I’ve been neglecting my blog for a little while so am late reporting on this, but it’s something rather close to my heart, for obvious reasons. Below is a snippet from a story in the Independent about The Urban Chick Supremacy Cell vs ATVOD.

“Ms Urrutia, who described herself as a performance artist, has claimed that she had been victim to a crackdown on smaller, niche pornography providers by the Authority for Television on Demand (ATVOD).

‘…Whenever I see who has been reported to ATVOD, it is usually material that could be classified as kink – especially femdom [female domination],” she said.

ATVOD, designated as the “co-regulator” of on-demand television by Ofcom, was founded in 2010 following an EU directive on the regulation audiovisual media. It is responsible for regulating on-demand services such as ITV Player and Channel 4’s 4oD – as well as paid-for content on websites which are deemed to be “tv-like”.

In June 2013, Ms Urrutia received a letter from the regulators saying she had breached rules one, four and 11 of their code. While rules one and four related to the categorisation of her online content as TV on-demand, rule 11 relates to “material which might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of persons under the age of 18.”

Ms Urrutia said that as a small-time website owner she should not be regulated by ATVOD, which is funded by a service charge levied on all on-demand providers. She also insisted that her work, which she defines as performance art, did not contravene the Obscene Publications Act.

Ofcom upheld Ms Urrutia’s appeal, finding that her site did not constitute TV on-demand. Some changes had been made to the site since ATVOD’s initial investigation…’

Read the full article here, and read more about the case at Obscenity Lawyer’s blog.