This is just an educated guess based on some knowledge of the laws in question but I imagine it has to do with keeping records of signed and dated consent forms / identification.
In the last year or so, Clips4Sale has insisted you have this documentation for every model you work with.
So if you have a decade or more of clip history but you didn't ask models to sign documentation or take photocopies of their ID's with their birth dates clearly marked, you may have decided it is better to close your store willingly rather than having it shut down by the Clips4Sale company itself.
I'm an active content producer on Clips4Sale, and have been for many years. I'm well aware of their approval process.
"In the last year or so?". No. Clips4Sale has
always expected you to keep these records for your models. They've always said that they can request them from you at any time, and you are expected to be able to produce them if they do. The
only difference is that now they are enforcing this rule more strictly and expecting you to provide that information up front (...and this is precisely why).
Nothing has changed.
Furthermore, all of those old clips? They've been "grandfathered" in. Clips4Sale has said that they will not force content creators to produce those documents for any clips uploaded prior to a specific date. I have hundreds of clips on my store. None of them have been contested.
So that's why I give any producer who says this is suddenly an issue the side-eye. This information is, and has always been,
required of all adult content producers by federal law under 18USC2257. Failure to comply is a felony.
Someone who's been in business as long as Knismo should know better. There's nothing stopping him from simply complying with the law going forward. And if that's a problem, you have to ask yourself why that is.
Quite frankly, and this is nothing personal against Knismo, I don't even know the guy... it sickens me that "suddenly" expecting people to document consent and ownership of the clips they upload is such a huge issue for this community. Really makes you wonder. And hell, I'm gonna be a dick and go on the record and state that if you can't be bothered to follow the law with regards to consent and age verification, then you
shouldn't be producing content for this community.
Another trouble, I've found, is that many producers did not keep hard copies of their clips. Once they uploaded them to Clips4Sale, that was the only way to access those files.
That's on them, then. Any idiot who uses computers regularly knows you should back up your work. That said, AFAIK you can log in with an FTP client and download your clips if you need to. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on that one, I haven't used an FTP client with Clips4Sale in years.