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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?"
If I understand this correclty I am an artist when I burn the music I illegally downloaded?
-- Cheers!
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
I didn't know I was making music all these years.
End transmission.
Please change the title.
Child Porn is classified completely differently from Adult Porn, for good reason.
1. This verdict is absolutely crap. COPYING child porn is not the same as CREATING NEW child porn. No children are harmed by such an act.
2. Submitter -- Why is he a *scumbag* pedophile? People generally don't choose what and who they're attracted to. It is not illegal to be attracted to children. It is only illegal to act on it. Provided that he doesn't, he can still be a good man in my book.
3. Laws against pedophiles (not against pedophiliac acts -- pedophiles) are counter-productive. For example, it is illegal to create computer-generated child pornography. Why!? Provided that it gives people who are into such things a release, and no children are harmed, I have no problem with it. Many of today's sex-related laws are based on some twisted idea of morality, and nothing more.
There is something mechanical and technical happening when you copy something to a hard drive as well. Or floppy-style media.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
But your Honour... I didn't copy these Britney Spears albums, I made them!
By burning it. Circuit Court: burning CDs of porn == making porn
If I "make" the music I burn to CD do I then own the rights to it? If not, then what does it mean to make something?
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"
I don't think there are too many punishments I would qualify as "overreacting" when it comes to pedophiles. It shouldn't matter if you create, distribute, burn or otherwise. The posting's statement "...the man was not affiliated with [the child-porn website] in any form" is insulting. I don't give a rat's ass whether he was affiliated or not.
It would be far too harsh to put this man in prison for 20 years when it appears that he has not personally hurt anyone. I presume that the judge will exercise his right to ignore sentancing guidlines and give this man a fine or maybe a few days of prison.
Imagine if everyone who burned a disk of pornography was in prison for 20 years.
Simon's Rock College
But what's the difference between burning it on CD-R and "burning" (writing) it onto your harddisk? Both create a copy that wasn't there before.
I'm forseeing problems with people who might have objectionable stuff in their browser cache by browsing X-rated sites but at the same time not looking for underage content.
However, the court overreached in this case, and I hope that the decision is annulled on appeal. If the decision is upheld, then technically a file that is cached by Firefox in its cache directory falls under the definition of "make".
Note that many Slashdotters view pornography online. We cannot be 100% sure that all pictures are those of women exceeding the age of 21. Most pornographic sites do not offer PDF files containing the signed consent of the women in the pictures. There is no way to be certain of their ages. If any Slashdotter accidentally viewed a picture of an underaged youth, then that Slashdotter would be headed straight to prison -- under the scope of this court decision.
Caching a file of an image is essentially "making" or "creating" something that did not previously exist -- on your computer.
After reviewing the dictionary definition of the word make
Is it just me or does consulting a dictionary sound like a really poor way of deciding an issue of law?
Isn't burning a CD/DVD just storing data to a permanent medium? If burning to an optical disk constitutes creating pornography, why not burning to a magnetic disc (a hard drive)? Hell, even temp files are stored there. Could you extend this to someone who clicks a wrong link or whatever, kiddie porn pics pop up on the screen which then get written to a cache on the hard drive, and now the poor sap is guilty of accidentally creating child pornography? Give me a break.
Those who anthropomorphize science and/or nature already believe in an intelligent designer.
The whole article was kind of a let-down for me. Immediately after reading the title, I thought I'd be treated to a bizarre story about a Christian fundamentalist group getting in ironic trouble for an anti-porn demonstration.
Take care,
Mark
There is a solution...
While I don't condone this pedophile's actions in the spread, making or distribution of such material I believe the courts were wrong in how they defined "making porn". It's a digital copy. It's not as if who ever burns a CD/DVD "creates" the piece of work; eg. If I were to copy a disc, I certainly didn't write the code, write the UI etc. and this is what it looks like they jury and court tried to make him guilty of.
I'm all for riding the demand and material of such child pornography in every possibly way (obviously not conflicting with law or human rights (ie: torture)) but from what it looks like, the jury went too far by taking the definition of "making" out of context / too close to the line to be of any good. There's an understanding for wanting this person to be put away for his disgusting actions, but maybe I'm wrong in my understanding of this judgement.
just to be clear: downloading child pornography is not pedophilia.
Technically, it's just a strage medium. A CD or DVD is no different then a hardrive in the basic function (other then technical limitations on size, rewritability, and speed). So shouldn't just downloading it to a hardrive be considered making a copy of it by this logic, since the data is "made" on the hardrive? If the downloaded it onto a Tape drive, USB drive, or portable hardrive, would it still count as making a copy? What if he ripped the hardrive he downloaded it to out of his computer? Would that then turn into making a copy? I don't accept. What he did was terrible, but from a overall perspective, this sounds like the kind of loophole that could be taken advantage of in situations where what the person did wasn't really that bad. I find it hard to believe this was done. It seems like such a common-sense loophole that it would have been patched up long ago.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
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
War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
If making music was illegal, then the penalty should also apply to
those who download "illegal music".
Then again, there's the whole 'looking at it on a screen might intice you into doing it for real' thing.
By that logic, I'd expect to never see another movie with violence again.
I'd expect a ruling like that if he put labels on them and was trying to distribute them, but when does making a backup of files (sick child porn in his case)mean your "making" something original. Sure he is making unique content (with my b/w goggles on) but something as simple as me "making" copies of data cd's and drivers and other archives I "collect" every month doesn't mean I'm "creating" anything other than a copy of a set of files I downloaded, just like moving them to a different hdd; plain and simple.
;)
BTW Does this cover Tapes? cause I got lots of DDS sitting around with gigs of "original content" on them...
Grrr... my fireplace just ate my cds and tapes...
'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)
The real reason for this ruling is to find a way to give child porn downloaders more jail time, reason or precident have no meaning. If prosecuters can finagle or subvert any method of logic to make J6P think that they are "protecting the children" TM then by god thats what they are going to do.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
IANAL but if the law was intented to apply to person(s) mass producting child porn for distribution then I would believe that only one copy (or even just a couple) of CD-ROMS would not apply to this law. If convicted there is a pretty stiff penalty so I would think only possession would apply.
"Making" porn would most likely imply forcing a child into sexual acts in order to photograph, or "make", the pornography. Unless, of course, the law is in reference to mass production of this illegal content.
Either way, IMHO the guy should get the maximum penalty for possessing child porn, but not penalized for making it. Someone in Russia made it.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
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.
