Slashdot Mirror
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?"
This is already true in the UK. Someone who downloads child pornography over the internet is considered to be "making pornography" under the same laws that the photographer taking the pictures would be charged under.
This can lead to sentences for downloading or copying and distributing child pornography that approach those for making it in the first place, which is treating the two acts as equivalent, when they are not.
More relevant to the slashdot crowd, if one copies child pornography for any reason whatsoever one can be considered to be "making pornography". If one administers computers used by others and discovers child pornography in one way or another, and copies it aside as evidence, one is at risk of being accused of "making pornography". Therefore the general advice is that if one finds a computer with child porn, one should step away from the computer and call the police, not attempt to do any of the usual sort of evidence preservation, further investigation, etc, that one might if it was another sort of computer intrusion.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
This is a somewhat scary decision, as much as I like the nailing Pedophile's balls to walls. For example, that case in Vermont that made the news about the judge giving the guy 60 days, I'd have given him 40 years.
As for point three, I believe that that the law, at least about totally generated art, was struck down. It doesn't matter about the 'computer', it's the whole no minors being involved.
Then again, there's the whole 'looking at it on a screen might intice you into doing it for real' thing.
Of course, being at work, I'm not exactly going to search wide and far for it.
I don't read AC A human right
>Child Porn is classified completely differently from Adult Porn, for good reason.
Yeah, because we all know that someone that's only a mere 17 years 11 months 29 days old is soooooo much younger and naive and in need of protection than someone that's lived to the ripe age of 18 years; however, that's the dividing line between child and adult in the eyes of the law.
In response to #2: I agree with part of what you're saying, but there are three things to consider.
A. Looking at porn makes people want more porn. The link between porn and sexual conduct is quite controversial, but the effect of viewing porn on the demand for porn is not. Viewing porn makes people want to view more porn. So far so good. This brings us to....
B. The demand for child porn causes some child sexual abuse. Some abuse would occur anyway, but some of it is profit-motivated. Increased demand for child porn means a stronger incentive to make the stuff. Note that this is true even if no buying or selling is involved (ie trading). Open and free distribution might undercut the market to some extent -- but given that music companies continue to thrive despite widespread file-sharing, I doubt that market saturation will make child porn unprofitable.
C. Viewing child porn violates the privacy of the kids. It's like reading someone's diary or peeking in on them in the shower. Unlike grown-ups, kids didn't consent to being displayed for sexual purposes. These kids are already traumatized; how do they feel moving into adulthood, knowing that people are viewing their abuse?
I do tend to agree with your third objection, however. I suspect that if synthetic child porn were legal there would be quite a bit of substitution going on -- purveyors of real child porn would find it more profitable and less risky to just make the fake stuff and pretend it was real. There might still be an effect on demand that might outweigh this substitution, however.
Of course, if child porn causes people to want to molest kids then you don't need any of the above arguments in order to oppose it. But even if it doesn't, it may still cause harm through its effect on the market.
Make cheese not war 8:)
'looking at it on a screen might intice you into doing it for real' thing.
The supreme court struck down that line of reasoning when it struck down the ban on "simulated child porn".
Besides, if you follow that reasoning to its logical conclusion, you better start pulling about half the movies at the rental store off the shelves, since most depict illegal acts of some sort.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
There was a case a few years ago here in Australia, where a guy accidentally followed a link to a child porn site, was disgusted at what he saw, and reported it to the police. The police took his report as a 'confession' to the crime of downloading child porn.
Never heard the result of the court case, but I'd like to think the court had a bit more sense than the police.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
Please explain to me how computer-generated child porn, in which no actual child is involved, creates demand. Are people not pedophiles until they've consumed some child porn? If nobody made child porn, would we have no pedophiles who want to look at it? Perhaps it fills a demand, but how could it create demand?
You choose to act upon impulses though.
