Australian Judge Rules Simpsons Cartoon Rip-off Is Child Porn 612
An anonymous reader was one of several to note a bizarre story in which an Australian judge ruled that drawings can be child porn. In this case, it was knock off drawings of the Simpsons doing naughty things. Good thing they're going to be censoring the Down Undernet soon. Who knows what damage this could cause.
Re:USA? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Insane (Score:2, Informative)
A) CP laws are designed to protect REAL children, and
B) Drawings are not real children. Don't know about Oz; your link says I'm not authorized.
Re:Character ages? (Score:5, Informative)
Based on a "reasonable man" test. So even if you have a pornographic image of an 18 year old who simply looks a little younger than she is, and she's in court to testify as to her age, and the fact that it was consensual, you could still be convicted because she still appears to be under 18.
And with a strict enough interpretation of the law, she too could be convicted.
Latvia (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/generalarticlesynopsfullart.aspx?csid1=121&csid2=844&fid1=31286 [exclaim.ca]
Re:USA? (Score:1, Informative)
Ask and ye shall receive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalition [wikipedia.org]
Real movies... (Score:4, Informative)
I guess this dvd is now banned there? Hell, they way things are in the US, I'm surprised they haven't banned it here.
Video Games Next (Score:4, Informative)
So I give this less then a year before something from a video game is now implicated.
Violence towards children too right? How many RPGs have plucky minors doing battle against the forces of evil? Oh sorry that robot hit the protagonist of the game. Child abuse.
Lets not forget that Frank Herberts DUNE, Little House on the Praire, are both considered in several school as examples of C.P.
Paul was roughly 15 in the story and Laura Ingles Wilder was married as a "minor" by today's standards.
The rise of the "Thought Police" right before our eyes. It's good to see the Pre-Crime units taking care of obviously crime-inducing material before it results in a crime...
Lets not forget that last I heard 50% of possession charges in the US still stem from Traci Lords.
Great...
Now animated content eh? Little Mermaid? Too revealing? Will all animated characters have to have disclaimer signs?
And technically Bart isn't a child. Hell he's at least 20 years old now. But if it is the appearance of youth that makes that determination I have a feeling the whole wife\girlfriend\mistress dressing up as a cheerleader is right out now...
The world is going crazy and I blame too many electronic gadgets. Liek geese getting confused when migrating we're going collectively nuts as a results of too much man-made 'noise'in the world....
Re:Ouch (Score:1, Informative)
So how long before Anime is child porn down there?
It already is: http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?c=9256
Mr Bao Peng Lin pleaded guilty to four charges - one count of importing child pornography, one count of importing anime pornography depicting sexual violence, one count of possessing anime pornography depicting sexual violence and one count of making a false statement to Customs.
Customs investigators subsequently executed Customs search and seizure warrants on a house in Morley. Western Australia Police also attended.
A further 14 anime DVDs were seized by Customs as they contained images of sexual violence.
Re:Are people who see child porn in everything... (Score:5, Informative)
Congratulations, you've discovered Freudian reaction formation. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:5, Informative)
"Children" for the sake of child pornography does not necessarily (depending on your jurisdiction) only apply to pre-pubescent children but includes minors who are very pubescent and sexually available (to their peers).
Some hot sixteen year old cheerleader takes her clothes off for her sixteen year old boyfriend and nothing illegal has happened. However, if she takes pictures of herself for her boyfriend he may be guilty of possessing child pornography (and her of creating it).
When you hear cases on the news, remember that we're not always talking about "children" as you may think of them, but rather not of adult age according to the law.
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:5, Informative)
If it is the case I think you are referring to, she was not charged with possession of child porn for having nude pictures of herself. She and her boyfriend took pictures of themselves and sent them to each other. Both were charged with possession of child porn for having pictures of the other and both were charged with transmitting child porn for send the images to each other.