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.
At some point though, it sounds like he was supporting the production of child pornography, and that is what they should have nailed him for. Instead, they've come up with this burning=making precedent, which could be misused in so many other cases it's scary. From the linked article though, I catch very little about burning and a lot about downloading... the PDF goes into more about the burning.
Now, there are a few points:
a) He got the pictures from a Russian website. From my experience with porn websites in general, you probably aren't going to get much content from a single site, so chances are they he was using some sort of paysite. In a way, he was in fact funding the creation of such content.
b) In the PDF, possibly unrelated, the guy had spycams which he used to take pictures/videos of a foreign exchange student staying at his house. It doesn't detail the age of the student though... but it might be beyond the age of majority.
c) We're not talking about a few CD's... there were approximately 50 of them. This in itself indicates a dangerously obsessive behavior, but again if they were all different I don't agree with the arguement that burning=creation. Certainly it seems a stretch to put somebody who archives such things on the same rack as the person forcing children into sexual acts. However, it doesn't indicate whether there were multiple copies of the same clips, or 50 discs worth of unique content. This in itself could be important, as if may be that the defendent was in fact producing media for purpose of distribution. Again, not necessary a charge of creation in itself, but pushing the line a bit.
What scares me:
it found that one who burns a computer image onto a CD-R is making a reproduction or copy. The court ruled that "the crime is committed when the person clicks the mouse to reproduce the image onto the CD-R." The circuit court also rejected defendant's argument that MCL 750.145c(2) was
OK, fine so we've got a copy. A reproduction.
But above that we have
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.
Which dictionary did they use... the judge's book of court-convenience? Also, what didn't exist? The disc existed, the files existed, they simply were not located on the disc at that time.
Personally, I have no problem with them nailing the guy properly under the existing laws. He possessed, funded the creation of, and possibly had intent to distribute an illegal material. There are also the other charges in relation to his cameras. However, this sets a terrible precent and I think it is incredibly stupid overall to use the given arguement. Now the Supreme has the choice of junking a very stupid legal decision/precedent and letting out a pedophile (again, 50 discs shows a rather dangerous obsession), or approving it and letting it stick for later cases involving copying of files to CD.
The issue at here isn't whether acting as a pedophile should be illegal, but whether the courts are far stretching laws in order to catch such individuals, to the detriment of society as a whole.
Unless you mean by downloading...
He joined the chain at the time he downloaded the articles. Until or unless the material was pass on to another individual - thus creating another link in the chain - he had already become a member and the downloading was a moot point.
We're not arguing that what the guy did wasn't an illegal act, we're just argueing which parts of it are actually illegal vs the creation of new definitions of illegality.
Making something doesn't give you the rights to associated intellectual property. Think about patents. You could make something that's covered under one or more valid patents, but that doesn't negate the patent-holder's rights to the design/process, nor give you rights to the design/process.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
why stop there , why not let every parents who feels like it beat him up just for fun ? after all if this guy had anything to do with child pornography he becomes DE FACTO sub-human, he is stripped of all of his right and should be killed right ?
in fact all judges should be parents because people who don't have kids don't understand the unrational fear parents have to live with and there is only relief when someone associated with the fear gets sacrified
also if someone somewheres downloads a file that turns out to contain child pornography (who cares if he paid for it or if even knew what it was before he downloaded it, I mean if he downloaded teenblowjob.mpg on some p2p network and it turns out it's a video of a 17 year old girl giving the head to some guy then clearly the guy downloading it is "creating more interest in child pornography market" and as such he is no longer human and has no right, all that is left is to stone him without letting him have a trial of course !! it just plain common sense right ? I mean just read the comments on this story or any other story about child porn and it's pretty clear that anyone who has a kid is perfectly clear that this is how thing should be
it's time for an old fashion pedophile-witch-hunt !!! bring on the torches !!!
Here you go: Martin_Niemoller
It's the principle of the thing. Yes, child porn is one of the most evil things there are, but if the judge can make bad decisions in a good case, what is to prevent him from making equally bad decisions in less good cases? I suppose the rationale for punishing customers of child porn is to reduce the market; if no one bought any, there'd be a lot less made. I doubt that is true, simply because I suspect most makers do it for themselves. But that's not your argument, is it?
How about we extend that philosophy to reporting on child porn? After all, if no one knows about it, there'd be a lot less made.
OK, and now, extend that to reading about it. After all, if no one reads about it, reporters won't have any incentive to write about it, and by the chain we've established, a lot fewer people would learn about it, and it's at least arguable that it could reduce the market for child porn.
Congratulations! If you said "good idea" to that, then you should volunteer yourself for a stay at the local jail. But if you said "ridiculous", then you have just refuted your comment. Either way, your comment loses.
Infuriate left and right
So, out of curiosity, what's the difference between:
I'm all against exploiting children, but let's not destroy the law in the process, hmmm? Stretching (breaking, really) the law like this to go after a bad guy does more to harm the law--and thus society, and thus children--than the act this man was convicted of. If we want to make a law against duplicating child porn, that's one thing...this, however, is exactly what neocons should be upset about when they rant about ``legislating from the bench.''
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
If making music was illegal, then...
Unfortunately, this may already be the case if you aren't big enough to cross-license with major music publishers.
Personally I'm all for the death penalty for child porn makers
But would you consider a photo of an infant in a bathtub, taken by the parent, to necessarily constitute child porn?
What I'm getting at too, is that, when I hear about these "crimes" I just think they're really nothing and it's just some prosecutor trying to make a name for himself.
Sorry, unless I see the evidence for myself, I don't believe the hype coming from law enforcement.
"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?
You dont think any thought goes into these 'submissions' do you? Take a perusal through some of his other stories, and their horrible fact-checking. It should be obvious.
Then, do what most other slashdotters have done. Use your homepage preferences to remove this editor and the related 'stories' from your homepage. And then, like me, when you sign on at a computer that does not have your preference cookies you will see WHY you blocked him.
At first its funny, then its just sad.
You would be a producer or DISTRIBUTOR of the music, there is a big difference between that and being the artist.
Which appears to be what the judge has decided.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
It took me more than 3 minutes to understand why "burning" would be the same as "making" stuff.
[...] after downloading and burning pornographic pictures from the Internet [...]
