Man in Court Over Simpsons Porn 673
Ever get the urge to look at pornographic drawings of famous cartoon children? Neither do I, but 28-year-old Kurt James Milner did, and that's what got him registered as a sex offender. Police received a tip about the pornographic material and eventually found images featuring child characters from The Simpsons and The Powerpuff Girls on Milner's computer. Back in 2008, a Supreme Court judge in Australia ruled that cartoons in which child characters engage in sexual acts is child pornography. Milner said he downloaded the images to show them to his friend 'because he believed they were funny.' Guess it's not so funny now.
Bad write up. (Score:5, Informative)
This is not what got him registered as a sex offender: he was already registered as a sex offender from a previous case, in which he had been found guilty of actually having child porn (with images of real children) on his computer. The prior conviction is reason for the severe response to the cartoon images. This being the case, his claim that he didn't get sexual titillation from these images rings rather false.
Re:Cartoon porn is still porn (Score:5, Informative)
I guess you didn't read the article, which is no big surprise.
It's his second offense. The first involved real children.
Old News (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No wonder we're losing the battle on child porn (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No wonder we're losing the battle on child porn (Score:3, Informative)
I'll wager that it's the under-resourced that was the limiting factor, since it doesn't sound like it took major effort. Given that California has something like a decade of unprocessed DNA rape kits due to lack of resources, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising if data forensics had a year long wait before they even got around to touching a new case.
Re:Bad write up. (Score:3, Informative)
Mod parent up.
The real story here is NOT that the judge erred in his ruling. A judge can only work with the law as written, and as interpreted in the light of normal statutory interpretation rules and past judgements (precedent/stare decisis).
The story here is that the Australian definition of child porn was apparently written in such a way as to (unintentionally) include drawn/cartoon images. And yes, it should probably be amended (I'll leave that argument alone for now though). The point is though that the judge only has some leeway in interpretation. He can't go against clearly written and unambiguous language.
Here is the relevant Australian legal definition of child pornography:
CRIMINAL CODE ACT 1995 (Cth)
SECT 473.1 Definitions
"child pornography material "means:
(a) material that depicts a person, or a representation of a person, who is, or appears to be, under 18 years of age and who:
(i) is engaged in, or appears to be engaged in, a sexual pose or sexual activity (whether or not in the presence of other persons); or
(ii) is in the presence of a person who is engaged in, or appears to be engaged in, a sexual pose or sexual activity;
and does this in a way that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, offensive; or
(b) material the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of:
(i) a sexual organ or the anal region of a person who is, or appears to be, under 18 years of age; or
(ii) a representation of such a sexual organ or anal region; or
(iii) the breasts, or a representation of the breasts, of a female person who is, or appears to be, under 18 years of age;
in a way that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, offensive; or
(c) ; or
(d) .
Note that the key test under Australian law is whether or not a reasonable person would deem the material offensive, rather than merely consideration of the content itself. This test is almost certainly satisfied by most 'Simpsons porn' cartoon drawings. It requires only a representation of a person who 'appears to be' under 18 years of age. Certainly Bart, Lisa and Maggie satisfy this definition.
The equivalent US law requires that the subject of the images be "identifiable", which one might equate to "real". But there is no requirement for "identifiable" or "real" persons in the Australian law.
So basically the story here is that Australia has a section of law that could probably use an overhaul. I don't really feel that the judge did anything wrong here - he judged in accordance with the law (and given the defendant's past history of having REAL child porn images, I don't think he was hard done by).
Re:No wonder we're losing the battle on child porn (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Insanity. (Score:1, Informative)
Ridiculous.
Thought crime -- pure and simple.
Re:All hail (Score:3, Informative)
Happens from time to time. It was part of a cartoon sketch show which was intended to drum up publicity.
Another one (though I doubt you'd find it on Youtube) which definitely did cause hysterics was the Brass Eye paedophile special:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/brass-eye/4od#2929844 [channel4.com]
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Informative)
And no, I didn't rtfa.
It's as simple as this: he pleaded guilty.
