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.
Simpsons Movie (Score:5, Insightful)
During The Simpson's movie, it showed Bart's junk while he was skateboarding. Does this mean the movie depicts Child Porn?
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but the teeming masses (of stupid) will label it as such.
Insane (Score:2, Insightful)
Technically (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't mean that the movie depicts Child Porn... it means that the movie IS child porn.
Actually, let me make it simpler for the Western judicial system - everyone is guilty of child pornography... There, now they can wiretap our phones and internet, and jail us at will. I just feel that this was much more efficient than going through the motions for the next 10 years just to arrive at the same point.
Character ages? (Score:5, Insightful)
If "She looked old enough." isn't a valid defense, then "They don't look old enough." cannot be a legally valid position either.
Escape Valve (Score:2, Insightful)
However it was also to deter the production of other material, including cartoons, that could "fuel demand for material that does involve the abuse of children".
This is the same question you can find in discussion about violence in games: will it fuel a natural tendency or will it serve as an escape valve?
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:5, Insightful)
Fantastic!
Imaginary things are now real!
Imaginary people now have all the rights of real people!
So, who is the victim of this 'crime'? (Score:4, Insightful)
When a goverment makes laws that can not be enforced, people lose respect for not only the law, but the goverment itself.
This means that any figure, that some judge deems is drawn to represent a person under the age of 21, must be considered juvinile. Therefore, if this drawing is doing something that may be construed as 'adult' in nature, the drawing is now up to the judge's intrepretation as to the age and content of the drawing.
And people are supposed to sagely nod their heads and say "ye wise man, thou knowest my inner-most thoughts and thy punishment is just".
As a note to myself, henceforth all my stick figures will sport mustaches (yes, both male and female stick figures). The beard on the females will indicate that they are post-menopause - just to be safe.
Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)
So how long before Anime is child porn down there? Oversexed adolescents are the typical fare so it probably is fodder for these guys. It really sounds similar to the case involving the suicide we had recently, the law just HAD to do something because it was "OBVIOUSLY" wrong to begin with. In other words, law based on the whim of a government employee.
It is a cartoon, no one real was harmed, so now inanimate objects have rights or is that entirely dependent on what they represent? I mean, can you get busted for making a parody where the statue shits on the bird? After all its "naughty bits" might be showing.
Who would have thought the real prudes wouldn't be over zealous religious players and instead dowdy old government goons
Re:Insane (Score:3, Insightful)
It has moved away from this to attempting to prevent thoughts of people who are into this sort of thing (not the cartoons, the real disgusting kid stuff)because if they are able to see it, they begin to imagine it, and if they imagine it, they want to go do it. Its still looked at as prevention, but instead of preventing the actual abuse, they want to prevent the thoughts that may lead to the abuse.
I agree with everyone here that this is ridiculous, I saw the Simpson's Movie in the theater, and now I am waiting for a FBI agent to bust down my door and arrest me for seeing Bart's junk.
This is a major breakthrough (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that the children who are actually being abused around the world are enormously happy that at least their favourite cartoon characters are safe.
I'm sorry if that's a little too cynical, but don't these people have important things to do?
Re:USA? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that's art.
Like a statue of Cupid or paintings of cherubs and stuff.
Re:So, who is the victim of this 'crime'? (Score:2, Insightful)
The victims are supposedly the real children who get exploited in making real child porn. The theory is that these pornographic drawings contribute to an illicit market in child pornography and thereby encourage the creation of the real thing.
If you ask me it's utterly bogus reasoning. If anything these sorts of drawings are a good thing, as they will act as a substitute for borderline cases who are attracted to children but don't want to act on that. But in any case, that's the "reasoning" behind it.
Re:while I deplore child pornography-- (Score:4, Insightful)
You bring up a good point, Bart and Lisa are clearly depicted as children, in spite of being decades "old". But what about all those Manga girls? Are they 18 (or whatever is legal where you are at)?
Stupid ruling, and one that easily can infect other nations for no reason other than it sounds like it "protects the children".
Re:Character ages? (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you criminalise Thoughtcrime, victims are just icing.
