Court Rules Burning Porn = Making Porn 887
An anonymous reader writes "An appeals court has upheld the prosecution of a Michigan man who was charged with production of child pornography after downloading and burning pornographic pictures from the Internet. The pictures were created by a Russian website that the man was not affiliated with in any form. From the court decision (PDF): 'After reviewing the dictionary definition of
the word make, the circuit court stated that the bottom line was that, following the mechanical
and technical act of burning images onto the CD-Rs, something new was created or made that
did not previously exist.' Is this simply a court's overreaction to a scumbag pedophile? And how does this affect the lawsuits by the BSA, RIAA, and MPAA?"
Why worry about the {MP|RI}AA... (Score:5, Informative)
No doubt those with iPods and other portable media devices with nonvolatile and erasable memory are safe from being liable under this ruling.
Re:Uhh, it's Child Porn (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Three points (Score:5, Informative)
If true, he definitely crossed the line.
Re:Three points (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's not.
See Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition
The court ruled that simulated child porn that involves no images of children and no children in its production is constitutionally protected free speech.
Re:Dictionary? (Score:3, Informative)
Please read the ruling instead of the /. spin (Score:5, Informative)
Regarding the counts related to the CD-Rs, the prosecutor argued that MCL 750.145c(2)
encompassed activity where an individual arranges for, produces, makes, or finances child
sexually abusive material, and when defendant took the blank CD-Rs and burned images on
them, he clearly created child sexually abusive material. The prosecutor noted that the statute
defines "child sexually abusive material" as including any reproduction, copy, or print of a
photograph depicting a child engaged in a sexual act. The prosecutor argued that, therefore, by
copying, reproducing, or burning the images onto a CD-R, defendant "made" or "produced"
child sexually abusive material.
Of course by reproducing the material, he knowingly became part of the chain, and therefore also part of the abuse.
Re:Dictionary? (Score:1, Informative)
The law is clear (Score:3, Informative)
However... burning a CD with the content, because it is a conscious and deliberate act, pretty much negates any possibility that a person could try to appeal to that line of reasoning as a defense if one was caught with such content.
Although I agree with some other posters that say it was stupid to associate burning a CD with child porn on it with creating or producing it.
Re:Three points (Refuted) (Score:3, Informative)
1) Correct. Copying child porn is not the same as creating new child porn. But the child is still victimized. True, even if physically done only once to the child their victimization is celebrated, condoned, accepted in the minds of individuals repeatedly. Fantasizing over a child in a sexual (explicit or other) way does its damage the first time, and every time after that is reinforcing such acts into the mind, each as damage reinforcing as the next.
2) Your questioning why people call him a scumbag, and I will avoid discussing that for now. But you're wrong about what people choose what they are attracted to, and whom and here is why. Choice. Based on the preponderance of education one receives by a vast majority of people in any given region, child molestation and exploitation is known to be wrong. This man had a choice, even at an earlier age, to not do something that was wrong but instead chose to do it. A small attraction, if allowed to be entertained in the mind, will grow into something much larger than anticipated or even expected. But that's the crux of the matter. He did have a choice and did not choose correctly with either the laws of the land or what was accepted universally by a vast majority of people in this world that you DO NOT sexually exploit a child for any reason.
If you doubt that thoughts lead to actions or in any way dispute this please read books by, "Lazarus, Lazarus & Fay, 1993", Shengold (1995), Sutherland (1995) and vos Savant (1996) and acquaint yourself with how choices that are left uncorrected or unguided can be damaging to an individual or many others around them. "The Manifold of Sense" - by Dr. Sam Vaknin is also a good read that deals with Narcissism. Believe me when I say that it is quite related to this issue.
3) For example, it is illegal to create computer-generated child pornography. Why!?
I'm shocked, though it's not completely surprising, the amount of people who come out and give speeches where they claim "sex-related laws are based on some twisted idea of morality, and nothing more." That so called "twisted" idea of morality is based on the moral reasoning from a deontological point of view. That such acts deviate from the stability of society and must be quashed, even when some of them are veiled from the public and aren't allowed audience or to promulgate to prevent the perpetuation of acceptance of such acts.
While I could go on about the ramifications of the ill-informed and undereducated status of the people in this country regarding the stability of society from a moral point of view, it wouldn't do this thread any justice, failing to hold the attention to the points you raised.
Re:Replying to Your 'three points'. (Score:1, Informative)
http://johnnowak.com/temp/yuko_ogura_p1713.jpg [johnnowak.com]
Re:No, he didn't (Score:5, Informative)
Drugs laws already make this distinction. Because if he burned the CD for his own use, the drug law equivilent is "Possession". If he burned the 500 or whatever number, he could be charged with "Possession with intent to distribute".
If we followed your logic, then the person who has one or two marijuana plants for their own use can be charged with Possession with intent to distribute when clearly one or otwo plants does not allow for that.
Simply burning the CD is not producing the content. It is transferring between media.
Re:Is it just me? (Score:3, Informative)
>> vilified act in American culture?
Actually no, sex with minors OUTSIDE of marriage is.
Many US states cheerfully allow minors under the age of 15 to marry in defiance
of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, General Assembly resolution 2018,
which states:
"Member States shall take legislative action to specify a minimum age for marriage, which in any case
shall not be less than fifteen years of age; no marriage shall be legally entered into by any person
under this age, except where a competent authority has granted a dispensation as to age, for serious
reasons, in the interest of the intending spouses."
This makes the US (a UN member) a rogue nation and a human rights violator
when it comes to the rights of children and their sexual safety.