Yes. And I would MUCH rather someone act upon their impulse by viewing pretend-child-porn that involves no actual children than by finding a real kid to fondle. Which would you prefer? Until we've found a way to "cure" pedophiles of what is basically a mental illness, I don't see any reason to make it illegal for them to soothe their impulses in ways that don't harm any real children.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
If this court decision is the final say and starts a chain reaction in court decisions everywhere, then I'm going to sue RIAA and MPA for every cent they have. Because, technically according to the decision of this court, all 3000 mp3's I've burned and 250 movies (give or take) are new creations that I created that didn't exist before, and I had a hand in "making" them. So I want my damned money : recording fees, sales percentages, box office royalties, rental and DVD royalties. With interest. /. about us making it illegal to share your holodeck programs.
Seriously, I don't condone child porn in any way, shape, or form. But this ruling is a rediculous scare tactic, created by old, wrinkled retards who still think it's 1946 and that LCD and iPod are some kind of illegal drugs us punk kids are taking.
That has been and always will be the problem with court systems. They are generally full of old, outdated, disconnected duesche bags who go by a world view that is 50 years outdated. Thus we have stupid judgements, asanine laws, and the continued existence of paradoxical things like RIAA. Our generation (20's and 30's) will be these people in another 30 years or so, which means that in 2035, we will finally legalize file sharing and what not, but our children will be writing the same kind of rants on
Halitosis - (n.) Halle Berry's Camel Toe.
No you are a publisher when you burn the music. Creating a greatest hits album is a new creation.
I don't understand a point. A cover band is not formed by musicians?
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
"Defendant was charged with . . . multiple counts of arranging for, producing, making, or financing child sexually abusive material, MCL 750.145c(2)."
So the law says producing OR making. Therefore, they are not the same thing. Producing is what we think of when we talk about taking pictures or hiring actors and cameramen. So "making" has to mean something else.
The question is what does it mean, and is the statute specific enough to hold someone responsible for committing acts that fall within that meaning?
I'm not condoning anything, but it's really getting out of hand. There are people dying by the thousands in this country and abroad, people in serious trouble with dope, women who aren't getting child support and who are getting beaten up, and yet with all these things going on, what America considers the most heinous crime is sex with children. I find it very bizarre that the same country that sobbed griveously over the death of Jon Benet Ramsey, who was dressed up like a hooker and paraded around in beauty contests before she turned 10, is chomping at the bit to put away pedophiles.
I don't know about anyone else, but if I see a little kid coming my way, I go the other direction. I would never address a child without his/her parent present, which is kind sad because when I was young, there were lots of adults who would talk to me. It would be kind of nice to be a buddy to some kid on the block, to find out what he/she is about, maybe even toss a ball around or something, but forget that. I don't need those problems.
As for the poor bastards who get themselves in a predicament with a kid, they might as well leave the country because their life is effectively over in this country.
Yuck.
http://www.misleadinglinktochildporn.com/
Now, if that link was in fact a real link, and you clicked on it thinking it was, say, legal pornography, and only realize the truth after your browser has displayed the pictures- is that pedophilia? In this scenario you have definitely downloaded child porn.
Or you go on a usenet porn group and just download everything. Probably a fair chance that a few of the pics are underage. Again, you've downloaded child porn.
Maybe you donwload a few vids of the next Traci Lords... bingo, child porn.
You may be researching the issue in general, and land yourself in a legal pickle of child porn- this has apparently happened to a few people.
You might be browsing MySpace, and check out some hot girls... hot 16 and 17 year olds. Some of those pictures are very borderline and I could easily see a judge declaring them pornographic, especially in Republimerica. Given the rampant age inflation to avoid being kicked off the site, you may not even know, if the real age is mentioned at all it might be in bright yellow on bright white, or obscured by background images.
While willfully downloading child porn would be pedophilia in almost all cases, there are *many* scenarios where someone downloading it would not be pedophilia.