This judgement is particularly interesting in that it prohibits material that could produce "demand", i.e. it possibly encourages something that might potentially be Thoughtcrime. Gosh.
Re:Insane (Score:5, Insightful)
Now they need to ban violent films to prevent the thoughts that lead to murder. Then ban mention of the banning of violent films to prevent the thoughts that lead to thoughts that lead to murder. Then create the system from Minority Report where they catch criminals before the crime is committed. Then borrow from 1984 and arrest based on thought crimes.
Oh, hang on, that last one is what they're already doing!
The Judge needs to explain his reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
"Justice Adams said the purpose of the legislation was to stop sexual exploitation and child abuse where images are depicted of "real" children.
However it was also to deter the production of other material, including cartoons, that could "fuel demand for material that does involve the abuse of children"."
Firstly, child pornography is generally produced by people who wish to profit from such material or trade it with others. The belief that non-commercial demand encourages production is based on the assumption that child pornographers produce such images to distribute freely, which clearly contradicts claims that child pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry.
The idea that viewing child sex cartoons encourages child pornographers to abuse actual children takes this argument to an even more ridiculous level. If someone can download child sex cartoons in order to get their fix, they are less likely to download real pictures of children. If commercial child pornographers make an increasing amount of money from child sex cartoons, they're more likely to draw cartoons than use real children. If there is an increasing demand for cartoons amongst people who trade child pornography, those who produce images for trading will be more likely to draw cartoons than use real children
There is no mechanism by which viewing child sex cartoons can lead to real children being used for child pornography; this is yet another example of blind moralism being placed above the welfare of children.
This is one step from... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:5, Insightful)
No, because it doesn't do so in a way that might result result in the viewer possibly experiencing the Thoughtcrime of being sexually attracted to children which could result in them performing, commissioning or rewarding an act that may involve an actual child.
The only people who need to worry are those evil monsters who sexualise children, and portray them as precociously pubescent and sexually available.
So, that'll be... hmmm... the RIAA, MPAA, makeup companies, childrens' clothing manufacturers, and every parent that ever let their pre-consent daughter dress like that Hannah Montana tramp.
And why stop there? If you're under the age of consent but above the age of criminal responsibility, then surely you're responsible for your own actions? Arrest hot horny teenage girls for putting Thoughtcrime into the heads of poor innocent God-fearing men, is my new motto. We have a lot to learn from our friends and allies in Saudi Arabia.
Re:Time for Australia to Fall Off (Score:3, Insightful)
I really am scratching my head over England and Australia. It almost seems like they see the US going down a path and are racing each other to beat us to the end.
Re:Technically (Score:4, Insightful)
They've had 19 Halloweens.
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:5, Insightful)
The law doesn't differentiate between a sexual act or just being nude when it comes to child pornography. It is only a matter of degrees, but both are still considered "child porn".
Display as illegal as the act itself? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the argument against drawings of child porn? That showing the act is as much criminal as the act itself?
Then why are action movies legal that show killing people? Is it less criminal to show how to kill someone than it is how to rape someone? Is it me or is this logic a wee bit flawed? It's legal to show how a person is getting disembowled, with blood and guts flying while a chainsaw rips through their body (yeah, of course special effects, but hell, that's REAL people acting, I'm not even talking some splatter anime/manga here!), but it is illegal to draw something?
Could anyone explain to me the logic behind that? I'm sorry, I don't get it.
Re:Technically (Score:3, Insightful)
Regulation for regulation's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
There have been two big news items about child porn regulations 'gone wild' recently - this, and that business in the UK about images on Wikipedia. It was hard to trump the UK's absurd regulation, but Australia did it!
I'm absolutely against "child pornography" for reasons that I think I share with many others. However, that term is clearly very broadly interpreted.
The reasoning for child porn regulations is pretty reasonable:
Since most people agree with 1., we should prosecute those who produce and sell overtly sexual images of real children. If we just consider 1., I think it's fairly straightforward to delineate between acceptable and unacceptable images; pictures of children taking a bath or running around naked (which children do, and which parents find charming for some reason) were clearly not taken in circumstances where children were exploited.
