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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?"
any more than we already do... provided we don't burn our illicit wares to CD or DVD.
No doubt those with iPods and other portable media devices with nonvolatile and erasable memory are safe from being liable under this ruling.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
If true, he definitely crossed the line.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
For example, it is illegal to create computer-generated child pornography
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.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
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.
Yes, there *is* a differnce even though you chose not to see it. Remove the kiddie porn because in the context of this discussion it is moot.
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.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
>> Is it just me? or has sex with underage boys/girls become the most
>> 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.
you know nothing of the case. I do I am from Muskegon,MI and the sicko lived with my ex-stepchildren that I still dearly love and care for.
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?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
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.