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om.and Pop got busted last night. And the night before that. They got busted in New York, and in Memphis, and in Raleigh.
They've been transported in leg irons, seen their businesses raided, watched as the Irtsl seized their customer lists. Mom and Pop video stores, say
prosecutors and pressure groups, are porn shops

IS UNDER FIRE FROM

in disguise.
Within the past year, arrests and harassment of

Fn
106 .Video January
1986

AN

KL OVECE

By

video-store personnel handling erotic, adult. or so-called "X-rated" programs have swollen trl floodtide. So has the seizure of customer records that can be collected to create McCarthv-like blacklists. These aren't i$olated events: in recent months the federal government has ntade noises about cable-TV and music-industry censorsltip,

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I heat here last year. Video-despttdi.Ee$$ffit t:,ll most private of media-is not exenipt,' . ' ,, "A new war has started, " cautions Barry,l
and less formally, some

legislative counselfor the American Civil Liberties Union, "and video dealers are one of the prirnary

targets. Things will get worse when [Attornei; General Ed Meese's] Commission on Pornography makes its report in mid '86. " lndeed. When
President Reagan first announced plans lor the 1l-member panel, he made clear it rvould exist to overtLlrn a 1970 comrnlssion that lound no link
between porn and antisocial behar,krr. 'l'o head the new corrmission Ed Meese chose not sonre lleutral social scientist, but Arlington Cotuttv (Virginia) 'chief prosecutor Henr-v E. Huclson, illl a\'id-and partisan-antiporn crusadcr. In such a Kaikaesque setting, FBI agents arttrecl with federal subpoenas raided 2li Nlemphis-area video stores last April. 'lhey made no arrests but

s ter "logs,' cte aitltai.'iffE8j$ i'. i-1... far as we could,'whatevei'f 'was' store. " ln tsuffalo, New York, the Rite Aid pharmacy
i

chain succumbed to pressure {rom the group Morality in Media and dropped its t'ew X'rated vicleo

titles. In Staten Island, New York City-rvhere Majors Record and Video displayed nothirtg Ilrtre graphic than a typewritten sheet of titles tti club members over 21 lvho requested X-ratecl tapes-store-owner Ed Pavia found liinrself charged with third-degree, obscenity. ln l'hoenix, Arizona's Maricopa Courity, iour videci stores were indicted on obscenity charges-"a Class ti

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E

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January 1986 Video

107

Felony,

" says Video Software Dealers As-

sociation boardmember and video-chain co-owner Linda Laurer, "one step above vehicular manslaughter. " Most disturbing of all, the Stamps, fukansas town council last summer ordered a video store to remove from its shelves the PG-rated Alan Alda movie Same Time, Next Year andthe
TV movie For Ladies Onfu. The store owner shot back with a $1 million lawsuit that is still in litigation. In previous years, obscenity cases centered on flagrantly graphic porn theaters and purveyors of child pornography. Now prosecutors are turning to mainstream video retailers, and to programs depicting straightforward consenting-adult sex. Public display of graphic material isn't the issue; most of the estimated 13,000 video outlets that carry X-rated titles keep objectionable material out of sight. There's little to see, of course, on the tape or disc package itself. The issue is content: content encoded as electromagnetic signals invisible until viewed in the privacy of people's
homes.

"obscenity" is for each local community to decide, based on both a court-proscribed

all the way to conviction. The only one so far may be 1984's Abor a. Texas, where

three-part test and on "contemporary community standards." Contemporary

community standards being what they are, we haven't seen Platboy centerfolds az

Trong Thi Abor, cashier at the World

News Stand in Abilene, Texas, was found guilty of an obscenity misdemeanor for

naturel on billboards. Yet while

renting an X-rated tape called, Cocky

Cruisin'. She got a 30-day suspended sentence, with the conviction later upheld by the Texas Court of Appeals. In virtually every other case, juries have
weighed the issue of obscenity versus censorship and refused to convict. Yet given sky-high legal costs, even when video stores win, they lose. Prosecutors thus make deals: get rid ofyour X-rated tapes, make me look good, and I won't keep dragging you to court. Since video stores, un-

videotapes and their unseeable, untouchable magnetic impulses are as prosecutable

as movies and books, community standards regarding video are still colored in
shades of grey. Confusion begets prosecu-

To local DAs,
a

like prosecutors, don't use taxpayers'

money for trial costs, this often works.

small uideo store is a much easier target than a

MAD AS HELL
Not always, though. Jack Messer, an archetypal Mom-and-Pop retailer, has
been fighting back for over a year. Messer owns the Video Store in Fairfield, Ohio, outside Cincinnati. An activist, Messer has also served as Secretary of the Video Soft-

"No matter how it's delivered, " asserts Bruce Taylor, vice president of the antiporn Citizens for Decency Through Law

Mafia drug
dealer.