Point 2 is where the more broad regulations come from. Perhaps there are people who would be sexually aroused at seeing an image of a child bathing, even if the picture has the most innocent of connotations. I would argue that we need to deal with the disturbed individuals in this case, not parents recording their childrens' lives.
With point 2 in hand, regulators can really go nuts - who's to say what will sexually excite an individual? Pictures of fully-clothed children playing, pictures of aspiring dancers in tutus, pictures of children's shoes, where is the line? Is there some critical number of people who have to be sexually excited to make the image illegal? Even if that is solid reasoning (and I don't think it is), how do you measure that?
I think the important thing to keep in mind is point 1 - we know that the creation sexual photographs of (real) children exploits children, so we must prevent it. Point 2 must be treated with care; we shouldn't abridge our liberties to create content just because there are mentally ill people who would use said material as a call to action. We should be devoting our resources to helping such people.
Another example of lazy, ineffectual government.
njord
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:3, Insightful)
Where I live (the Netherlands) the law definately makes that difference. And the cartoon that this article is about is definately considerd childpr0n. So I suppose where you live, just about any parent should be arrested for producing childpr0n? That's even sicker than this cartoon being illegal, man.
Re:This is one step from... (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you see this distance? I can't see any. This is thoughtcrime. There is nobody being harmed, nobody being at any kind of disadvantage, what remains after the dust settles is the claim that someone could think a certain way after looking at those pictures.
Where do you see the difference to thoughtcrime?
Re:To be fair... (Score:5, Insightful)
He could have been fined A$0.01 and it would still be a very bad thing.
It's the precedent in this case and not the punishment.
(And they say CHILDREN can't tell fantasy from reality. Apparently we now allow judges with a child-like intelligence.)
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:4, Insightful)
You've definately come to the right place here at slashdot, given that you do not seem to understand the difference between nudity and sex;-)
See the story a few down from here, where British ISPs are censoring an old Scorpions album cover because it contains a photograph of a nude prepubescent girl. (Hope nobody tells them about Blind Faith.)
Really, is it any less absurd to say that simple child nudity is child pornography than it is to say that a sexually explicit drawing of fictional child cartoon characters is child pornography?
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:3, Insightful)
You can have nearly everyone supporting a thoughtcrime, so long as that thought is disgusting or unpopular enough.
An interesting extension. (Score:5, Insightful)
If cartoons can be considered people, and the laws apply to all people, can cartoon makers be charged with murder for killing off a character? Can Warner Bros. be charged with assault and battery? What about Bugs Bunny or Wile E. Coyote? If one produces a cartoon depicting a rape, can one be charged with facilitation?
This is an incredibly stupid ruling.
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, an interesting little documentary about the making of "Rick Steve's Europe" which airs on PBS commented that a lot of the footage from such churches and art frescos and such can't be shown on TV because of American purtanism essentially.
Art, high art, made hundreds of years ago, can't be shown on TV because its bad for you.
Art vs. The Bad Stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference between art and porn is interesting. The True Teen case out of Utah illustrated it clearly. (I'm at work, so I can't Google for links and details. Feel free to fill in, folks.) In that case, the defendant, a photographer with a web site selling sexy but clothed pics of girls, won in a slam-dunk after the evidence showed that he did not produce the material for his own sexual gratification, an essential element of the crime under the law in that state at that time. IOW, he won because he was able to prove his state of mind to the court. (The details are probably unique...Wish I had links.)
Later, on his web site, the photographer published an essay in which he opined that he could take far more revealing photos and sell them for far more money IF he were to sell in book form, rather than online. His point was that online sales of the material at a reasonable price to the masses meant that the knee-jerk reaction of LEA was that it couldn't be art. Art is expensive; his stuff wasn't. Art is a tangible thing that you hang on the wall or put on a bookshelf; his product didn't fit the profile. Art is printed on paper or something flat and doesn't require electricity; his was just light emitting from a monitor.
He is of the opinion that he could put *anything* (almost) in an expensive, coffee-table-style "art" book and sell it without harrassment. However, he feels that even the most innocent content, if sold online, was a risky business.