Right, so he downloaded it, printed it and later obviously showed regret when he burned the pictures. Why would that be worse than keeping them...? Oooh, *that* burning.
is whether the court would have the same ruling had he photocopied the naked pictures and kept them in a pile under his bed. Or, indeed, tore out his faves from the magazines and "produced" a new work by stapling together a pile of old clippings. I seriously doubt the court would rule this way in such cases. Had he distributed the CD that would be another issue, but I fail to see how burning the cd is itself producing child porn. The fact is, the law treats producing child porn differently than possessing since production involves the direct exploitation of minors (whereas possession may exploit them but in a very different but less direct way). Another point is that burning the cd is no different from downloading the pics in the first place and keeping them in a folder, or even just looking at them in your browser, copying them to a cache. This is just a way of raising the penalties against someone who is without doubt a criminal but probably not a "producer" of kiddy porn. The problem is that it has implications far beyond the instant case, something a judge should have figured out before making such a ruling.
I guess it depends if you're a pyrophiliac or not.
qntm.org
In 1999, the one time pop star, Gary Glitter, was convicted in the UK of "Making Indecent photographs of children". I believe he didn't even burn the images to disk - just the fact that he'd downloaded them was enough for him,by UK law, to have "made" them.
bbc story
So, while I can see the logic behind someone burning material to cd/dvd being held to have "made" it, I suspect that in both cases, in the UK and the USA, the laws being used date from the time when to be in possession of such material, a person would have to actually literally make it - i.e. take photographs, develop them etc.
The laws probably need updating, but the spirit behind the letter remains unchanged. The trouble is, that there are implications for illegal music/movie downloads too.
I think the laws need to be revisited - especially so that paedophiles have no grounds for appeal.
And how does this affect the lawsuits by the BSA, RIAA, and MPAA?"
This is a state court, interpreting state law. It means absolutely nothing to a Federal court interpreting (Federal) copyright law.
Slashdotters throw around the term "precedent" all the time as if every time someone does something it sets a precedent. A court only has to follow a precedent set by another court if it is on point and if the precedent setting court is a higher court in the same jurisdiction... state courts do not set precedent on Federal law.
The Bumblefuck Municipal Court does not set precedent when it finds you guilty of jaywalking on your own land. It might be a precedent in the sense that it happened prior to the next decision, but it is not binding on any other case.
However... burning a CD with the content, because it is a conscious and deliberate act, pretty much negates any possibility that a person could try to appeal to that line of reasoning as a defense if one was caught with such content.
Although I agree with some other posters that say it was stupid to associate burning a CD with child porn on it with creating or producing it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"they are creating a demand which is going to increase the supply"
No, they are not creating a demand which is going to increase the supply. They're creating a supply that fits the demand.
Demand doesn't increase supply in and of itself. That's like saying that the wealth of online *adult* pornography creates the market for it, when it's just satisfying the market that's out there. The fact that it's a voracious market has nothing to do with it. Not providing an adequate supply of it only puts a premium price on it. If there wasn't so much free porn (of all kinds) online then pay-porn would be a premium because people would have to pay extra to get that which satisfies their demand.
I don't disagree with laws against kiddie porn (which, when you filter , I just disagree with people who think that supply creates demand when supply FILLS demand (economics 101... hell, more basic than that... it's high school.)
It's obvious they just want to put people in jail for 20 years for posession. Why not just make it 20 years for posession? They are clearly trying to take advantage of the law to give someone a harsher sentence then they are able to. Put it in this perspective. You accidently hit someone with a car. A little injury (like a broken leg or something like that), but they are still alive. How about the people in the court manipulate the situation like this. You drive knowing someone may get injured or even killed. Since you knew that, it's attempted murder. This kind of jumping and skipping over crucial parts of what makes the difference between "attempted murder" and "hitting someone with a car" seems pretty similar to this article.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Plenty of people ARE aroused by violence. The fact is, movies about people aroused by violence who torture girls are LEGAL (see Hostel and many others). Your argument here is flawed.
What if some scumbag sends me a link and I visit it and it's some sick shit like child porn. I immediately close it BUT THERE'S A COPY MADE IN MY BROWSER CACHE.
Have I just produced child pron? Dear god I hope not, but it seems like that could be argued based on this ruling...
scary
Why wasn't this guy just put in jail for possession of it. Posession of it is illegal and by burning it to a cd well.. he pretty much proved his guild, there.
replacing it with NEW Folger's Crystals! (lets see if they notice the difference)
When I first read "Burning Porn". I wondered why it would be illegal for someone to burn(i.e. light on fire) porn?
From the court decision, by burning compilations he was in fact producing new works. This is something that already has been upheld in the courts. Basically the only thing this applies to in the sense of the music/movie industries is that the individuals produce and own the copyright to their own compilations (eg DJ's creating their own playlist).
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Karma can go to hell for now, so I'll bite.
... no children are harmed. Yes you are right. However, the basic premise of child pornography, no matter in regards to it's fictitious or actual nature in being, is so repugnant, combined with common knowledge of the basic premise that thoughts do lead to actions is why any "art" depicting sexual exploitation is deemed illegal.
1) Correct. Copying child porn is not the same as creating new child porn. But the child is still victimized. True, even if physically done only once to the child their victimization is celebrated, condoned, accepted in the minds of individuals repeatedly. Fantasizing over a child in a sexual (explicit or other) way does its damage the first time, and every time after that is reinforcing such acts into the mind, each as damage reinforcing as the next.
2) Your questioning why people call him a scumbag, and I will avoid discussing that for now. But you're wrong about what people choose what they are attracted to, and whom and here is why. Choice. Based on the preponderance of education one receives by a vast majority of people in any given region, child molestation and exploitation is known to be wrong. This man had a choice, even at an earlier age, to not do something that was wrong but instead chose to do it. A small attraction, if allowed to be entertained in the mind, will grow into something much larger than anticipated or even expected. But that's the crux of the matter. He did have a choice and did not choose correctly with either the laws of the land or what was accepted universally by a vast majority of people in this world that you DO NOT sexually exploit a child for any reason.
If you doubt that thoughts lead to actions or in any way dispute this please read books by, "Lazarus, Lazarus & Fay, 1993", Shengold (1995), Sutherland (1995) and vos Savant (1996) and acquaint yourself with how choices that are left uncorrected or unguided can be damaging to an individual or many others around them. "The Manifold of Sense" - by Dr. Sam Vaknin is also a good read that deals with Narcissism. Believe me when I say that it is quite related to this issue.