(CDL), "pornography is still pornogra-

phy. " "The question isn't pornography, it's

not even obscenity-it's censorship,"

counters First Amendment attorney John Weston, who has argued landmark cases before the Supreme Court. "Look at the numbers of people renting X-rated tapes. There's no widespread opposition to adult

ware Dealers Association (VSDA). Like most video retailers he sells a little of everything, including-discreetly and so far legally-X-rated video. In June 1984 two undercover agents
from the local prosecutor's office came into

his shop and rented five X-rated

tion, just as it did for D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and Lenny Bruce. At first it seems absurd to lump video dealers with such celebrated anti-censorship martyrs. Yet like them, retailers who have carried X-rated tapes since the beginning of home video have become too ubi-

tapes.

They returned later to charge Messer with

video. What there are, are censorship

pression.

two counts of "pahdering obscenity." Messer's case went to trial. "I had to decide whether to fight or to take the tapes off the shelves," he recalls. "The decision was made easier when a church group came to me and volunteered to set up a censorship board. One of the members of the group told me he'd just seen a movie he would've thought was fine had it not been for the obscene language. He was speaking of. On G olden P ond." Messer's case wound up in a 5-3 hung jury; it's set for retrial. The first trial introduced a far-reaching

groups whose whole raison d'etre is sup-

"

TERMS OF ENSNANEMENT
The CDL defines pornography differently than the dictionary. A standard definition is neutral: pornography is material de-

to sexually excite. The CDL, however, distributes a booklet stating that "Pornography is the literature of sexual deviance." Overriding such differences is one important fact: pornography is legal.
signed
The only thing illegal is that vaporous quality called obscenity. What's "obscene" is hard to say, but the laws regarding obscenity (once you find it) are clear. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1957 that obscenity is not protected under the First Amendment's freedom-of-speech guarantee. Twelve years later the justices ruled that private possession of obscene material ls protected, but a later decision affirmed that you still couldn't buy obscene material or receive it as a gift. Four years after that, in 1973, the court reached its most far-reaching obscenity

quitous for the lustbusters to ignore. In 1984, X-rated video accounted for 13 percent of the nearly billion-dollar wholesale prerecorded-tape market.. In '1985, with
VCRs in another half again as many homes, the wholesale value may top $200 million, and the retail value over a half-billion dollars. One estimate for 1984 put the number

of customer transactions at 55 million-three million more than the number of people who voted for President

legal issue fortunately quashed by the judge: the seizing of video-store receipts bearing the names and other information about all Messer's customers, not just renters ofX-rated tapes. Theoretical constructs regarding privacy suddenly became very real. "The defense counsel, " relates Fairfield

Reagan's re-election. It's a safe bet that virtually none of these people write their local prosecutors to say X-rated video is fine with them and, viewed in private, doesn't violate community standards. Instead, a small number of antiporn

decision. Ruling on Miller u. California, the justices decreed that what constitutes
108 video January
l9S6

activists .do the phoning and the writing whenever a video store's selection outrages them-to local DAs, a small video store is a much easier target than a Mafia drug dealer. Curiously, however, almost no video-stofe obscenity indictments have gone

prosecutor John Clemmons, "said they'd show through the number of transactions that X-rated tapes didn't violate community standards. We felt raw numbers weren't
enough. Our feling is that the stores selling X-rated tapes in our county are serving customers crossing the line from [neighboringl Hamilton County, where these tapes are illegal. So we subpoenaed cuscontinued on Page 158

the Goldwyn collection of classy, classic

hits like lAuthenng H eights, The B est Years of Our Liaes, Ball of Fire, Stella Dallas, and The Little Fores. If these are not films you're overfamiliar with, so much the better. Wait until you discover Barbara Stanwyck. Honorable Mention: The MGM DiamondJubilee Collection (MGM/UA), just a little safer, and reproduced with an occasionally annoying treble bias. MOST PRHIIDICE: Streets of Fire (MCA). Because I like it, "VDEFENS'8I.E and no one else does, and because there's nothing wrong with all style and no content. Once in a while. MOST SUBLIME EIGHT MINUTES ON DISC;