I agree. I think it should be fairly straightfoward -- creating kiddie porn (as in, taking the pictures), selling kiddie porn, or purchasing kiddie porn -- these should all be illegal. It becomes very slippery when you try to extend it to downloading. And you do not really need to. It may be despicable, or perverted, but downloading in and of itself does not have any impact on society. If someone is buying it, that is different -- they are providing a financial incentive to the kiddie porn producer, which will keep the loop going. Thus it makes sense for that to be illegal. Downloading provides no financial benefit for the producer, therefore it is not part of the loop, which to me means it is not nearly so important. There is perhaps a gray area, where you could be providing financial incentive even if you do not pay directly for the images, by visiting a web site which has banner ads. I'd argue that that should be mostly left alone as well -- or at least, make the banner ad provider the "consumer", since the money trail leads to them. They ought to be more careful about where they allow their ads to be run. Follow the money, and stay off that slippery slope.
But you're totally missing the point, which is that possession is already illegal. It's not like the guy wasn't already going to lose his job, his family, and his future, simply for possessing the stuff. That's a pretty bad punishment, you know.
It's the same principle as having different degrees of murder. If you execute everyone, regardless of whether they premeditated the deed and regardless of whether there were extenuating circumstances, then you send out the message that premeditated murder induced by greed is no worse than murder committed in desparation by someone who's suffered years of domestic abuse. Similarly, if you punish everyone who possesses child porn the same as those who are actually out there directly abusing children, then you send out the message that raping a child and selling photos of the deed is no worse than downloading a picture from the internet and burning it to a CD.
Are you seriously telling me you don't think raping a child is worse than burning child porn to a CD? Because if you do think it's worse, then surely you're in favour of having a law that says it's a worse crime that needs a harsher punishment?
Hey, how about we distinguish in law between "possessing" child porn and "producing" child porn? That way, we can charge the guy who's only burning it to a CD with "possessing" it, and save the harsher "producing" punishment for the people who are physically abusing children... oh, wait.
If he burned for backup (meaning only one or two copies and he kept the CDs), then he's obviously not a producer or distributor. If he burned to give to others, then it would make sense to say he's "distributinng", if not "producing." Just looking at the definition of the word "make" is simply stupid when it comes to digital data.
Irrelevant, anyway. Child porn is a non-issue. Child abuse is another matter. Come up with a program to stop child abuse, you don't have a child porn issue any more.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
...err...I mean precedent, not president. Does this mean, if say, some random guy burns a copy of a video from Al Jazeera showing an act of terrorism, that they are guilty of making terrorism?
Holy crap! Does this mean that people that still have pictures, videos, and articles of 9/11 are terrorists now?
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Your protectiveness is understandable and admirable. And while I won't attempt to sway your opinion with a cogent argument (because, as you admit, it will do no good), I will at least attempt to make a point.
I am a convicted sex offender. In my late teens, I did some things with a 12-year-old that were unspeakably stupid. This behavior worked went unchecked for several years, and developed into attitudes, that in turn developed into further behaviors with another young girl. I convinced myself that so long as I had their consent, it couldn't be hurtful. I held this belief very strongly.
My stupidity caught up with me soon enough, and I was arrested. The arrest was a turning point of my life. It sent me a message that I wouldn't have otherwise gotten from logical arguments. In that way, I can certainly relate to you when you say that no rational argument will change your opinion (which is to "kill the fuckers"). There was no trial. I plead no contest. Although I could likely have avoided jail for various legal reasons, it would have meant pleading not guilty and effectively calling the children and their families liars. It would have meant putting them on the stand. Jail was far more preferable to me, even though I was terrified of it.
When I was released from prison I sought conselling. My fundamental attitude had already been changed by then: it didn't take much time after my arrest (but long before my conviction) to understand and believe that any sexual encounter with children is devastatingly hurtful -- and not just to the girls themselves, but also to their families, and to my own family as well. Counselling helped me to understand the psychology behind pedophilia, and how to manage it.
And it is perfectly manageable. What decision do I have? Hurt kids, or don't hurt kids. It's not even a question that requires considering. You hear about convicted sex offenders whose defense seems to be "I couldn't help myself." Ludicrous! They made a choice. I made a choice. I paid for it, I dealt with it, and now it's in my past. Still, I constantly worry about how the girls and their families turned out. As I should, in some respects.