3) For example, it is illegal to create computer-generated child pornography. Why!?
I'm shocked, though it's not completely surprising, the amount of people who come out and give speeches where they claim "sex-related laws are based on some twisted idea of morality, and nothing more." That so called "twisted" idea of morality is based on the moral reasoning from a deontological point of view. That such acts deviate from the stability of society and must be quashed, even when some of them are veiled from the public and aren't allowed audience or to promulgate to prevent the perpetuation of acceptance of such acts.
While I could go on about the ramifications of the ill-informed and undereducated status of the people in this country regarding the stability of society from a moral point of view, it wouldn't do this thread any justice, failing to hold the attention to the points you raised.
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.
From the ruling (much more informative than the stub or the article), the man had burned over 50 CDs of child porn, not just one. This makes the charge a little more reasonable than the stub or article makes it sound, since he could be intending to sell or distribute the material.
Also from the ruling, the man was caught red-handed videotaping an exchange student (young male) in the shower. Evidence found at his house indicated he had been habitually inviting exchange students to stay at his house so that he could do this.
Am I the only one who understood that he was PRINTING it on paper then BURN this paper?
This is so excellent, this means legally I have 'made' oh so many chicks, but wait a minit that means I made Bill Gates and Goatse too and all those cute little kittens. I think I am gonna shootmyself forking internet
I checked aclu.org, and even read some of the articles linked there, but was unable to find Some Bleeding-Heart's Cry of Foul Play against a Pedophile. Could you please provide a direct link to this work of literature, or perhaps a .torrent file? I'd like to burn it to DVD.
The document linked to in the stub is the appeals document (ie. he did appeal). The appeal was denied.
In the case of the RIAA, maybe this is good news for people because the RIAA is concerned about "copying" music, not "creating" music. So in the latter case if it didn't previously exist then we're not copying anything. Hahaha. Screwed up logic but the courts are screwed up often-time so maybe this could make 'em think for a while.
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.
You could argue that if simulated rape, torture, and killing in a movie are ok then simulated sex with a child is ok. Somehow it just doesn't feel ok. To me anyway.
BTW RE: your sig -- you sure do sound like a libertarian;-)
...throw the book at the sick bastard.
I agree, but let's do it with existing law, rather than twisting words to create bizarre interpretations that can easily be abused in other cases.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
the guy had child porn, i woud'nt give him any posibilities to get free.
RUPERT! I TOLD YOU TO WATCH THE BAGS! You were looking at the boys again, WEREN'T YOU.
Just finished reading the ruling and I personally think the judge is intentionally misreading a law that hasn't been updated to incorporate the realities of the digital age.
He seems hellbent on 'The decision by the Legislature to specifically include reproductions or copies in defining child sexually abusive material, which term is then incorporated into subsection 145c(2), leaves no room for contrary judicial construction.'
So if our pedo has just MOVED the file to CDR instead of copying them would this not apply? Basically it appears to me that the pedo is getting nailed for making backups. I highly doubt the orginal intent of the law was to prevent people from backing up their data. The problem with reading reproduction as he read it is anything that isn't the orginal is a reproduction. Our pedo reproduced the the images from Russia, reproduced them when he stored them, reproduced them in his cache when he moves them around his drive or views them, etc etc.
This kind of narrow reading really pisses me off and I think people are missing the broader impact of this ruling on other more popular slashdot illicit actions (like warez or copyright infringement). People really need to look past the child porn part of the ruling as the judge wasn't ruling on child pornography, he was ruling on the legal meaning of the word reproduce in the digital age. Hopefully the SC throws this out and sides with our pedo.
De Oppresso Liber
That's the only reason I could see giving the guy the minimum... When the father's waiting for him on the outside. (Well, any relative or concerned individual would do).
I don't read AC A human right
'looking at it on a screen might intice you into doing it for real' thing.
I do disagree with this line of reasoning, at least for competant adults. I was just keeping the post short. There's plenty of people out there trying to ban violent video games because of the exact same logic. In actuality, the statistics work out the opposite in many cases. People use the games as a form of catharism, working the violence out of their system. By that logic simulated porn could actually help the pedo control his or her impulses, avoiding commiting the greater crime.
At least in most movies, commision of illegal acts are eighter punished or explained away as the 'greater need'. Vigilante justice and such.
I don't read AC A human right
What is the significant difference between burning a CD and downloading this stuff to your hard drive? By this definition, wasn't he "making" something when he downloaded the files?
// This is not a sig.
He was not, to my knowledge, charged with copyright violations.
But dont make up new stuff... Geesh. Dont courts even think about what they are doing these days, and the long term effects of judgements?
Sure the guy is sick, and should be jailed. but he commited the crime by REproducing it. Thats enough for a conviction.. why invent things that really arent true?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Bad example then -- See Ichi the Killer.
They do, but what you describe above is more appropriately called murder, and you would be an accessory to it.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
While I agree with you that this scumbag needs to rot in jail for a good, long time...
Pedophilia is not a sexual orientation. Gay and straight are sexual orientations. They have nothing to do with this filth.
Now, back to the original point, I think that when someone has done something as horrifying as download child pornography, a court's natural reaction, if they're human, is to throw every conceivable book at the bastard. I think that the reason they claim that burning a CD containing kiddie porn is the same thing as "making" porn is that he was making media for the express purpose of carrying this kind of filth. If he put it on his hard drive, he easily could have deleted the files, so he didn't "make" a hard drive. But when he burned a CD, he made a CD, and the only way to disassociate the data from the media is to physically destroy both. In that respect, I can see how the court would find that he was making porn.
Now, let's all pray to our respective gods that this guy never sees the outside of a prison cell ever again.
If it's not one thing it's your mother.
He made copys, it is the same if he had prints and the equipment to duplicate. What is the problem here?
I would prefer a sexual definition of porn. That is, porn involving pre-pubescent people would be child porn, while porn involving sexually mature persons is not. If you can reproduce, you are not a child in a biological sense.
That would tie in with what pedophelia actually is. It's not the desire to have sex with people under 18. Lusting for a 17 year old does not in any way make you a pedophile, and it's bizarre and sad that some people actually believe that.
That's not to say that porn involving under 18's could not be illegal, or that there couldn't be a separate age of consent, but it should be done as it's own thing, not by pretending that either of these things are pedophilia.
The bit sequence on his hard drive did not exist until he downloaded the stuff. It's persistant storage. CD not even necessary.