I agree with him. I have a copy of Larry Clark's beautiful book "Teenage Lust" in which he reproduces several photo and text essays on growing up, running with the gang, getting in trouble, and getting laid. (I hope I've got that title right; it's been years sinice I looked at the book.) If the thing were a web site, Clark would be in jail for life. But I paid ridiculous money to get it at an internationally-famous art exhibition and it's a BOOK instead of just a computer file. No way anyone is going to get prosecuted over that; the few times that bluenoses have famously tried, they've failed. Sally Mann, David Hamilton and others have been harrassed and have re-located or changed their art, but none of the high-profile investigations of serious artists over the last 30 years (that I'm aware of; please tell me if I'm wrong) have actually resulted in anyone being convicted of this crime.
The lesson for pervs? Just brazenly publish your work in high-quality books with high prices. That should be enough to shield you from any charges.
The lesson for the rest of us? The laws in this area have hinged on thoughtcrime for far longer than most people realize. All pictures of kids are illegal if the prosecutor can convince a jury you got some sick jollies from them.
I have no idea how to protect against that. Burn your family albums, I suppose.
Re:Ouch (Score:3, Insightful)
You're making the dangerous assumption that these two groups are mutually exclusive.
Re:Art vs. The Bad Stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't make things much better! If anyone got exploited there, it would be the kids exploited by an eager beaver prosecutor.
Re:Art vs. The Bad Stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
In practical terms, yes. That, and the storage format.
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:2, Insightful)
Not true. It has to be sexually suggestive. Otherwise, a lot of journalists would be in jail.
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Real movies... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, dunno about Australia, but it _might_ be in the UK which beat them to the finishing line when it comes to criminalizing stuff that might look like the real thing. To be fair, though, they didn't stop at child porn. You can also go to jail for "extreme porn", if I understand that right.
Still, you bring exactly the kind of example that I had in mind. And it's not just a matter of portrayal, I guess.
I had a classmate through high school and college which looked a _lot_ younger than she was, and the diminutive size probably didn't help that distinction either. By the time she finished college and got married, she looked like she was just hitting puberty.
So, obviously she was old enough to marry and have sex (unless a big star appeared in the east when she got pregnant;) But I'm getting the idea that in a few places around the world her husband could probably get in trouble if he has a picture of her naked on his hard drive. And may the elder gods help him if he filmed himself having sex with her. Because she _looks_ like a child.
Where does one draw the line when it comes to what it _looks_ like, anyway?
Because it happens in the other direction too. Some girls look older than they are. E.g., Tracy Lords obviously didn't trip anyone's suspicions when she claimed to be 18 and starred in a porn movie... at the actual age of 15.
So let's say you have a picture of an 18 year old on your hard drive and fly to Melbourne or London. Well, it could also _look_ like a very precocious 15 year old. I mean, she could be 15 and just look like 18. Maybe you're pretending she's 15 in your head. (Well, _you_ probably aren't, but just making a point about such confused laws.) How do they know you aren't? If the purpose of the law is to prevent demand for underage porn, how do they know if after pretending some 18 year olds in pornos are 15 and precocious, you won't progress to actual pictures of 15 year olds? It's at least a theoretical possibility.
Criminalizing what something _looks_ like, seems to me like a really slippery slope, when there's so wide a range between what someone is and what they look like.
Now we've crossed the line (Score:5, Insightful)
why stop here. I've got book after book on my shelf where fictional characters are killed!
More to the point if you really want to draw attention to the 'wtf' currently underway, possibly we should direct our law enforcement officers to your national art gallery. Undoubtedly plenty of naked underage flesh on display there (in fact just has to appear underaged, so not even that much of a stretch) - hey, who's to say you're not aroused by cherubs anyway?
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Do hope none of you think my stick-people look a bit on the young side - hate to have my front door kicked down and be put on 'a list'
Re:Real movies... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah this is getting ridiculous. We need to go back to the ROOT reason why child pornography is illegal: - to protect real children/teens from being raped by adults
Therefore we also ban images of child sex because we don't want to distribute the imagery of said rape. But is a child harmed when they pose nude (like Vanessa Hudgens self-portrait)? No. There's no rape. Is anyone harmed by a cartoon or CGI of children? No. Again, there's no rape.