Want to have sex legally with a 13 year-old nymphet? marry her in New Hampshire
and bang her with impunity with the courts' blessing.
Re:Replying to Your 'three points'. (Score:3, Informative)
Being in a reinforcing community isn't illegal, and isn't the original issue raised.
Normalizing doesn't "fuel" consumption of porn, it would simply break down a cultural taboo in the consumer's mind. That doesn't provide impetitus, it just loosens a restriction.
And, that can work both ways. You can be disgusted with porn enough so that it drives you away from it, just as anyone who has ever been caught unawares by goatse will never think of the human colon in a friendly manner ever again.
Re:Uhh, it's Child Porn (Score:3, Informative)
Certain famous Page3 models from years gone by started at 16 or 17, so if you have an archive of the Sun newspaper you probably now have kiddie porn (yes, allegedly it is retrospective). Lock up the librarians and throw away the key.
England is also where people have famously (tv news presenter) been taken to court under kiddie porn laws for daring to take pictures of their kids in the bath.
Furthermore, the age of consent is still 16. The English teenagers who at 16 can legally have sex, get married, have kids etc., now presumably can't even possess a picture of themselves in the bath let alone their kids.
Oh, and say you're a middle aged male, then having (consensual) sex with a 16 year old girl is perfectly legal, but if she emails you a nude picture of herself you're an evil pedo child pornographer. Why is the picture of the 16yo child illegal - well, because it might lead to you wanting to have sex with the child, so it's illegal because it leads people on to "worse" things which are themselves... er... legal.
Maybe I just don't get it, but seems to me like our collective moral compass is bent so far it's disappearing up its own arse.
Re:No, he didn't (Score:2, Informative)
Re:So (Score:5, Informative)
This is the court's way of identifying legally what he was doing. The guy was downloading all kinds of kiddie porn, no not 16-17 year olds but 5-11 year olds. and making CD's to sell and distribute. This definition that the court came up with really does fit. he was "making" child porn to sell in essence by making a product. it's like using pieces of paper and gluing them together to make a book.
Yes, the wording stinks, but this is expected in a backwater hick-town like Muskegon.
Lots of details on the case are not out in the open because the man has used some of his friends to strong arm the press in keeping things quiet. But my 21 year old stepson who discovered the porn, alerted his mother and got it all rolling is certian that a pile of 100+ cd's all labelled the same and with frome what he could tell the same content on them is certianly not "a private collection".
do you need 100+ copies of all the files you downloaded from greatbigbooboes.com?
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Committing a murder during the course of a felony (the rape, in this case)--in some states--automatically bumps the murder up to 1st degree, which means, depending on where you're being tried, that you'll be looking at life without parole or the death penalty.
Similarly, if you break into someone's house and are caught, wind up killing the person who catches you and decide NOT to kill the rest of the family, and have a good lawyer, you can argue that the murder was accidental, demonstrate that you were only there for a little petty theft, you might be able to shake the 1st degree murder and work your way down to 3rd degree murder or even down to manslaughter. 20 years is certainly better than life without parole.
Not intended to be legal advice, use with caution, don't run with scissors, etc.
Re:Language, please. (Score:3, Informative)
In American English, foot-lovers are podophiles. The Greek vowel stems are actually a bit ambiguous between (don't trust unicode so just interpret the ascii) p[e|o]s (foot) and p[ai|e]s (child).
Re:Already true in the UK. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:the problem is... (Score:3, Informative)
Jury nullification is a serious right/authority of the jury. The fact that many judges will underhandedly remove potential nullifying jurors is nothing short of, in itself, felonious.
Re:You misunderstand the problem. (Score:4, Informative)
The real world ain't black and white. It's ridiculous to claim that, say, Norway is a terrorist-supporter simply because the Norwegians thougth other actions than outrigth invation was more apropriate for Iraq. I *hope* that not even Bush really means that.
In real life, we're friends. Friends sometimes disagree. Sometimes you even tell a friend that some idea of his is, in your opinion, silly, stupid or worse. That doesn't make you a enemy. On the contrary.
It's similar with child-porn. Everyone wants to end abuses of children. That's not the issue. The issue is that the world ain't black and white.
In lots of countries, for example, you can be put behind bars for *years* for, for example, posessing a video of a 16 year old having sex. In the same country where actually *having* sex with the same 16-year old is fully legal. (that's the case for Norway for example, because age of consent is 16, but "child-porn" is any porn with under-18s.)
Or worse yet: For posessing pictures of a person who is on the pictures dressed up as/behaves like being 15 years old, while *actually* being proven to be 18 years old. (this is so because "child-porn" is defined as being, *OR* appearing to be under 18)
Or even worse: I've got letters, written by my girlfriend at the time (Hi Marianne!) when we where *both* 16 that would undoubtedly qualify as porn, and thus child-porn. Technically we can *both* be convicted of posessing child-porn, unless we burn all the old letters, simply for posessing letters sometimes describing what we where (fully legally!) doing to eachothers.
Think I can't top this ? How about imprisoning for *years* the 15-year old who writes down some of those thougths and ideas that *every* healthy person of that age has ? The law makes no distinction if the porn is purely fictious (as in your daydreams about the girl in your class) or involves *actual* sexual acts. The law also makes no difference if you yourself are 15 or if you're 50. There's a name for say a male that is 15 year old and has sexual fantasies about girls. The word is: normal.
"Punish everyone strictly" would mean giving these people, and many more, a multi-year prisonterm. If that's your idea of a fair justice-system, then I'm glad you're not voting in my country.