Cheers
I imagined that someone tried to destroy porn this way. An incredibly stupid person, because the original porn would still remain available for download.
that the law should not be able to be executed in creative ways that appear arbitrary. Arbitrary governance is not really a good thing for a democracy.
If the law is not to apply to others caught with the same thing, then we do not live under the rule of law.
Look, I am not saying the guy shouldn't be punished, but rather that the law should be even-handed.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
that when he downloads kiddie porn and saves the images to his hard drive, that he has made an article of pornography (his hard drive)?
If so, then wouldn't any case of digital kiddie porn involve manufacture?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Semantics. Almost every state has an age of consent of 16 for the vast majority of the population. The discrepancies you mention almost unanimously have a condition of marriage, age difference of the participants, or gender of the participants. For all intents and purposes, for the vast majority of those over 18 in the US, the age of consent is 18.
That said, I did misunderstand the previous poster. And I'm not from england, ass.
And to say that further distribution or interest in child pornography creates all kinds of incentives (including financial) for its continued production. Therefore, like using unlicensed copies of Windows, it perpetuates a harmful cycle.
Again, this is a stupid ruling.
Also regarding many of the sex-related laws being primarily about a religious sense of morality, I would agree to a point (though many of the laws worthy of such criticism are either no longer enforced, have been repealed, or have been struck down). However, you can't get from "many laws are such-and-such" to "this law is such-and-such" without making a clear case. Child pornography is different from laws, say, enforcing certain distances in strip clubs primarily because the production of child pornography causes direct harm to children, and its distribution supports the system by which this occurs.
It is true that for adult pornography some similar issues can be raised, particularly in the area of human trafficking. However, whether outlawing all porn would help solve that problem is debatable at best (I am unaware of any evidence that links these problems to the main producers of material). Here again, better enforcement of the underlying problem is more important than the laws regulating it. The same is not true for child porn, I'm afraid.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I thought all digital information is defined as intellectual property. Unless the guy actually took pictures of the kids he didn't create anything origional, he just re-produced previous IP. According to this definition, to avoid being charged by the RIAA all you would have to do is burn your downloaded MP3s to a CD and claimed you created the music using this ruling as a precedent. How could you be stealing music if you made it? The judge wanted to nail this guy, and I bet you someone is going to use it as a loop-hole.
You don't think there is a network effect? I.e. the more producers there are, trading films, images, etc. the more they will create?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
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!
One, it is difficult to imagine a punishment that is not appropriate for a 'scumbag pedophile".
Two, whether or not the act of burning existing child porn onto CD's and DVD's creates illegal "new" porn or amounts to the distribution of illegal porn, seems a pointless issue.
Three, this isn't a copyright issue, unless the Russian originators of this stuff want to sue this guy for violating their copyright.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
You can call it murder, I'd call it effectively removing a future threat. And if it were my daughter, it wouldn't matter what you called it - I'd still kill the guy.
"copying to a monitor / TV"
Actually there is no copying going on when you display something on your monitor or TV, because there is no memory in the monitor. It is beeing displayed "live" from the graphics memory of your graphics card (or DVD-player).
...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.
I think the difference is intent.
You can browse a child porn link unintentionally. That involves writing it to
your monitor, hard drive (via the browser cache) and your RAM.
It might have been spam or a popup.
Having burned it to a cd or printed it out makes it hard to claim it was an accident.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
The way criminal prosecution works is that the widest possible number of charges are filed in order to get the severest compounding of sentences. No matter how repugnant you may find a person or their acts, this practice of trumping up multiple charges for single offenses is dangerous.
I recently encountered a case where a 24yo claimed that she had been raped by a then friend of hers after they both were out getting completely drunk. He was convicted on separate charges for, basically, every place he stuck it. The definitions of each were such that the jury was compelled to convict on the same act multiple times. So, rather than getting twenty years in prison, he got forty--about what you'd get for first degree murder in most of Europe.
It should be 14.
According to AgeOfConsent.com it's 14 in Missouri and Iowa but that only applies to guys, though. It's 17 and 16, respectively for women.
Here's the chart:
http://www.ageofconsent.com/ageofconsent.htm
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
A charge of distribution starts when distribute. Possession with intent to distribute applies to drugs, but I'm not sure about other illegal mediums. Certainly if there isn't such a law it might be an idea to amend one (say >2 copies of the same illegal item indicating an intent to distribute).
It's not about fair use or illegal backups, it's the overall claim that burning is creation. If he'd been charge with "intent to distribute" I doubt anyone here would be arguing so heatedly.
This seems to me like another case of courts not understanding computer technology. It reminds me of the idea that there is a fundamental difference between "viewing" and "downloading" something. Whenever you view something on the internet, you're actually downloading it and storing a persistant copy on your hard drive (unless you have caching turned off). By burning it onto a CD, he has simply transfered it to another medium. If he had left them on his hard drive, would he have been charged with production? Now, if he had made multiple copies, then it would be reasonable to assume that he intended to distribute them. My main concern is why courts must always make arbitrary distinctions between different storage media.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
Well from what i know about the TCP/IP protocal is that downloading it is pretty much the same as buring it on a CD in the sense that its merely replicating data from one media device on to another media device. So if your talking rationally isnt downloading Child Pornography also producing it?
I can understand being charged with "distributing" child pronography because thats what hes done, but producing it not the case...
I agree that this was an extremely bad ruling. Basically, because we don't like the defendent the court is willing to twist important legal definitions to get a harsher sentence. This is a prime example of the legal activism that Repuplicans are supposed to be against.
The difference between distribution and possession sits at the heart of the IP debates on Slashdot. Where is the line between our personal use of data and distribution? In a system of rule of law, we need a cleaner definition that not only suits porn cases but other activities.
We may hate the defendent in this case with all of our might. However the activist prosecutor with activist judges bending the distinction between distribution and possession does a great deal of harm to the integrity of the legal system.
BTW, if we feel that 4 years is too short of a time for the possession of child pornography, then we should change the law. This thing of bending meaning out of definitions ultimately has the effect of destroying the rule of law.
Unfortunately, I fear that the Republican defense of legal activism will end up only including liberal activism and will ignore conservative activism.
Yes, child porn is one of the most evil things there are
Okay, "evil" is pretty much a subjective term. I can call anything I want to attack "evil", and there's not much anyone can do to convince otherwise. A lot of people do exactly this. However, I'm going to have to say that child porn just doesn't rate that highly on my list of things that damage happiness.
