forward. And for the most part, the government has left the Adult industry alone for those periods of time.

3 (14m 44s):
And when I say Adult industry, I'm, I'm talking about porn in production, they started to have, they certainly haven't left prostitution and escorting and like Backpage alone. Exactly. Basically left. And except for state regulations, there's really not been much from the federal government Trump is as close to a pornographer, as you can get, he owned hotels. Were he sold pornography and distributed pornography in those hotels, he ended up marrying and Eastern European and

4 (15m 18s):
Model that I would say that he's paid, he's paid for sex. I mean, listen, if this is yeah,

3 (15m 26s):
Any guy that's gonna at any has been in Playboy. And so if there's any guy that isn't gonna f**k with the Adult industry, it's probably him, he hasn't. So, you know, there really hasn't been anything in the last four years. I don't really see Biden doing anything. I'm worried about Harris Harris. I'm definitely worried about, I am worried in the sense that they may not come after the Adult industry directly, but both Biden in Harris. I have gone on the record saying that section two 30 of the communications decency act needs to be appealed, which is basically the first amendment for the internet.

3 (16m 1s):
I mean, that's what we all, we are. We all came out on the fact that as a website owner, if you're allowing user generated content that you're not going to get sued by somebody because someone else uploaded something and that's basically protected everybody as the internet is, you know, gained whatever it's gained over the past 20, 30 years. And if that gets taken away, then we've got real problems. Then we've got real issues because what ends up happening is that the industry we'll, and, and, and, and not only Adult, but also mainstream, you won't be able to have a startup business because the amount of, of money that you would have to put into policing your site and having technology police your site, I think would almost make the barrier to entry of having your own website almost impractical and impossible.

3 (16m 57s):
And that is one of the things that, that, you know, I'm dealing with now, it was an attorney is that you have to tell my clients say, listen, you know, you, you have to watch what's being posted just because of foster. You know, when you have an adult website, we're a little taste of this, because let's say you have a situation where you've got models that are using the website to promote a prostitution event in Houston, she's going to Houston. She was doing a tour and she is, you know, putting out there and she's using your platform to advertise well, correct platform now falls under foster.

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Since it's promoting prostitution and the owners of the website, you can now be prosecuted on another foster for human trafficking and the penalties go up to life in prison.

5 (17m 45s):
Okay. Yeah. And the whole foe and the whole foster thing, the way it was written, it was just

6 (17m 50s):
So nebulous that they can't, they just come after Adult companies just because pretty much,

3 (17m 57s):
Yeah, they could there now they haven't, but here's the problem with foster. And this is the problem with Harris, a really the big sponsor or behind the bill. Exactly. She promised Facebook and a lot of the bigger companies like, Oh, this isn't for you. We're not going to use this against you. And, and, and there's no indication that the government would go after Facebook is somebody who was sending emails, promoting prostitution on Facebook or Twitter. The problem is that there's a civil remedy in that law that says, if you've been trafficked, you can Sue the site that you have been trafficked through.

3 (18m 37s):
And so MailChimp has been sued. Facebook has been sued and there's one other company, mainstream company that's been sued because their services were used to actually human traffic, someone and the Lawyers have used foster to go after those sites. And so that's a big problem that nobody's really tapped into with foster yet, because it really hasn't been a lot of litigation because I think the Lawyers are waiting to see what happens with those cases before they started filing other cases, you know, but that, that has been a hammer to the escorting industry in the United States.

3 (19m 12s):
I mean, you know, Backpage shuts down. I had a client that had as a similar site, they just shut down after being in business 15 years, he just, he just decided, you know, I just don't want the headache.

6 (19m 26s):
Well, I have a file of a funny feeling. And the other one you're talking about a, they were very large, a large escort sight, and they clicked off the day foster assess to past exactly what you're talking about. The same one. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Cause they had a conversation with them at the Phoenix forum and he says, God, just shut my side off yesterday.

3 (19m 46s):
Yep. So that could happen more and more if section two 30 gets repealed or gets vigorously changed and, and restricted that, that's the thing I'm worried about. I mean, I don't see obscenity cases coming down the pike, 22, 57, even though the FSC is challenged it and they're probably going to go up on appeal. I don't see the FBI, you know, going out to anybody for two to five seven right now. I mean, everybody has to continue to keep records, but I, they, they got bigger issues today until you know about, you know, what records are kept aware.

3 (20m 23s):
So, you know, I don't see much and you know, And a couple of years ago, I really thought that the condom issue will take off and that kind of petered out and went away.