Now, you would have me killed. (There was a time when I'd have obliged you, but those times are past.) Perhaps you would like to see a law passed that imposes mandatory death penalty on all sex offenders where children are involved. Even if this would solve a problem, is it feasible? Can society actually do this? Would this even happen?
No.
So what instead happens is that a large portion of the population carries the sort of rage and hate that you have, without understanding the nature of the crime and the psychology of the offender. What's very well known, however, is that high degrees of stress and concern increases the likely hood of recidivism. That is to say, the more people call us scum, wish us dead, insist we are hopeless, the greater the chance of relapse. This is true of any offender, incidentally.
I think there probably are those who are pretty much hopeless. But there are a large degree of those who are definitely not. It is a perfectly manageable problem. All I want is to live a normal life, within reasonable constraints. That is to say, I certainly don't expect I should be allowed to work at a daycare center, or teach in schools. If you knew about my past and you weren't concerned about me being around your children, I would be concerned about you. What I would like is for people to judge me for who I am now, not what ugliness exists in my past.
I owe a debt to the people I have hurt to live my life with honor and integrity, and when people at large insist that I am a worthless pariah and should be executed, there is a danger that I start to believe it. An
Back on topic. If you get off watching porno of 8-year olds.... more power to you -- PROVIDED you didn't pay for that video, directly or not. You err by making the criminal act the viewing of the porn. If we were all punished for our fantasies, then the whole world would be in jail ... starting with the most vocal of the moral right, no doubt. The criminal act in fact is the exploitation of children, or anything that contributes to it. Downloading, watching, etc ... if it doesn't provide any gain to the producer of the video, that is a matter between you and your God. If you paid for it, then you have become part of the cycle, and I agree that you should be punished.
And everyone needs to simmer down and quit letting their emotions make their decisions for them -- the problem with this issue is what legal precedent it sets. Whether or not you think all pedophiles should burn in hell is not relevant, you should stop to consider whether this ruling might affect the way other laws are applied, and you may be the target.
People look at porn because they want to. It does not work the other way around. I was a horny little monster well before I saw any significant amount of porn. Do you look at porn to make yourself horny, or because you already are? How do you select what porn turns you on?
And when you get sick of porn, do you run out and find a woman to rape? Or do you mean that you seek out women solely for the purpose of getting laid? Or perhaps, just maybe ... you are like most normal people and you understand the difference between fantasy and reality, and you control your impulses no matter what their target.
Personally, I believe that an awful lot of people have fantasies about children (heck, in the distant past, there were societies that thought it quite normal to engage in sexual activity with children). And the vast, vast majority never act on it. Otherwise, why such a hot topic? I tend to think that the most vocal people on sexual morality are the most scared of their fantasies, and their ability to control them.
Theoretically, the justice system in this country is based on justice, not on prevention. That's why we have a principle that says punishments should fit the crime, and don't just subscribe the death penalty for everything.
Consider adultry or fornication. In most places, its a minor offense, punishable by a fine. We could be like Afghanistan, and punish it by stoning. That is the most effective way of deterring people from committing the crime, and indeed has desireable social ramifications (repressive Muslim countries have a *far* lower AIDS incidence rate than their economic class would suggest, and indeed places like Afghanistan and Iran have lower rates than developed nations like the United States). We don't do this, however, because such a punishment would not be just.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
If he sends these copies to his friends is he actually hurting the child porn industry in the same way that shareing mp3's hurts the music industry? Could his conviction be used as a defense against RIAA suits? Illegal copying of material generates more demand for said material?
We are all just people.
So, whoa, whoa. If burning == "making", then does that now mean that anyone who downloads porn is now subject to the record-keeping requirements of 18 USC 2257, which basically states that anyone who makes porn after November, 1990, has to keep records of the ages and real names of all the people depicted in it? It's been held in the past that "distributors" and "resellers" are subject to this requirement, not just the people who held the cameras - now it seems to me like they're saying everyone is.
If you read the court decision, it says he had a video camera concealed in his shower to video tape people including foreign exchange students, one of which did testify at the trial, without their knowledge.