tion (RICO) act, the law

obtained 28 X-rated titles tiont 'l'ransworld. On June 12 'I'ransworld owner Ronald Selinger and employee Dalia Hartwig were arrested under a Florida racketeering statute (X-rated tapes are no problem in Boca Raton). Modeled after the F'ederal Racket-lnfluenced and Corrupt-Organiza-

all<-rws for $250,000 bail and a possible 30-year prison

sentence. "We have a hard time getting

$250,000 bond on major drug srnugglers, " marvels one Pahn Beach County officer. Since Selinger's and Hartwig's bail could be reduced only by the judge rvho issued the arrest warrants, the two spent the night in jail and were shipped the following morning-in handcuffs and leg irons-tb the Palm tseach airport for a flight toJack-

"I'm

Old-Fashioned" and "Shorty George," dance routines from You We re Never Lovelier (RCA/Columbia).
Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth need to be. seen, not explained. I am going to defy the claims of laser experts and wear this section out. N MOST RIDICUI.OUS DISC;

sonville. Such strongarming of the 52year-old Selinger and the 32-yeai-old Hartwig created alamr, naturally, aurong n-ranv

VSDA members. Ed Austin's press announcement pr<lvided the final clincher: ". . . an assortment of records involved and docur.nents including custolners' records
containing sales and rental purchase of Iallegedlyl obscene videotapes" rvere seized

from Hollywood Out-Takes and Rare

Footage (RCA/Columbia). Wherein Miss Crawford puts little Christina to bed and rhapsodizes about the joys of children. A promotional film that someone dug out from somewhere. l-I A SPECTA| AWARD; A Cup of Oyster

"At

Home With Joan Crawford,"

in the arrest, he said. 'l'he tsoca Raton case raises two issues: the appropriateness of the racketeering charge, and the seizing of custolrer records that another State Attorney acknorvledges could become part of the public record. "I've been handling First Anrendment cases for 12 years and I've never seen anything like this," claims defense attomey tsruce Randall. "'lhe State Attorney's office is abusing and misusing the racketeering statute-the law was not designed to be used as substitute obscenitv legislation. You're seeing sontething new and it's a real frightful experience. " 'l'he ACLU's Lynn feels that the customer list can become a blacklist. "Say you want to run for public office or apply for a job. Should you be blackballed for legally renting an X-rated tape some Saturday night?" . If son.re particular bit of pornography is technically and legally obscene, does pornography cause harm in and of itselfi, 'l'he
1970 Presidential commission thought not.

FON THE NECORD

<f N
F\

Stew (for Best iontribution to the Memory of Abbott & Costello):

is

to

Ol

Purple Rain (Warner). The Password

What?

ct
q
!

, That's last year. Now for this year. My first disc has arrived, and considering how crazy I got watching the discs for this year's awards, I think I'll start early for
1986. What's this? Grolier's Encyclobedia? On one disc? Nine million words? Oh well,

P
(u

'o
N

let's go. Chapter search to 27. Frame search to 1347. Comfy, now? OK.
"Aachen. Aachen is a city in North Western West Germany in the state of North

o-

Rhine-Westphalia... "

continued from page 108

Topes on Triql

Despite vociferous partisanship on the

tomer records to show Fairfield that people weren't renting X-rated tapes. We're
not a bunch of monsters, " says Clemmons

subject, academic studies are mixed-so mixed that Dr. Edward Donnerstein, one of the country's nlost highly regarded social scientists, has publicly denounced c<;nservative activists who he says have "ntis-

of the subpoena's Orwellian implications. Perhaps not. Neither was Pandora, and the box flew open anyway. Just as it did shortly afterward in Jacksonville, F-lorida. This episode began with the Sheriff's Office in conservative Duval County getting complaints about Jacksonville video stores handling X-rated tapes. In addition to chasing after retailers on obscenity charges, the Sheriffand State Attorney Ed Austin decided to trap the store's wholesale distributor: Transworld Video of Boca Raton, more than 200 miles away in Palm
Beach County.

represented the research tremendously over the years." "You can talk laboratory studies forever and you're never going to get perfected causation, " concedes Evelina Kane, Staff Coordinator of the feminist Women Against Pornography. "What you have to
listen to is the testimony by women injured and children abused because of men who consriine pornography." Kathy tsonk, DiWomen's Legal Defense FundlMedia Re-

rector of the National Organization of

form Project, agrees that "Many abused
women who find their way to shelters and

After setting up an undercover video outlet called First Coast Video,

"officers

crisis centers say that what's happened

tcl

them is the result of their husbands ur lovers getting ideas from pornograph.u-. "
Yet does viewing pomography c/ratgc such people, or do they have vkllent tendencies to begin with? According to attornev Weston, such accounts are "the diversionarl' tactics of those who are interested in censorship, and statistically insignificant except to the extent they are overrvhelniingll' present as justification for censorship attempts. "

to<,r. " He rvould not have been a friendly witness at the Meese C<_rntniission

become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal

inquiry,

hearings.

continued from page 113

Dish ls lr

those who want the best won't be satisfied with anything less.