6 (20m 37s):
Could you replete Pete that Michael, you cut out there for a second.

3 (20m 40s):
But I said that condom issue that we were facing in California, that, that, that went away. So that didn't really go OK. So as far as the legal issues go, I don't, I mean, there there's nothing that I would say is at a point of where the adult industry is on a precipice, you know, it's, it's, we're getting close to we're, we're getting close to a cliff, but we are not there yet.

6 (21m 7s):
Hmm. I think we're always on a cliff and you mentioned too two, five, seven, and that was going to be in my next question. Obviously their was a, a, a, a decision made recently on that, where does two to 5.7 stand out?

3 (21m 22s):
I don't know, honestly, you know, its very difficult because you've got, you've got F the FSC foot out a statement about what the, now I, I haven't read the full decision because I'm assuming that they're just going to appeal it. And so, you know, what would had been previously decided that was kept on the appeal was warrantless searches. The the government basically, or the judge basically said to the, to DOJ FPI that you just can't show up at somebody's story and demand to C record you, you, you need a warrant go in and see these things, which is what is happening, which is absolutely the right decision.

3 (22m 2s):
And that was something that was decided earlier on and it stays and you know, therefore, but as far as how FSC challenge the law, what the judges did in, in, in the appeal is basically, they said, well, it doesn't apply to people that are not in this case and write this. And this is part of the problem with the FSC. This is a problem. I think with a lot of the attorneys, when we take these cases on appeal, okay, they want the easy clients, they want the ones that look good.

3 (22m 33s):
And what ends up happening is they've got good looking clients, but then the results don't apply to everybody. And this was happening with the faucet challenge. You know, I loved Larry Walters who was one of the attorneys on it. Bob corn reveres will be attorneys on it. But the plaintiffs that they got in that case aren't typically have, this is affecting the most, which is the bread and butter escorts because no attorney wants to go in front of a judge and argue that this escort should be able to break the law.

3 (23m 5s):
And I get that. Yeah.

6 (23m 5s):
Well, I mean, do you see, do you see foster eventually being overturned? No. Okay.

3 (23m 12s):
No. I mean there's, I don't see a basis for it. I, I think foster was a test case, I think FA like anything else, the Adult industry. So to have like a proving ground. And so foster was a test case and that kind of narrowly limited section two 30 when it comes to the adult industry. And now when they want to do more with section two 30 The whoever's is going to sponsor for the next bill or is it your head, dad is going to go, well, look, it all the success that we've had with foster, that's just really gotten rid of, you know, human trafficking in, in the United States.

3 (23m 48s):
We can do so much more if we expand the restrictions on section two 30, that's what I think they did. And I think that's why they did it. And so,

6 (23m 57s):
Yeah, that was so misguided. They will, all it did was drive, drive things back out on the street.

3 (24m 4s):
Well they don't, they don't care about the law.

6 (24m 6s):
Of course they don't care how they look.

3 (24m 9s):
Honestly, I, in this might sound a little bit conspiratorial, but when you, when you pull back a little bit and you see, well, you know, we're, we are legalizing marijuana everywhere. Now marijuana is not really a crime that people are getting arrested for convicted of and put in jail. And so we have this criminal justice system that is that employees, hundreds of thousands of people between judges and staff and prisons and a probation officer's or parole officers Lawyers Sheriff's deputies throughout the United States.

3 (24m 49s):
Well, marijuana was sort of a low level crime that kind of fed people into that system. And so if you're going to get rid of marijuana laws, as far as being illegal, you need a crime to replace that that's going to feed people into that system. So what are you going to do? Or are you going to say, are you going to lay off all of these union corrections officers? Are you going to fire and judges or are you going to reduce DAS? Because you know, we don't have that much crime anymore. Well, let me just for the ride's in the process, you know, what are we going to do?

3 (25m 21s):
You've gotta go hard in the paint on another crime. So the kind of the way I look at foster is it's sort of like the new war on drugs and now it's the war on, on human trafficking, but it's really the war on prostitution morality.

6 (25m 38s):
Of course it is. And,

3 (25m 40s):
But this is the thing though, it's not just the United States, this is spreading just this week. And luckily it was turned down. They had a debate here in the Netherlands whether or not they should outlaw prostitution because And, and there was someone in the Netherlands yeah. In the Netherlands and somebody who said, well, there is no woman that would have sex with a guy for money, unless she was trafficked. That was the word is not the exact quote, but basically that's what it was, you know? And, and right now in the red light district in Amsterdam, that area is sitting on some of the most expensive property in Amsterdam.