If they were underage at the time, this sounds exactly like my definition of making child pornography. While I agree that there should be different degrees of punishment for different degrees of a crime and that allowing an electronic crime to be raised to the next degree by choice of storage media is a dangerous precedent to set, this guy sounds guilty as charged to me.
~Ben
I heard the same kind of thing when some guys robbed a jewelry store a couple years back. Not only did they get charged with robbing the place, but with wearing a disguise (ski mask) while robbing a place. That charge can only exist in order to lay more charges on someone who you have already charged with commiting a crime. Wearing a ski mask is not a crime, but it is when you rob someone. So you have to be convicted of robbing someone to be convicted of wearing that ski mask. That's 2 charges for 1 act. It would be like having laws against murduring someone while wearing pants. If you wore pants when you murdered them, you'd get an extra 5 years.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
"The recidivism rate for successfully treated offenders is staggeringly low." I just want to point out that your climactic statement, upon which your plea for understanding and compassion was apparently based, is probably the most misleading thing I've read all day. You said, "successfully treated." That's the rub, isn't it? Most sex offenders are not "successfully treated," although most go through a system of court-ordered treatment that ultimately fails. Unfortunately, most sex offenders are not "successfully treated," and so go on to commit further acts of violence against the most helpless members of society. In fact, it seems that upwards of 50% of child rapists such as yourself (and remember, those are the ones who are actually caught and convicted--quite a minority among pedophiles) are not, in fact, "successfully treated," but are instead repeat sex offenders. So why not rephrase your statement, make it a little less tautological, and say something like "the few child molesters out there who are caught, incarcerated, treated, released, and aren't caught having sex with 12-year-olds probably aren't commiting a sex crime at any given moment"? Then you could follow it up by saying "unfortunately, most child rapists hop right out of the prison system and into a little girl's panties." That would be a little more accurate, I think.
so a man was prosecuted for copying an IMAGE
I am very much against porn, ESPECIALLY child pron, where lives are destroyed by the process of "making" it
however, images are just information, and this ruling is now squarely in the realm of a thought crime: having these thoughts == burning these bits to a disk. the act of a human moving bits from one medium to another should never be a crime (by itself).
Even the 10,000 figure reported in the BBC article would put the AIDs incidence rate at the level of a developed country like the UK, instead of at the level of developing countries in its economic class. Like it or not, harsh attitudes and laws about sex do a good job of preventing diseases like AIDs from spreading, especially in poor countries where access to contraceptives and early diagnosis is limited. However, just because the laws (and punishments!) are useful doesn't mean the laws are just, which was the point I was getting at.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
> If it were not for these motherfuckers who download, buy or otherwise obtain
> kiddie porn, there would not be a market for it, and people would not produce
> it, or at the very least, the amount of it would decline, because there is not a
> market for it.
There'd be plenty of `kiddie porn` even if it were all distributed for free. Most of it is swapped for free anyway.
> All of them need to be taken out and shot in the head. They have no place in our
> society.
Perhaps you'd like to suggest to your legislators that the victims of child abuse should be executed? After all, it's those people who go on to become abusers of children. Why not break the chain?
The last time I was called for jury duty, the case involved the following scenario:
A guy gets pulled over for speeding; I don't remember the numbers but he wasn't speeding by that much. It starts out as a routine traffic stop. For whatever reason, the cop decides to search his car. The cop finds an unregistered handgun in the console, and arrests the guy.
In a nutshell, dude had a gun that isn't registered. The list of charges went something like this:
Unlawful possession of a firearm
Unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon
Possession of an unregistered firearm
Possession of an unregistered firearm by a convicted felon
Possession of an unregistered firearm in a motor vehicle
Carrying a concealed firearm without a permit
Carrying a concealed firearm by a convicted felon
Carrying a concealed firearm in a motor vehicle without a permit
(Oddly enough, the traffic violation was never pursued)
There were like 10 charges for essentially the same crime - having an unregistered gun in his car. The fact that he had a prior felony conviction pretty much doubled the charges, as each offense was seconded as the same offense "by a convicted felon." What bothers me, very deep down, is that they didn't just charge him with having an unregistered gun in his car. They charged him with having an unregistered gun, with having it in his car, with carrying it, with carrying it in his car, ad nauseum.