Re:Simpsons Already Did It! (Score:3, Informative)
"Attracted to" is not the same as "sexually aroused by" (although the two obviously overlap a bit). What I am attracted to, i.e. my taste, what makes one girl absolutely gorgeous to me but merely pretty/hot to my mates, I cannot define but it sure isn't the size of her breasts or some other specific, easily measurable property.
What I am sexually aroused by on the other hand, is fairly easy to specify. At least two handfuls of nicely shaped, rounded boob. Slim waste, wide hips and a round, firm behind. Muscular, shapely thighs and ass. Full lips, heavy'ish makeup, long hair, high heels and the skill to not look like a clown when wearing them.
Re:Cartoon porn is still porn (Score:2, Informative)
there have been some cases of consensual murder. There was a famous case of one guy who wanted to be eaten by another guy
Re:Simpsons Already Did It! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A fine line has been drawn (Score:1, Informative)
One of the problems in society is the huge disconnect between pedophilia and child porn. Pedophilia is an attraction to prepubescents, you can be 14 years old and be a pedophile (and yes this has happened), but if you have sex with 99 women over 18, and one 10 year old child, it doesn't make you a pedophile. Child Porn on the other hand is an image of a person under the age of 18 years or appears to be under 18 (So they could be 25 dressed up in a schoolgirl uniform for example), real or imaginary (eg the Simpsons Porn), clothed or not.
So people assume if someone gets done for the possession of child porn that they are a pedophile when in fact they may not have any images of prepubescent children at all. Even a photo of a baby in a bathtub can be considered to be child porn if some nut comes along and says that it can be construed to be sexually suggestive to a pedophile. As someone else said, two 17 year old took photos of each other having sex and got done for child porn and yet the sexual age of consent for them was 16.
There are people out there who do want the sexual age of consent to be increased, and also the child porn age to be increased to 21.
So next time you see a report of someone being convicted of possessing child porn, all the images may in fact be people who are over 18 when the images were taken, but they may look like they are under 18.
Re:Simpsons Already Did It! (Score:2, Informative)
I believe the term is 'hebephile' [wikipedia.org].
Re:Insanity. (Score:3, Informative)
This reminds me of a recent story [proactivedads.com] about a man on a British Airways flight who was asked to move seats. The reason? He was in the aisle seat and his pregnant wife was in the window seat. Between them was a child they weren't related to. British Airways policy assumes that all men are sexual predators, apparently, and thus men can't be seated next to children they aren't related to. No such problem with women. I guess all women are caring motherly types while all men are sex-starved perverts.
Anyway, he objected to moving and was yelled at and threatened by the flight attendant. Eventually, he moved, but he's now suing the airline.
Re:Insanity. (Score:3, Informative)
Me too. But apparently there is only a size limit on the recycle bin, not an age limit. When you hit the size limit it will delete older stuff to make room.
If you delete something, then never delete anything further, the file will stay in the recycle bin forever (unless you manually dump it of course).
Re:So counterfeiting is not a crime? (Score:3, Informative)
It is perfectly legal for you to go buy a printing press, make up your own money, print off as much as you want, then try to convince people to use it. Hell, you can even skip the printing press step [slashdot.org]. What is illegal is duplicating somebody else's currency.
You do not know what a ponzi scheme is. You are just throwing that term out there because you heard on the news that it is some "big bad, fraudulant thing that rich people sometimes do that hurts poor people".
This has been done numerous times in history, and every time it is a clusterfuck. Nevertheless, there is nothing preventing this system from being implemented today, and to a limited extent, it already is. You want more competition in currency? Invest in foriegn currecies. Plenty of people do it.
Listen, if you fancy yourself an anarchist, or if you think we should go back to a bartering system, or if you think we should put money back on a gold standard, then just say so. Any of those opinions are far more rational and respectable then "it should be legal to counterfiet money". You are not doing yourself any favors with this schpiel.
That was the first time I said that, but if you want to hear it again, go find yourself an economist.
Re:Insanity. (Score:4, Informative)
Even passengers who have been pre-allocated a seat on an airplane are asked to move when they find themselves sitting next to a strangers child.
Businessman sues BA 'for treating men like perverts' [dailymail.co.uk]
If it such a big issue with the airline, they should update their booking system to make sure children are sitting next to a guardian or parent and not a stranger.