3 (26m 18s):
It's just like, just like times square or just like in London. So the people that are in a real estate, we want to get rid of the prostitution. Why, so that they can come and take over to the house, take over the wall, an area and put in cafes and restaurants and hotels and, and the Netherlands doesn't want to be known as a country that is okay with prostitution and marijuana anymore. So it's becoming more conservative here to choose

6 (26m 46s):
A place, to be fun to this place. Pretty soon as the only place you we'll be able to go for marijuana and prostitution is Thailand. Cause they're going to, they are going to legalize it here. All right.

3 (26m 57s):
Well or, or Pahrump. Right?

6 (27m 1s):
Exactly. Exactly.

3 (27m 3s):
Well, I don't know why Pahrump has jumped on the bandwagon and to become the new Amsterdam. If I was the mayor of Pahrump, ah, I would totally turn that town into the escorting marijuana, capital, the New of the world. Once now, now that Amsterdam doesn't want it anymore or you go, well, you should be there a consultant. Yeah.

6 (27m 23s):
So, so as a followup, let's Sam, a site owner outside the U S how the laws like two, two, five, seven foster assess to, and some, and some of the other laws that affect our industry. How do they affect me if I'm a signed off on her, outside the U S

3 (27m 42s):
Well, if you turn off all your traffic to the United States and they don't affect you at all, but if you want to do business in the United States, that obviously it affects you. I mean, you know, the DOJ a long time ago during an expedite conference, probably in 2007, I think they literally admitted we're not going overseas to check anyone's records, even back then when two shops and it was a hot button topic. And so, you know, is anybody flying to Cyprus or flying to Russia?

3 (28m 12s):
No, no one's flying anywhere to check to do is they are not even doing in the United States, but, you know, because of the billing companies that are all located in the United States, if you have a, a Site, you're going to have to comply because your billing company has to comply. So that's something imposed. And at the same thing would foster. I mean, you know, I've, I've counseled clients outside of the United States. You run escorting websites at basically what they have done is, is they've shut off all ads within the United States, but they allow it, but they allow a traffic because, you know, if I'm a United States base businessman, I'm going to London on a business trip.

3 (28m 52s):
And I wanna see an escort while I'm in London where it's legal. It's perfectly fine if I go to that site and look because escorting isn't happening in the United States, the ad is it in the United States and I'm going some place to do something where it's legal to do it. So, yeah. So it, as long as you're not allowing us based based escorts to advertise, then you're fine because, well,

6 (29m 15s):
Well, it would most certainly brought the value of those sites down because they couldn't do business in the number one market anymore. Yeah.

3 (29m 23s):
Well, that's definitely true, but I think it's, I think has also created a more sex tourism. Yeah. Yeah.

6 (29m 32s):
But you know, like I said, , they, they, they far from got rid of, of what they were trying to get rid of with the, with the foster system. You know, they see a sex trafficking did not go away and all they did was throw a huge monkey wrench into a legal well in the legal, into illegal prostitution.

3 (29m 53s):
But, but sex trafficking is such a small thing. It reads well not, umm, I was interviewed by the United States Senate subcommittee on human trafficking when Boston was being introduced interest in it. And you know, when I talked to their investigators, I said, listen, I'm a California attorney and I'm an adult attorney. And I can tell you, I've seen more human trafficking at a carwash in Los Angeles that I've ever seen on a porn set. And they said, there are, there are a car washes in Los Angeles County where there's 30 or 40 people living in a four room apartment, working shifts, making no money that are being trafficked from central America and Mexico.

3 (30m 36s):
That's what we should be concentrating on. Not on the small amount of sex trafficking, this happening, not to save one is worse than the other, but it's nowhere near the amount of human trafficking going on for labor and employment.

6 (30m 50s):
Well, you're right. And slave slavery's is bad, no matter what

3 (30m 54s):
He is still around and his bad and because you know, the people that are getting or were because now because a COVID, but the people that we're getting human trafficking in the United state's, you know, they were being their being lied to. And, and, and what happens here on Rotter, it happens in every country it's happening in it. People are saying, Hey, you come to Italy, you know, you work for a certain amount of time. I'll provide you a place. And then, you know, you can, you can pay me back and you get me a profit and then you can set up your own, you know, you're, you're now home free.

3 (31m 26s):
And so that type of slavery will always exist because people,

6 (31m 29s):
Well, they do it to tie women all the time and other countries usually for prostitution.