Murder is pretty darn awful. Someone gets killed, they are gone. All the time they've spent learning things is suddenly wiped out.
Arson is pretty bad -- maybe a lot of people die, definitely a lot of work to repair the thing, and so forth.
But child porn? Don't shift the question to one of sexual abuse -- I'm talking strictly about child porn right now. Say a seventeen-year old girl is posing in lingerie. Where is the damage? Taking pictures of someone, young or not, in the buff, just does not rank anywhere near murder, arson, and similar crimes by any kind of a sane standard. What actual damage is caused? Oh, sure, you can say that by a Victorian standard, someone's honor is stained and so forth...but seriously, it just isn't something that is going to stop anyone from potentially living a happy and full life.
And *if* horrific damage is caused by child porn, then how exactly does this differ from, say, the pictures taken of tribal kids in the nude sitting around a cooking fire somewhere in National Geographic? Can you explain why *this* is just fine and your hypothetical pornographer is horrible? I certainly can't.
Now, all that pornography in general need entail is that the purpose be to produce sexual arousal. That in and of itself isn't going to hurt anyone. Okay, we can reasonably say that "perhaps children will be sexually abused in the *making* of pornography". We have laws against sexual abuse. Why does there need to additionally be laws against child pornography? It would seem that it is pretty straightforward to prosecute sexual abuse of children as easily as prosecution of pornography -- you have pictorial evidence of someone committing a crime. What then makes the simple classification of "pornography" need be illegal?
Finally, child pornography is one of the very few things for which possession is, in and of itself, a crime (controlled drugs and unlicensed firearms are the only other two things that I can think of). I would guess that the idea is that someone found the possibility that child pornography might lead to sexual abuse potentially too high of a risk, and then followed that up with the idea that making possession of the data illegal would help cut the legs out from under the market, thus making the market illegal. I see that as a pretty long stretch (and if that is the rationale, non-commercially produced child pornography should be legal).
What's more, if you want to argue based on some kind of absolute ethical standard, that sexually idealizing someone below eighteen is simply *evil*, you have to also explain why somehow, this invisible and global balance of good and evil mysteriously shifted in the last couple hundred years. Juliet was *thirteen* years old. How is it that in a single heartbeat of the long, long history of mankind, that Good and Evil have so abruptly taken a rapid adjustment?
Frankly, I can see (adult) prostitution having a lot more problems associated with it (disease vectors, despite the precautions), and even that is legal in some places in the United States.
But everyone likes to have their demons, the things that everyone can comfortably sit back and agree are bad. We happen to like hating Nazis (They were monsters! Monsters! Not just an xenophobic and nationlistic time of history in a country! That couldn't ever happen to anyone else, because *those people were monsters*!"), drugs (watch Reefer Madness for an example of the propaganda that led to marijuana being criminalized -- it's downright alarming), and child porn ("Won't somebody think *about the children*!")
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
does that mean that by burning an unreleased hollywood movie to DVD, I have created a new derivitive work not covered by the copyright?
They're using their grammar skills there.
Why do you care about the message the punishment sends? Is the punishment a deterrent for the commission of the crime?
In this country we have a judicial system that is based on the prevention of crime, not retribution.
The question we should ask here is what punishment is the most effective in preventing future acts, not what is 'fair' in relation to other crimes.
Since when are the boy scouts suing people? Are they suing people for being gay or something?
doesnt sound like a troll to me, no infact it sounds more like you dont agree with his position. I think his position is wrong but still, its not a troll to have a different opinion.
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....
I wish one of the people posting this would actually support this with a reference, but okay, it at least sounds plausible, so we'll assume it for the sake of argument.
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.
I'm dubious.
Let's hypothetically suppose you decriminalize child porn, but keep sexual abuse of children illegal (thus, one could photograph a seventeen-year-old posing, but not having sex).
Assuming that the existing laws against child pornography are effective (which would be necessary to support them, presumably) in the suppression of production of child pornography, I would imagine that the laws against sexual abuse would be equally discouraging against the production of child pornography containing sexual abuse.
This would seem to nullify (B).
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.
It's a thought, but then why does it only apply to pornography? Why doesn't it apply to anything else that someone might not want leaked (like the abovementioned diary contents)?
Unlike grown-ups, kids didn't consent to being displayed for sexual purposes.
That's an interesting concept, but I'm not certain that I agree (at least WRT an eighteen-year-old age limit -- I think that you'll find that most teens have an understanding of sexuality).
These kids are already traumatized; how do they feel moving into adulthood, knowing that people are viewing their abuse?
Well, that probably all kind of depends on whether they're taught that being seen nude is a catastrophic event, I'd say. [shrug]
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Pictures of 17 year olds in lingerie is not what gives child porn the bad name. That's a strawman you've set up to ignore the evil child porn, which is intercourse with 3 year olds. Puritans like to lump it all together so they can raise a bigger stink, but what offends almost everybody about child porn is not the tame stuff that you could find on any beach or at any high school football game, but the stuff where babies are raped. I have no idea how much real child porn is out there, but I'm certain it does exist in some quantity, and is truly evil.
Infuriate left and right
And if everyone followed your logic, that guy's parents would have to kill you first, in order to "effectively remove a future threat" to their son. Which would mean that your parents would have to kill that guy's parents first, in order to effectively remove a future threat to you. And so on until nobody was left alive.
Avoiding scenarios like that is why law was invented, and it's what keeps the majority of people alive from day to day. If you choose not to follow the law, that makes you a criminal, no matter how justified you think your actions might be, and you wouldn't get to spend much time with your daughter while serving your jail sentence.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
"And how does this affect the lawsuits by the BSA, RIAA, and MPAA?"
Um, probably none. IIRC, the types of lawsuits levied by the above named entites are based in copyright law. IANALY, but virtually every copyright action is governed by Federal law and federal courts, not the Court of Appeals for Michigan. Heck, I don't even think the Court of Appeals is the highest court in Michigan, and so may be subject to an overturn. The issue here is based in Michigan state criminal law, not copyright law.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
" Court Rules Burning Porn = Making Porn "
Who'd have thought that the average Slashdotter was a porn star?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
After the photos have been produced, they must disapear. The reason for this is that it encourages more child abuse. Pedophiles might get the idea that it is Ok. It however is not. A similar phenomena occurs on the Internet which worries social scientists. Pedophiles can create forums and talk about pedophilia in total anomity. They can encourage eachother and pass tips on how to engage in behavior and get away with it. They can also support eachother and give to the idea that this is ok. It's not because it damages children so easily, and by so much.
