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Porn Industry Using Airbnb Rentals as Film Sets

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Re: Porn Industry Using Airbnb Rentals as Film Sets

#71

Post by vkou »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #62
vkou wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And most landlords and cities prohibit AirBnB-style rentals, but that has never stopped AirBnB.

Are you sure about that? You seem to missing any sort of a source.

Almost all AirBnB rentals in SF were illegal before 2015. [1] I'm not going to comb through every municipality in North America, but when your company's primary operations are breaking the law in the city you're based in, I think it's safe to say that you aren't particularly keen on following it.

There are no particular bylaws governing subletting in tenancy agreements, but almost all landlords forbid it. Mine does. Yours probably does, too. AirBnB has not, and will never do any due diligence in verifying that a renter's tenancy agreement permits short-term subletting - they prefer remaining ignorant of whether or not their units are legal.

[1] http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/overview-airbnb-law-s...

Re: Porn Industry Using Airbnb Rentals as Film Sets

#72

Post by sandworm101 »

rdancer wrote: post #45
sp332 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what recourse does the homeowner have in that case? And being banned from AirBNB is not really a huge deterrent. Making the behavior illegal would give you more options if it happens to you, and might really make someone think twice.

The contract could have fines for breaking this rule, or the property owner could require guests to agree to a fine in an additional contract on top of the standard terms. But the company has historically never had qualms about screwing their customers over, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

> The contract could have fines for breaking this rule

Small legal point. Contracts are not allowed to impose fines. They can cite liquidated damages (what most people see as a fine) but they have to be rationally related to the damage done by the activity described. They cannot be arbitrary or elevated simply to deter unwanted behavior. Yes, this is and issue when it comes to "parking tickets" on private property.

500$ fee to accommodate a cleaning crew = 0k.

5,000$ fine for pain and suffering caused by naked people in someone's home = not enforceable.

Re: Porn Industry Using Airbnb Rentals as Film Sets

#73

Post by wasjosh »

edvinbesic wrote: post #61
waterlesscloud wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in L.A. it's already illegal to shoot in a rental property (such as a traditionally rented apartment) without the property owner's permission. Still happens multiple times every day. It's more a result of much smaller video crews than anything else these days. Technically a lot of these youtube/podcaster people are in violation of local laws.

> Technically a lot of these youtube/podcaster people are in violation of local laws. Somehow I doubt that. By that same law then a family recording themselves on Christmas eve and putting the video on YouTube for their friends and family to see are also violating the same law.

That most generally wouldn't be considered a commercial video shoot.

Re: Porn Industry Using Airbnb Rentals as Film Sets

#74

Post by slantyyz »

stcredzero wrote: post #64
hipsterrific wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a straw man. While no one is forcing me to rent it out, it's common courtesy to let your landlord know of any activities you wish to pursue. After all, it's not your property you're staying in, there's a reason why you're renting it. After all, people rent out their homes on AirBnB for leisure. What porn film makers are doing is capitalizing on AirBnB rentals by circumventing not only regulations (not a fan of…

> That's a straw man. That's not a straw man. It is a rather cavalier and entitled attitude, however, and I agree with you that it should be common courtesy. I have noticed a common attitude in the technology sector and amongst gamers, that if you can get away with it, then you are effectively allowed to do it, and if you're "smart," you'll heartlessly exploit all such opportunities that come your way. (Note that I a…

>> I have noticed a common attitude in the technology sector and amongst gamers, that if you can get away with it, then you are effectively allowed to do it, and if you're "smart," you'll heartlessly exploit all such opportunities that come your way. (Note that I am in the technology sector and would be called a "gamer" by many.)

I think that attitude is found across the population in general, not just tech, not just gamers.

I've seen way too many people take the "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" tack with a lot of things in life.

Re: Porn Industry Using Airbnb Rentals as Film Sets

#75

Post by sandworm101 »

ChrisBland wrote: post #67
ryguytilidie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why? Seriously, I don't see why this is an issue. If I rent out my home and a couple stays there. I imagine some sex may happen there. I wouldn't care. If I rent out my home and some people have sex on camera there, and the house is returned to me in the same state, I don't care. Why do you believe this requires a law...?

I think you are being too specific in what you are saying is an issue. If you rent out your house on AirBnB, you are not expecting commercial business to be done in your home. Would you be upset if someone rented your home on AirBnB and then ran a small sweatshop out of it? What if they used it as a temporary slaughter house for animals? The base fact is they used a private property for commercial purposes when they…

Or if an attorney rented the home for a week to meet with a client. Or even to shelter a client (think domestic violence) or shield their movements from reporters (celebs/royalty). That happens all the time, but remains commercial activity in a rented unit.