First Amendment rights are clearll-

SPACE AGE AUDIO

Along with the video, every conventional satellite carries a surprisingly large num-

major stumbling block to antip<,rrn activists.

It's a problem such disparate groups

as

Women Against Pornography and the Mrlral Majority have to grapple with to varying

degrees. NOW's Bonk contends that

"Women's groups lighting pornography tr1' to be aware of civil liberties, of horv tzrr is too far. A lot of the Nerv Right gr<-rups are more fascist, more extreme-the 'burn-

ber of audio signals on its transponders,

"piggybacked" on each channel with the aid

of "subcarriers," extra frequencies which

have to be tuned in on your receiver. The sound portion of most satellite programs is

the-books, we-don't-care-if-civil-liberties-are-abridged' mentality." She's not overstating her case. In tsritain, where censorship covers both sexual and violent material, the 'l'hatcher government recently censored, a politicul'lV documentary. "lt would be a terrible day in the histor.'" of the United States," asserts Cy Leslie,
senior statesman of MGM/UA H<lme Video, "if we found that small gr<lups could create censorship or an air of censorship. "

generally carried at 6.2 or 6.8 MHz, and it's important to know where to tune, unless you happen to be a big silent-movie
buff.

Many, but not all, higher-priced receiv-

ers also feature built-in stereo reception capability, allowing you to tune in stereo services like the Movie Channel, MTV, and the Disney Channel. Even if the receiver you're considering doesn't offer
stereo, it can always be added later with an

tsut it's already happening. When the

particulars have been stripped away, after all, what's under attack may be n<-rthing less than the freedom to think for ourselves, to make our own choices without a l3ig tsrother staring over our shoulders. IVlorality monitors are leaning nearly as heavily <ln

EYES ON

outboard decoder. However, it's sometimes cheaper when the feature is built in
as standard equipment. Currently, at least four:tereo systems radiate from space: Direc;, Matrix, Multiplex, and Digital. Direct (also called "Discrete") is the simplest, using two separate subcarriers to broadcast the left and right channels. Few services use Multiplex stereo any more. As a result most full-featured receivers include only the Direct and Matrix modes. Some allow you to tune in the audio bands by remote control, adding to the convenience and flexibility of the system. Most stereo channels automatically encode their broadcasts with Dolby B noise reduction, to help minimize noise and hiss. If good stereo sound is important to you, get a receiver with Dolby. "Digtal" sound is a major buzzword in

books, feature films and record lyrics as they are on videotapes. Credit cards and credit bureaus track our finances and the
Reagan administration rvould like to tlle our

private insurance records and nrake our

"confidential" tax records more accessible to <lther agencies. In this context,the ltght

to censor home video makes sense because viewing adult tapes rneans making an

individual value judgment. And independent individuals are a danger to any rigidly ordered society. Depending on the makeup of the Supreme Court in coming years, fomal censorship in the sense of prior restraint is possible in our lifetime. Informal censorship in the form of legal and legalistic harassment is already widespread. In manv cases it's being warded off with vigor-as in the music industry where the newll' formed Musical Majority and outspoken musician l'rankZappa are fighting for artistic freedom in lyric content against influential pressure groups. -Sirnilarly, in video, the VSDA and other groups are slorvl-v awakening to the dangers of censorship
and blacklists.

the consumer electronics business. With

the popularity of the Compact Disc, it's fast becoming a major element in satellite tech-

nology too. Only a handful of satellite services now offer digtal sound. Chief among them is Video Hits-l, tout-ed as "MTV for Yuppies." Digital decoders are difficult if not impossible for consumers to buy. It's expected that as the marketing of satellite-to-home broadcasts mature, all services will convert to digrtal sound for clearer and steadier reception.

THE BIG

E/frS

What would the founding ththers have thought of this? Jefferson, tbr <tne, $'as

"mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book carr
160 Video January
1986

The satellite dish has the most important job of any component in the TVRO system. It reflects and focuses weak signals like a