3 (31m 34s):
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, there's all of that going on, but no follow the boss is not gonna change. And the only way foster can change that is when they start coming down on sites. Like Twitter the, the, the amount of escorting I was going on in Twitter is immense. I mean, every escort her. And so until the government's reeling to go after a Twitter Lake Site, it's never, so

6 (31m 60s):
Facebook and Instagram in every social media site,

3 (32m 3s):
You know, I don't see that much on Instagram or Facebook. They are there because they were sued under foster pay really up their policing, all that stuff still gets through you, you see it With with Instagram, you know, a lot of Evan's and APEG is going, you know, has been going crazy, trying to get Instagram to, you know, put out some sort of, some sort of guidance on why they just closed down sex workers, like accounts and they just do it Willy nilly.

6 (32m 36s):
They do it, they do it because they can and they think their being

2 (32m 40s):
A ethical and they're as far from it. So

3 (32m 45s):
Yes.

2 (32m 47s):
So now you've been in our business for a very long time, but as long as I've been in and I've known you, and I know you don't lack for opinions on our business, so it may sound like kind of a generic question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. How do you see this business now in where do you see it heading in the next five years?

3 (33m 10s):
Well, the small or midsize producer is pretty much gone being replaced by the content creators on only fans and models. I mean, I, I, I've got porn star clients that are making over a million dollars a year off of only fans. It's just crazy. And not only ports our clients, I got soccer, moms making that much money soccer moms that have, you know, Anne and they are not really showing nudity. And so, you know, you have this now absolutely direct model to a client situation for them to monetize.

3 (33m 48s):
So, you know, why are they going to want to go back and shoot for companies? Why are they gonna want to? And COVID has basically brought that up to the forefront and now I'm really give a s**t and they don't care about the company's they don't care about. And you've seen you seen that result in sort of a mini me too movement within the adult industry where a lot of, a lot of the model's are coming forward and talking about the sexual harassment and the rates that they've experienced while being on set or, you know, even after the shoot has done at the hands of male talent or directors or, you know, PA's or photographers.

3 (34m 25s):
And so, you know,

2 (34m 27s):
Well, one very one very notable one.

3 (34m 31s):
Well, which one do I, which one you're talking about there? All right. Well, yeah, Ron, Jeremy absolutley, but that started before COVID. I mean, Oh, I know that I, you know, we were I'm ABN his attorney and we were the first one to basically banned him from the show. So that I think kind of started the, the downturn on his career. And it gave more people, I guess, impetus to come forward and start talking about it. But yeah, I mean, once he went into rolling stone magazine and literally said to rolling stone magazine, I get paid to grow people.

3 (35m 11s):
I go to shows and I grow people. We had no choice. It was just once we were put on notice of that either do you, you can't because if you allow him into a show and he grew up to somebody that's, they can easily point to that and go, Oh, now you're liable. Yes. Now we're liable. So he's, he put it on the record that he is a dangerous person and we can't allow them into the show because people ask me like, Oh, why do you let this guy in? Well, Ron's Ron had admitted to. And I think that was part of the problem is that he just didn't get the idea that what he was doing was not violating people's consent.

3 (35m 49s):
He, he just thought it was a part of, of his persona or the adult industry or whatever. And he just never got to the point of where he really understood that what he was doing with sexual assault and rape.

6 (36m 3s):
Yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of, a lot of guys don't sadly, you, you were talking about the whole clip thing and also cams, obviously as in the park, getting back how, how I didn't mean to get you off track. How do you think this is going to affect even the big production company?

3 (36m 23s):
Oh, I, there that's coming to an end. I mean, listen, the one thing you've been around and I've been around, the one thing that I can say for sure is everything comes to an end. Okay. Hm. And you know, before I got into the industry, I dated the granddaughter of the man who founded the industry in Los Angeles. So I was able to spend a lot of time with him when we would go over to his house for dinners. I'm a nice Jewish guy that lived in Northridge by Milton he, he, he started a parliament press back.

3 (36m 59s):
Well, it wasn't called parliament press in the fifties, in the forties, but he basically started a lot of magazines. And that Rose to the level of where, umm, by the seventies, he was considered the richest man in porn, but never, never really got into the movies. When he sold, he sold to, he sold out parliament, press, the Rubin Sterman, and Ruben came in and took over parliament and then started doing movies. But he would tell me about the early days of the industry.