It is proper the remind a pedophile that this behavior is wrong, does damage the children, and is actually unhealthy and needs to be treated, but one should not shame the pedophile. Shame causes the pedophile (as with fetishes too) to hide their behavior, and comfort themselves...with the behavior.
I guess your literacy skills failed you when I said that the kiddie porn issue was moot. It could be kiddie porn, MP3s, TV Episodes, or Windows on that CD. No matter what the contents were, he did not generate them from scratch therefore he did not produce the content. In order for this guy to have produced the content, he would have had to facilitate its creation. He merely transferred the medium upon which it was stored.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
So does Burning Books == Making Books too??
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.
You just said "why" when you asked the question. If the punishment is exactly the same for raping the kid next door and getting off on a real, live person or jacking off alone to pictures of some anonymous kid half a world away, where is the incentive for a person of such proclivities to abstain from just fucking the kid next door?
If the punishment for going 100MPH over the limit is exactly the same as the punishment for going 10MPH over the limit, why the fuck not just drive 140MPH until you get stopped?
Yeesh. Figures this is michigan. I had the misfortune of being born in that shithole. haven't been back in twenty years and don't miss it a bit.
While you use lots of big words and references, it isn't illegal to create computer generated CP. At least not in the U.S. So no, it is not "so repugnant", at least from a legal standpoint.
. html
. html
The case is ASHCROFT V. FREE SPEECH COALITION and you can read the majority opinion here: http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-795.ZO
The majority concludes that it is not illegal, as no children were involved.
You might want to look at the other opinions, as this case generated a majority opinion, a concurring opinion, a dissent and a concurring dissent. Obviously the case stirred up some strong feelings.
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-795.ZS
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Extremely insightful, as is the one below this one.
So why won't I get any money for all of the good stuff that I made, uh? Who can I sue to get my money?
You just got troll'd!
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!
In this article it mentions "children" but most of the references are to teenage boys. There is no specific mention of "boys appearing to be as young as seven" or any of that sort of language - it mentions teens and puberty many times.
The hysteria that is driving most of the english speaking nations to new depths of fear, hate and paranoia - fueled in large part by a planetary alignment between religious zealots and hardcore feminist zealots - has resulted in a ridiculous all-encompassing definition of "child pornography" that includes virtually anyone under the age of 18. Old Penthouse magazines featuring 16 year old french girls can now be prosecuted as "child pornography." Pictures of teenagers who would willingly be doing that stuff anyway - who willingly ARE engaging in sex acts and posing for pictures (some even photographing themselves) - can be prosecuted as child pornography.
Protecting children from exploitation is fine - but not when it costs otherwise innocent people their liberty. We would not tolerate locking up all alcoholics to prevent a few traffic accidents, and we should not be tolerating these laws against what are essentially thought crimes.
You cannot "protect" children from life - attempts to do so only leave them naive and prime candidates for exploitation as young adults. These ridiculous taboos against otherwise NORMAL HUMAN BEHAVIOR are creating a seriously fucked up and perverse culture... and we have the teen pregnancy and AIDS statistics to prove it.
Me too. From what I figured even in the summary, he downloaded it, printed it out, and held a bonfire because he felt it was evil - and was prosecuted for printing it. That would have made even less sense.
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
If you know what's good for you, you do NOT want to burn a snuff film; They'll knock down your door, try, and convict you of murder.
Oh yeah. Good times.
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The OP that I was originally replying to was arguing that there was no "child porn market" and hence posession should not be illegal. My point here is that posession *should* be illegal, but that this guy should *only* be guilty of posession, not of manufacture or without further evidence of distribution.
Just making myself clear.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
"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.
"As for the poor bastards who get themselves in a predicament with a kid..." I know! Those poor guys. Tut tut. Now their social lives are over. Jesus Christ, you just made me physically ill.
Really? You mean you actually went through the bother of signing up for an account here so you could post this? Thanks so much. Your devotion to duty is heartwarming.
Caution: May contain nuts.
Burning your software to CD-Rs as a backup is equal to programming new software (in other words, you own the copyright?!).
Not the child porn stuff I don't think anyone would agree that he should have it let alone burn it to a cd. However, the concept of "creating a new media" shouldn't apply to burning a cdrom because then technically. Nothing was actually "created". All a CDROM is is a disc with little pits in them that bounces a laser off of them representing 0's and 1's.
The "NEW" media creation doesn't actually occur within the CDROM. If I pick it up, I don't just see what files are on there or what documents it may contain. All you see is a piece of plastic with a shiny side on one side of it and maybe a label on the other.
Now the minute I look at it through a software program that interprets the files, THEN DISPLAYS IT on a monitor screen is it really a "*new*" form of media.
In other words, storing data is nothing more then "storing data". There's a big difference between "storing data" and "viewing data".
May you be reborn as a pedophile so that mercy may take root in your soul.
as much as I like the nailing Pedophile's balls to walls
Now that's a pretty specific fetish.
This is bullshit. The act of coercion that results in two children having sex is the act of creation. If you base your prosecution on the creation of something that did not exist, how can you not prosecute also the authorities whose memories of the child pornography constitute the creation of something that did not previously exist?
$_.=["a".."z"," "]->[rand 27] while !/just another perl hacker$/;
You still owe RIAA money. It's just that now you have to pay them back for marketing, distribution and the video for the song you just downloaded.
I estimate you owe them $40,000
That's a coherent argument I don't have much problem with. I just wish they would stop calling it "child pornography".
I'm curious - why is it that you consider a sexual attraction to children an illness that has to be cured?
Do you consider homosexuality or lesbianism an illness that has to be cured? If yes, why. If no, why not, and why do you distinguish the various sexual attractions from one another on a sliding scale of "normal" to "ill"?
What about ephebophiles (those who are sexually attracted to teens who have begun to develop sexually but aren't attracted to proper children who haven't hit puberty yet)? This group in particular would seem to encompass almost all males if you judge it solely by the amount of "teen" porn on the net (though 99% of that porn is in actuality showing 18-25 year olds who look younger).
As previous posters have said, people cannot help their natural sexual attractions and forcing them to change is in my opinion far more harmful due to the repressive nature of the "treatments".
