How do one go about starting a legal porn business?

Porn businesses can be very lucrative, but are also very risky. To do it right, you will need plenty of start-up cash and you will need a good lawyer working with you the whole time. You will also need smart management. You will also probably need multiple bodyguards and a bullet-proof vest. Much of the porn business is run by men in black sedans with dark-tinted windows who don't like anyone messing with their chain of command. Beware. First, what you need to do is set up a business plan for what kind of porn business you plan to run. A shop? A website? Or do you want to be a content provider, such as producing videos for sale by others? For example, let's say you want to make porn videos. Remember that selling any content with anyone under age 18 or who is portraying someone under 18 is terribly illegal. It is your responsibility to be sure each person is over age 18. If the actor lies to you and shows a false ID, it is still your fault, legally. So you must be very cautious. You must also follow the federal Custodian of Records laws, where you keep track of who is working for you and proof of their ages. Anyone that creates or distributes pornographic materials must keep these records, which can be inspected at any time. Also, you must create pornography, which is legal, and not obscenity, which is illegal. In the U.S., any porn that has actual sex, as opposed to simulated, is illegal in all states. This is a surprising fact I learned a while back. Very few pornographers know about this or care about it, but every now and then, there will be a federal case that hammers it home. Other than that, obscenity is judged by local standards. A factor to consider is that in the state where pornography is created, it may not be illegal as obscenity, but maybe illegal as obscenity in the state where it is received. Received may mean via package delivery or via the internet. Generally, it will be considered obscenity if it involves urine or feces, animals, or endangering anyone's life. An important factor in opening a porn business is zoning. You will need a lawyer who knows zoning. Zoning laws usually come from the city or other municipality and sometimes also from a county. A business creating or selling pornography will be considered an "adult" business or a "sex" business. Most locations restrict or outright ban such businesses. Therefore, you will need to shop around for a location that will allow a porn production business. Areas that allow such businesses are usually notorious for having them. Other factors are health laws. For example, Los Angeles now requires porn actors to wear condoms. Aside from all this, you'll need to be running a legal business, just like any other business, with bookkeeping and paychecks, incorporating or getting an LLC, and all the usual stuff. Two of the biggest factors to be aware of are: 1) that if you allow your business site to be used for sale or use of drugs, it can be confiscated by federal or state authorities; and 2) If you make any porn with anyone under age 18, even inadvertently without knowing the person's true age, you are in violation of child pornography laws and need massive legal help fast. To sum up: Bring lawyers, guns and money, because in any porn business, the chit is always about to hit the fan.

I assume you're looking for what's distinctive about "legal porn." In the first instance, it's a business, you decide whether it's a sole proprietorship, corporation, or something else. You then need to select a business model. "Porn" is a big field. Are you going to license content from other providers and put it on your site for paying customers? Are you going to create yur own content? You break it down into pieces-parts. The content license is one contract; you need to get access to the internet; you need to have a web author who codes the files and maintains the site. You need to deal with how you get paid (Paypal or a merchant bank account). You need to comply with the federal laws on record-keeping and disclosure. You probably need to hire an internet-savvy business lawyer to help you scope out what you need. This should not take more than 3 to 5 hours. Where you go from there is up to you.

Having represented the adult motion picture industry for some 30 years, I can tell you that it involves many, very significant legal issues, including regulations providing federal felony punishment for failure to comply. It is not something you would want to do without consulting an attorney with significant experience in the area.