3 (37m 29s):
And that's the whole thing. I mean, We you go from a movie. I mean, you go from, you go from the very earliest days, which are black and whites. Then you go to magazines, then you go to movies or, or you go to the booths, a member of the j******f boots and sex stores. Right.

6 (37m 50s):
I can't confirm or deny that rumor.

3 (37m 53s):
And then you go to a movie theaters and then you go to VHS and, and, and VCRs. So I mean, at some point everything comes in at two sites will come to in it when they've out, lived their usefulness and, and same thing with the model's the platform's like on the fans, they'll come to an end and I think what will end up happening in what will replace it, his virtual reality or I'm, or I'm a, what is it called? Not virtual reality, but a augmented reality as well.

3 (38m 26s):
And that'll probably be replaced by walking, talking sex dolls. Cause that's, that's what you want to do. You want to f**k. That's why guys watch porn, you know? Sure. M********e. So the closer you can put your male customer or you're female customer, or are you trans customer to the way the model, the more money you're gonna make and through technology, you know, you'll be able to get closer and closer and closer to the models to an actual experience of having sex without having another person there.

6 (38m 58s):
Interesting. Okay. That brings me to my next question. Let's say I'm starting out and Adult today and I came to you for advice. You'd say don't do it. What advice would you give me about where to put my money in this business,

3 (39m 11s):
Find a niche, find in a niche. And that's what I tell people. I mean, you know, if somebody comes to me and they're like, I'm going to start a POV, a blow job site, I'm going to like, well, you're just looking at, get your Dick sucked. Cause you're not gonna make any money off of it. Why I go? Because I, unless there's something extraordinary, extraordinary are remarkable about your content I for free on the internet so that you really got a really find a niche. And it may not even be a niche that you like, but it's a niche that pays like I've got a, I've got a client that I've had for over 10 years.

3 (39m 45s):
And he started 10 years ago with a niche of, and there is no nudity that there is no sex. It's just hot guys are giving each other CPR PR yeah. It's one guy pretending to be an EMT and another hot guy, like, you know, doing something and he passes out and falls down and the hot DMP guy shows up and you know, it's hot in the apartment. So the EMT guy who has to rip off his shirt, you know, of course it, it, it sort of aimed at the bisexual man who is not yet ready to kind of like admit that he's probably bisexual.

3 (40m 21s):
And so he doesn't really want to watch full on gay porn, but that you want sort of homoerotic experience watching to guys. And he, he, he, you know, he has done well at that. He has done very well with Sure. And so

6 (40m 38s):
Sounds like they're, it sounds like a really good concept

3 (40m 40s):
As you know, and that's a thing and that's what people forget is people will jerk off that just about anything. And so it's, it's finding the thing that they will jerk off too. That basically no one else is making content for. And that's how you win money in this industry. So you don't make money because you're getting off, you're making money because your clients getting off. And if he or she can't find that content, then that's where the need is. And I always thought, that's why July Jordan was, Oh, is so successful because when jewel started and, and also, you know, Paul from AVN who used to be the owner, they both started off Adult stores.

3 (41m 21s):
And so, you know, Jules was, you know, he owned the story, he was a clerk and he would hear people come in and go, Hey, do you have this? And he would look at his shelves and go, no, I don't and somebody else would go, you have this and you could go, no, no, it's not there. And then he started figuring out that he could make the porn, that everybody wanted to see that nobody else was making

6 (41m 42s):
Interesting. Well, that's a good way to find out. Yeah.

3 (41m 48s):
Talk to you. I mean, and that's, what's great about the tube sites. That's the other thing you to tell my clients too, is that what made Brazzers and made mine geeks so good was before they invest it, a lot of money and launching a Site, they throw up a couple of scenes on a tube site and see what he did. They can get that instant feedback as to whether or not it was a good scene, whether it was a good concept that people like it, if people and they had all of that data and it was data driven, like how long did somebody to watch this scene for it? Or do they watch him for 30 seconds and click off of it?

3 (42m 18s):
Did the thumbs up? Did they thumbs down? And that's what I tell my clients. I go, don't, you know, don't come in to the industry with this as an issue to be on the scene, it's going to be a blow job only. And this was the way its going to be done. I'll be more flexible, you know, try a bunch of different, different types of things.

6 (42m 35s):
Yeah. Don't spend, don't spend 30,000, $40,000 on content and then realize it's not good content.