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:3, Informative)
/ D7 - G - / A7 - D - / D7 - / GG7 E7 / A7 - / DA7 D /
Isn't it awfully nice to have a penis
Isn't it frightfully good to have a dong
It's swell to have a stiffy
It's divine to own a dick
From the tiniest little tadger
To the world's biggest prick
So three cheers for your willy or John Thomas
Hooray for your one-eyed trouser snake
Your piece of pork, your wife's best friend
Your Percy or your cock
You can wrap it up in ribbons
You can slip it in your sock
But don't take it out in public
Or they will put you in the dock
And you won't come back
Re:Insane (Score:3, Informative)
In the UK similar laws against cartoon child porn exist. The rationale is that pornographers were using rotoscoping type techniques to turn real video into cartoons to avoid the anti-pornography laws.
Since writing a law to ban lifelike indecent cartoons is difficult they opted to make all cartoon sex involving children illegal, and probably a lot of other cartoons too.
I guess nobody's written in to complain about the simpson's movie, rugrats, etc yet.
It's another example of a stupidly written law being used beyond its scope.
Re:Display as illegal as the act itself? (Score:3, Informative)
Could anyone explain to me the logic behind that? I'm sorry, I don't get it.
No. If you don't get it now you likely never will "get it". To understand the logic behind censorship you need to have at least some amount of cognitive dissonance [wikipedia.org], an authoritarian personality [wikipedia.org], and some defensive mechanisms [wikipedia.org]. Try banging your head against a concrete wall long enough [wikipedia.org] and you might get enough brain damage to understand this logic.
Re:This is one step from... (Score:3, Informative)
In real thoughtcrime, the crime would be to have the thought. Here, the crime is to possess an image which the judge believes might prompt the thought. The difference is that there is still something in the real world (in this case, the cartoon) that is being presented as evidence that a crime took place; in a thoughtcrime situation, the prosecutor could secure a conviction just by saying something like "we know this person thinks evil things because he looks too happy during the Two Minutes' Thinking Of The Children Only Not Like That You Sick Pervert".
Related news item (Score:5, Informative)
Related UnNews item: Wikipedia now hosting child pornography [wikia.com] NSFW!!!!
What's funny is there is a picture of what looks to be a nude (except for nylons) prepubescent girl in a provocative position (with the genitals covered by a price tag), and as UnNews and teh Uncyclopedia are actually hosted by Wikipedia, it's true.
In a manner of speaking...
Re:Real movies... (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong
In Australia, women can legally give consent for sex at the age of 16. Laws on weather they can pose for nude photo's and video's (commercial) vary from state to state but the general rule is 18. Women can have a Homosexual relationship at the age of 21. Please stop giving uninformed opinions about Australian laws based on a sound bite you heard on CNN/Fox news.
Once again you are generalising. Not all men, in fact I'd wager not the majority of men. I myself prefer Asian women, and sometimes find 18/20 yr old girls look too young for me. Google will come up with a fair few results for any type of pornography you care to look for so this does not support you theory (Try "Asian H cup", many people would be disturbed by that, but then again some wont).
Also try to remember that laws like Age of Consent and production of pornography are not uniform around the entire world. For example the Age of Consent in Japan is younger than the western world but all their porn must be censored.
Prohibition laws designed solely to "protect the children" in this fashion are wrong because they are prohibition laws and all prohibition laws serve to do is drive the real criminals into deeper hiding places and make a lucrative market for the prohibited device. Point in short, we already have a law against children in pornography, this needs to be enforced properly (with due process and thorough investigation) rather than having additional restrictive laws making it easier to get a conviction on circumstantial evidence.
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:1, Informative)
Imaginary things are now real!
Imaginary people now have all the rights of real people!
There's nothing new here.
In the US, there was a guy convicted of child molestation (or maybe it was possession of child porn). In any case, the cops busted into his house for an unannounced check.
They found on his desk some objectionable drawings which he himself had drawn -- the product of his own mind, no actual children involved, just drawings.
Tough shit -- they took him down for violating his parole. So we're far ahead of the Aussies.
In the end, this is nothing but thought crime, pure and simple. Just like all the "hate crimes". If I kill someone, what does it matter if I do it for racial or religious reasons? The person is just as dead. So, if I'm smart, I can avoid the "hate crime enhancement" on my sentence just by keeping my mouth shut. I can always spend an hour at home before or after the murder shrieking all the racial or religious epithets and curses I know in an empty room. Just so I'm not heard dirring the commission of the crime.
What a load of perverse horseshit our laws are.