Why is there a law against "carrying" the firearm in your car if there's already a law against "possessing" the firearm in your car? Why was he charged with "carrying" when the gun was in his console, and not on his person? And why does carrying or possessing the gun in your car warrant charges on top of carrying or possessing it, period?
It's just insane. There ought to be a "greatest common denominator" law that says if you get charged with multiple things, the jury can only find you guilty of the single most severe charge they believe you are guilty of.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of all child porn on the internet is made available for free. It is, after all, highly illegal, and pursued a lot more vigorously than warez and other illegal data sharing. If the people who distribute it wanted to collect money for it, that would mean setting up a payment scheme, which would make it a lot easier to track them down and arrest them.
There are actually many many pay sites out there, they operate under the "nudity != pornography" thing on the outside, then some stick to that, others just then proceed to provide or give instructions on how to obtain clearly pornographic material.
However, the much more popular method is "free" downloading. It's not quite free however, as it's usually done via a FTP server or IRC serve with an upload/download ratio where you can download so many bytes/files for each byte/file you upload, or some other method of qualifying you for DLs, so you have to break the law before the other person technically breaks the law. This method appeared to be surpassed by pure free downloading with the explosion in p2p, however I imagine people quickly realized how easy people were getting busted for that, combined with network filters on keywords and files making it alot more difficult to find.
And before you go off thinking me some sick pedophile for knowing this, I should at least note that I only know this because when I was a minor I preferred to look at people my own age rather than at adults.
And I also wanted to point out an effect no one in this discussion seems to consider: the downloading of these images for free (or even trade when not by an actual producer) actually protects children by satisfying the pedophiles desire such that he doesn't seek out actual children to molest.
I DO randomly download thousands of images at a time, or at least I used to, I'd let kazaa or whatever rack up a couple thousand hits, download all of them and then sort through it later, sort of a shotgun approach. And i'd get things all the time that were, lets just say, not exactly what I was looking for. It's so easy to pick up the stuff accidentally, it's all over the newsgroups, All you can do is delete it but by then technically you are already a criminal. Even if you are careful you still pick up stuff that has the file-name changed.
But it's only Fair Use that allows us (in the US) to make a copy of each of our own CDs, etc. Since child pornography is illegal, there is no fair use of child pornography. Every time a piece of child pornography is reproduced, that very act is a crime. The court rightly ruled that the act of reproduction includes transferring between media.
I doubt reproduction of the images would include unintentionally or unknowingly navigating to a website that includes an inappropriate image of a minor; the key difference is that doing so would be an accident - what this man did was intentionally (yes, for his own use, but still intentionally) reproduce a piece of child pornography.
I agree that it would be hard to accuse him of intent to distribute the images on the grounds that he made a single copy, but it does prove that he intentionally downloaded the images and planned to keep them. It rules out the possibility that he could have 'accidentally' downloaded the images. Plus, the very act of copying the illegal images is, even for personal use, illegal.
Copying illegally obtained music is also illegal, but the original piece of music was probably protected rather than condemned by the law.
There have been instances where police officers have been sent (by members of the public) pornographic images depicting minors as evidence of their existence in a certain case. This is technically distribution, and is treated very seriously.
This law is designed to protect the innocent. A minor cannot give consent to appear in pornography and is therefore a victim. Every time someone reproduces a pornographic image of a minor, its presence is more permanent and it becomes that extra bit harder to destroy every copy of the image, which is the ultimate goal. Regardless of whether he had photocopied, printed or simply copied the file containing the image, he reproduced it and thus added to the task of destroying it.
This does not affect your legally (under fair use) copied music.
No matter how disgusted you are by their actions, the people that you're trying to discourage fro this behaviour are, in fact, human beings. They are capable of rational thought. And if you want to stand any chance of effectively altering their behaviour, you have to accept this and choose methods that will actually apply to them.