3 (42m 41s):
Exactly. Exactly. I had a guy that spent $75,000 on content and he never got at two to five, seven document crashed. So, so I tell people, try a bunch of different stuff, you know, try some stuff. You like try some stuff that's outside your area of eroticism and putting it up a tube sites and see what other people like, you know, and do your homework, find out what other people aren't shooting, find out how they're shooting it. Find out, you know, really drill down into a fan base of clients, go on Reddit.

3 (43m 17s):
You can find every potential fetish and that you want on Reddit and you'll find discussion groups. And if you listen to the guys in the clients or potential clients on Reddit, you'll find out what they don't like about content. They are going to tell ya, and then you figure out how to do with what other directors, what other producers aren't doing.

6 (43m 37s):
Interesting. So Michael, you've also done some writing I noticed from your bio. Maybe you could tell him that. Tell us a little bit more about your literary works.

3 (43m 48s):
Well, it's only, I wouldn't call it literary works. It was, it was one novel. I've got five more planned. I haven't gotten down to writing the other five yet. I wrote it because it had been a book I led, like I said, I, I went to Europe, I did research on my family and I was able to discover a thousand year history that the, the family, the Fattorosi is go back to the year 10 83. And we're actually, we're actually not Italian where Norman, a Viking invaders and a German, a Lombards.

3 (44m 23s):
And so, so for, you know, 900 years, my family was in that little town called laxity where I went to go visit over. And they were sorta like a noble family in the town. Not count's, you know, they didn't, they weren't things. They were just, you know, basic, you know, noblemen. And so I did all those research. I spent years and years and years and money and money and money and time and in different archives. And so I had this great, I have this great like bases for a book.

3 (44m 55s):
And what was very interesting as well. One of the things that we had that's now gone supposedly is we, we owned one of the 30 pieces of silver that pilot paid the Judas too much to give up jesus'. And so a, that piece of silver has, has been stolen from the family. And that basically sent me on a, a 13 year search and that turned into the book. And now I've got four other books, five other books to complete the series. But basically what it does is it's, it's a mixture of fictional with factual.

3 (45m 32s):
Sounds like fun. It's, you know, righting is fun. It's its tough. And it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of concentration. You really have to be, you know, you, you can't do anything else. That's the problem. Its very hard for me, at least as a writer to, you know, pick up the phone, make a phone call, go back to writing, talk to a client about legal stuff, go back to riding, have dinner, go back to riding. Like when I'm, when I'm writing and whether it's a legal paper, it's a brief or it's, it's a motion. I literally have to lock myself in a room and just concentrate on that.

3 (46m 7s):
So, you know, it's hard to do when you've got other things going. Hopefully when I retire someday a I can finish the other four or five.

1 (46m 16s):
Fantastic. I'll be looking forward to it. Well, Hey Michael I'd really like to thank you for being our guest today on Adult Site Broker Talk and I hope we'll get a chance to do this again real soon.

3 (46m 27s):
Sure. Let me know whenever you want Bruce thank you very much for having me.

1 (46m 30s):
My Broker TEP today is part seven of what to do to make your site more valuable for when you decide to sell it later, let's talk about some of the factors that influence the sales price of a website. Number one is usually profit. It will be a multiple of the annual profit and that multiple is based on whether the profit is trending up or trending down and how fast it's trending up or down. I've seen valuations have as much as five times, although that's very rare. Normally it's an, the two and a half to four times area.

1 (47m 2s):
I've also seen evaluations of one time. If the profit is taking a nose, dive, if a Site hasn't been monetized, then its all about the amount and the quality of the traffic. If a sail is based on traffic, it will be a multiple of what the traffic would sell for on the open market. What are the sources of traffic direct traffic search engine traffic and reviewed traffic. Our, the most valuable to traffic it's the least valuable is the reliable and sustainable. What is the traffic history?

1 (47m 33s):
In a rare case, the valuation will be based upon sales. The same factors apply to that as profit and the valuations will of course be lower than those of profits. How old is the website? Is the domain a.com or something else? Dot com is still King. What does it select a rating? How many inbound links are their, how much staff does it take to run the site? How many email addresses do you have in the case of a dating site? This is very important. Another factor can be the reverse engineering cost.

1 (48m 6s):
How much would it cost to build the site from scratch and drive the same amount of traffic to it and how much time would be involved? What is the lifetime value will have a customer on the site? Next week will be giving tips on how to buy a website. And next week we'll be talking to Connor Young, the President of YNot Group. And that's it for this week's Adult Site Broker Talk. Once again, like to thank my guest, Michael Fattorosi. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk I'm Bruce Friedman.

0 (48m 40s):
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