Court Rules Burning Porn = Making Porn

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?"

Comments

Wow

[evil agent]

I didn't know I was making music all these years.

Re:So

[tehwebguy]

ah, even better! that means the RIAA owes me a lot of money!

Make?

[Gunark]

But your Honour... I didn't copy these Britney Spears albums, I made them!

Re:So

[tsa]

That certainly is better! Ah, I can see it now: Sgt. Pepper's lonely hearts club band, produced by Willem Tjerkstra. Let the big bucks roll in...

Re:Dictionary?

[joNDoty]

Is it just me or does consulting a dictionary sound like a really poor way of deciding an issue of law?

I agree. I just burned a photo CD of an old Phish concert. Now I could be arrested on multiple counts of making, possessing, and distributing marijuana!?

Re:Uhh, it's Child Porn

[CableModemSniper]

It's precedent. Not precident. Though 'precident' could potentially make sense given the current administration.

This site illegal?

[darkain]

It is now illegal for me to browse the slashdot web site, because in order to view it, my browser must "make" a temporary file on my local hard disc of the copyrighted slashdot logo. I hereby turn myself in for copyright violation.

here's a sick thing to do

[digitalgimpus]

Using a text editor of your choice, write the following in a file:

"LOVE"

save, and burn to a CD-R

You can now say you legally made love with your computer!

Re:But what is porn?

[Savantissimo]

There is nothing in a Sears catalog that somebody doesn't want to sleep with.