Our sexuality is generally something that's handed to us without any choice on our part. These people whom you're demonizing have been handed a very problematic sexuality, but in all other ways they're very much what you'd consider normal people leading normal lives. Sure, some of them might be murderous crack-fiends; about the same percentage of them as of people as a whole. Some others of them will be brilliant neurosurgeons who spend their careers saving others' lives; again, about the same percentage as of anyone else.
This assertion that anyone with any interest in child porn is doomed to commit "a more serious crime" later is certainly bunk. This is the worst kind of justification for irrational punishment: "even if he hadn't done anything bad yet, he would have at some point, I'm sure."
(Another great recent example of this type of failure was President Bush labelling anyone who acts against the US as "evil". "That's right folks, they're not human beings who are making choices that we'd like to change because of societal and economic factors! They're just pure unadulterated evil, which handily gets us out of having to do the hard work of actually understanding those societal and economic factors and addressing them directly!")
Not always. People often share stuff for no profit or purpose - just look at all the music available on P2P networks.
I live in southern Ohio, and we've had an incident from the other side of this argument.
Basically, 3 college kids came to a car show that had a lot of "adult" activities going on (Mardi Gras type: drinking, girls lifting their tops to show off, etc.) The college kids (from North Carolina, I believe) took some pictures, went back to school, and posted some "what we did on our trip" photos on a web-site. As far as anyone knows (and everyone has stated) there was absolutely no interaction between the college students and the girls aside from the flash of the skin and the flash of the camera.
Meanwhile, the show had incensed so many of the local residents ("buckle of the bible belt" is particularly apt around here) that they wanted to prevent it from ever happening again. One of the folks search for photos of the event, found a picture of a 17-year local girl who was flashing the camera, and pushed to local county prosecutor into filing child pornography charges against the college kids.
The kids were indicted, arrested, extradited from North Carolina to Ohio, and now face hard prison time and being branded as sexual predators for life...all because they took photos of girls showing their goodies.
In my opinion, child pornography is a horrible thing, and anyone who abuses children should be tied to a table alone with the kid/parents and a rack of knives. However, it's just as much of an abuse to subvert the law and ruin multiple lives (the kids, their parents, their friends) to forward your own moral agenda.
The show was called "Cruise Fest", the county is the Scioto County, Ohio, and the website for the clerk of courts (and therefore the case information) is located at Scioto County clerk of court.
When I find the actual case, I'll post it here.
Never confuse movement with action. --Hemingway
"Sexual relations with an entity that is unable to give informed consent are unethical, in my opinion. Although there may be a few precocious tykes, the vast majority of prepubescent children are unable to give informed consent, because they are not capable of fully understanding the consequences of sexual actions"
This is the cornerstone of pedophilia/child porn criminalization, and the problem is, it does not have any foundation. Sex DOES NOT HAVE any consequences. Other than possible impregnation of one of the partners, which does not apply in our situation because at least one of the partners has not reached puberty yet. You don't even need knowledge of human anatomy to consent to sex. There's no reason a 10 year old should be less capable of understanding the consequences of sex than a 25 year old.
Sex is not necessarily harmful to children physically. A child is more likely to get severely physically hurt during soccer game than during consensual sex. There's no mental harm, either, humans don't have genetic memory that tells them that sex is evil and sexual experiences have to be traumatizing. If it's there, it's usually been planted by parents & preachers and would prevent a child from consenting anyway.
There is a certain state of good and evil involved in this. While on one hand it is wrong (in our society) to view child pornography, making it (ACTUALLY making it) is a far more severe crime. We all have urges, whether we want to or not, that is what makes us Human. Albeit this is one of the worst social taboos in our society, what he did hurt no-one. Personally, I do not think he should be punished, but instead should be helped. Obviously his surroundings didn't sufficiently teach him what our moral standards are and why we follow them. The true question at this point is, should the courts be punished for perversion of the law? I think an abuse of the system such as this should never be allowed, he never infringed on anyones rights, while the court system did by removing his rights unjustly. In-short, take the guy to a psychologist, and take the judge to a basic morals and ethics class.
What day is it? Could you please tell me?