If there's no victim, there's no crime.
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:4, Insightful)
It also counts for pictures of individuals of legal age who look as if they are underage, according to recent legislation.
I could probably be done for child pornography if I took nudie pictures of my wife, and she's 34, just because she's so flat chested and petite.
Re:Real movies... (Score:5, Insightful)
And there is the fallacy of all child pornography laws. Women hit sexual maturity around 13-15 and according to the law hit mental capacity to give consent at 18. There is an entire genre of porn where women of legal age who look much younger than they are pose nude for men.
Men find the unadulterated idea of women attractive since they can believe they are virgins(google "teen virgins" if you need proof). Another issue with censorship laws like this is that its impossible for a man to look at a picture of a woman and know with any certainty how old she is. You can dress up an 18 year old to realistically make her appear 12, and you could probably realistically dress up a 14 year old to look 18. Theres no way to know. To illustrate this conundrum, consider these scenarios:
A 15 year old girl poses nude but the photograph has a photoshopped head of of an 18 year old. Is it immoral to look?
A 18 year old girl poses nude but the photograph has a photoshopped head of a 15 year old. Is it immoral to look now?
What if all these numbers were reduced by 5? Immoral now? Quite obviously, but in the two scenarios above the answer isn't at all clear cut. In the second scenario, this must be illegal since there is copious amounts of this type of pornography scattered across the web. Simply google "Miley Cyrus nude" for proof.
Any argument that a cartoon which includes no photorealistic elements is child pornography is faulty. Since the laws were designed to protect children, and there was no children harmed, this merely exemplifies a flaw in the law.
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:4, Insightful)
well... that's a real photograph of a real preteen girl naked... and... are her hands bound? Does this image have any artistic value beyond the attempt at arousal? Then WTF is child pornography?
Re:Regulation for regulation's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the important thing to keep in mind is point 1 - we know that the creation sexual photographs of (real) children exploits children, so we must prevent it.
Here's a thought: how about we arrest people who are actually committing the crimes depicted in the photographs, i.e. rape/molestation, rather than focusing almost entirely on the photographs themselves?
Western societies have developed a strange fixation with child pornography, elevating it to a level of heinousness far beyond the actual act of child rape it may depict (of course all of the self-shot post-pubescent teen porn is lumped in as well, where there are no victims). I guess the governments and law enforcement officials have gotten their wish... the hysteria has allowed them to put a stranglehold on freedom of speech on the internet, and very few question it. "We must prevent it" by widescale monitoring and censorship of the internet.
Re:Simpsons Movie (Score:1, Insightful)
"well... that's a real photograph of a real preteen girl naked... and... are her hands bound?"
- No, you're seeing a part of the lens crack. Congrats, censoring just made you think more pervertly than what's really there.
"Does this image have any artistic value beyond the attempt at arousal?"
- Yes, it actually does. you could even say it's far from an attempt to arouse. It's supposed to disgust. This, my friend is art because it's more than just the first thing that comes to mind when you look at it. I won't go into details on how to look at art or how to appreciate art, but I'd recommend investigating further for personal growth.
"Then WTF is child pornography?"
- pictures and material expressly made to stimulate child porn addicts.
you could also ask "WTF is art?", and depending on a persons answer, even child pornography could be art.
To me art is the creation of an idea which represents that idea in its purest form, and I must say, the original virgin killer picture does do that. The image is grotesque because of what it hints at by its title, the girl and the lens crack. The idea is expressed wonderfully, and should horrify any normal caring person (not arouse). Should it be banned? Hell no. It raises awareness and brings things to light for discussion, how is that a bad thing? This is a staged image, doctored to invoke a reaction.
It's also to my mind a perfect example of how censoring can limit you in making an informed opinion of a picture, because as you yourself thought that she was somehow bound, but if you had seen it uncensored you would have realized what's going on.