Re: Porn Industry Using Airbnb Rentals as Film Sets

#76

Post by chimeracoder »

c3534l wrote: post #37
mturmon wrote: post #15

This is part of the churn due to the passage of Measure B in LA County, which mandates use of condoms on shoots. A lot of production has moved out of LA County in consequence ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_B ), away from the established sets in the San Fernando Valley. All of this was predicted in advance. I was somewhat surprised the measure passed. It was pitched publicly as a good-for-performers health me…

The measure probably passed in order to discourage porn from being shot there.

> The measure probably passed in order to discourage porn from being shot there.

That's a reasonable guess, but once you look at the pattern in Michael Weinstein's behavior, it's clear what his real motives are.

Weinstein is the president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which championed the initiative. The AHF has done good things in the past, but as of 2016, it's doing far more harm than good.

Weinstein has a really puritanical view towards sex, and has a history of actively opposing harm-reduction approaches to HIV treatment and prevention. Despite the overwhelming amount of evidence in favor of pre-exposure prophylaxis in preventing HIV transmission, he has actively campaigned against it, intentionally spreading inordinate amounts of misinformation to discourage its use.

His logic is basically, "we need to encourage condom use, and we should indoctrinate people into using condoms by ensuring that the porn they watch uses condoms". There are a lot of things wrong with this logic, not the least of which is that it's had no effect on the number of condoms used in porn shoots, as everyone now just shoots in Las Vegas or other nearby cities instead.

Re: Porn Industry Using Airbnb Rentals as Film Sets

#77

Post by sandworm101 »

hipsterrific wrote: post #53
AznHisoka wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Don't want this to happen? Easy, don't rent your home out. Renting your home out comes with risks, and you do get rewarded for that risk, but there's still risks. Nobody is forcing you to rent it out.

That's a straw man. While no one is forcing me to rent it out, it's common courtesy to let your landlord know of any activities you wish to pursue. After all, it's not your property you're staying in, there's a reason why you're renting it. After all, people rent out their homes on AirBnB for leisure. What porn film makers are doing is capitalizing on AirBnB rentals by circumventing not only regulations (not a fan of…

>> After all, it's not your property you're staying in.

Actually, it is your land. You have a property right. It isn't eternal or unlimited, but while you are renting the location it is in fact "yours". Landlords are not allowed to run around on rental properties like they own them. They don't. Their rights are curtailed for the duration of the lease. This big deal when landlords start performing "random inspections" for things like grow ops.

Re: Porn Industry Using Airbnb Rentals as Film Sets

#78

Post by aikah »

jdminhbg wrote: post #46
sp332 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what recourse does the homeowner have in that case? And being banned from AirBNB is not really a huge deterrent. Making the behavior illegal would give you more options if it happens to you, and might really make someone think twice.

Presumably having broken the terms of the agreement, you'd be able to sue them for any damages.

> Presumably having broken the terms of the agreement, you'd be able to sue them for any damages.

The "loophole" is there is no way to sue when the host is illegally subletting his apartment at first place. And a good bunch of Airbnb rentals are straight up illegal. Airbnb is a legal nightmare both for guests and hosts. Most of the time everything goes fine. But when things go wrong Airbnb is effectively of little help. That's the sharing economy, the risk is passed down to the user of these services, just like Uber, Kickstarter and co.

Re: Porn Industry Using Airbnb Rentals as Film Sets

#79

Post by Johnny555 »

kafkaesq wrote: post #66

The thing is it'd be very easy for Airbnb to fix this problem (more or less immediately) if they wanted to: "I agree not to us this dwelling for commercial purposes except as follows ...", leaving space for people to put down legitimate business uses such as remote software development. And then another section indemnifying Airbnb against suing them to collect legal damages, etc.

From the article Airbnb prohibits commercial filming without the consent of the host and agreed to pay Knapic's cleaning fees. So it seems like just telling people not to do something in the contract is not going to stop them.

Re: Porn Industry Using Airbnb Rentals as Film Sets

#80

Post by sp332 »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #40
sp332 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not required to take every risk with no recourse. A renter might steal from you or leave a spy camera behind, but that's illegal. We could certainly make it illegal to shoot commercial video on someone else's property without their permission.

But why? Seriously, I don't see why this is an issue. If I rent out my home and a couple stays there. I imagine some sex may happen there. I wouldn't care. If I rent out my home and some people have sex on camera there, and the house is returned to me in the same state, I don't care. Why do you believe this requires a law...?

But selling videos of my house without asking me is different from just taking video.
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