I ask all this because I classify myself in the ephebophile category and certainly don't think I am in any way "ill" as you put it. Over time I have come to know what I find most attractive in girls, and the traits I covet most (small breasts, hips, youthful face, wide eyes and mouth, small nose etc etc) are those that teenage girls exhibit, hence my realisation that I am in fact an ephebophile. I married a girl who had these features even though obviously she is older than 18, and for me personally that was enough from a sexual attraction perspective.
It also means that because I am comfortable with my own sexual persuasions, I also have a greater understanding for those who are homosexuals or lesbians, or any other type of pideon-hole you care to put someone in.
Since you are a girl according to your sig, I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that you like guys? Presuming you do (but modify the question to suit if not), ask yourself honestly, WHY do you like guys? When you can answer that honestly (good luck, I can't answer WHY I like teenage girls, I just do), you will hopefully see that others can no more help their sexual persuasion than you can help yours.
It's how you deal with that that shows your level of tolerance for those who are different from yourself.
It might also be instructive for you to do some research into the Japanese interest in Lolicon manga and why it is quite widespread and accepted there. Societal structures that establish what is "right" and what is "perverted" differ widely around the globe, so if that is the case, why is it that Western "values" are somehow right and others are wrong?
I think in the end, all humans have a sexual attraction, and that all of them are in fact a normal part of being human. That we marginalise some because of societal/religious notions speaks volumes of our evolution and just how far we have yet to go before we understand and accept all of our diversities instead of killing and otherwise tormenting each other over them.
Visceral Psyche Films
And the followon to that story, where the judge changed his sentence, giving him something on the close order of forty years. But you have to read down to find out why he handed out the original sentence -- the mental health bureaucracy had originally said that they wouldn't take him for treatment until after he'd finished his jail term, so the judge issued a sentence that would get him quickly into a mental treatment program. After the mental health director changed their policy, and stated that they would accept him while serving his jail term, the judge modified his sentence to one appropriate to the man's crime.
But your Honour... I didn't copy these Britney Spears albums, I made them!
Don't sweat too much about it. So long as you didn't burn copies of her first few videos to CD, from before she turned 18, this case doesn't affect you.
If, on the other hand, you have copies of the school girl video, there're simply no two ways about it: You're a sick paedophile and deserve hard time in a pound me in the ass institution. Just because it was on MTV, it doesn't make it OK.
In American English, foot-lovers are podophiles. The Greek vowel stems are actually a bit ambiguous between (don't trust unicode so just interpret the ascii) p[e|o]s (foot) and p[ai|e]s (child).
All's true that is mistrusted
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).
That would deter crime.
Our justice system isn't just about deterrence. There is a theoretical sense of balance to it, in that the punishment should fit the crime. If you break a minor law, you recieve a minor punishment. Break a major law, and receive a major punishment. That's why people don't recieve life inprisonment for running stop signs. Sure it would deter the crime, but at what cost?
The fact of the matter is that downloading a copy of a crime that somebody else committed is not the same as committing that crime yourself. They are two distinct actions, and by lumping them together the moral high ground occupied by the system gets extremely muddy.
The ______ Agenda
And the background to the story--that the parents of the girl knew that the man had an "interest" in their daughter and were well aware that, when they allowed their daughter to visit with the man, they often slept in the same bed together?
At that point doesn't it become a case of parental consent? Shouldn't the parents be charged with some sort of child endangerment?
Or is society really on a blindfolded witch hunt?
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
No joke. There's a vast difference between the fellow in Alabama who was caught (with his wife) using a 3 year old girl and a 17 year old boy as sex-toys... and a 20-something who happens to pick up a 17-year old with a fake ID who's practically jumping on him.
In the eyes of the law, however, they're both the same.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
Thank God for tomorrow!
If you're going to trade in kiddie porn or rape children at all, it doesn't matter what the penalty is. You're a sicko, and sickos don't sit there and thing "Well, I'll do it as long as I won't get more than 10 years." People who commit sexual crimes against children are sickos, and the punishment is mainly about removing them from society.
We punish kiddie porn traders very hard because:
- It's a strong indicator the person is likely to commit a more serious crime later, so let's get them out of society for 20 years once we've figured out they're a sicko insted of waiting until they act on it
- Kiilling the market for kiddie porn is just as important as killing the supply.
paintball
I got wondering the other day, what happens if an under-age child undresses within sight of a CCTV camera? Does that automatically make the CCTV tapes child porn, and the staff in the monitoring station nonces? Should they be placed on the Sex Offenders' Register and barred for life from having jobs where they might come into contact with children?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
first of all pls define "child"... The majority of societies have defined the 18th year of an individual's life as a threshold... anyone knows how did this come? Because AFAIK nature strongly disagrees and makes females able to reproduce at a much earlier age... Moreover, i don't know about USA with christian-conservatism that has arised there recently, but in Europe the majority of boys and girls start their sexual experiences earlier than this threshold..
furthermore, pornography is NOT a crime by itself.. or else pls convict De Sade, Nabokov (for lolita) and many others.. sadly, US courts are capable of even that..
As for the making=burning debate, i really don't get it.. What is the important difference of downloading ("making" a file on a HDD) and burning ("making" a file on a CD-ROM).. What about USB sticks, Magnetic Tape and other storage media?
It is society's collective hypocrisy to throw a porn-downloader in jail, while flooding Thailand with sex-tourists every damn summer
www.lemonodor.com A mostly Lisp weblog
The next day the older daughter said to the younger, "Last night I lay with my father. Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father." So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father.
Such naughty, naughty girls. And Lot ... oh, what a bad, bad man. But at least he didn't burn a video of the proceedings to a CD.
And your perceptual skills seem blunted. The entire case is about child porn. You cannot render that moot, regardless of your desire to.
Actually, the judge increased it to only 3 years. I was like, the man molested her for four years, he should get at least that amount of time. Then again, I think 10 years per is more fair, but I'm not the judge.
I can see the judge's point about the treatment, but like other posters have stated, if it was my daughter, I'd have killed him. I won't try to justify it as anything but murder with revenge as the motive.
The whole 'At least he can't do it to anyone else' is a meager excuse after the fact.
I don't read AC A human right
Actually, if you research the background on this particular case, you'll find out that, if you were the parent of the girl, you were donating your girl to this man.
What? You didn't know? The parents knew that the man had an "interest" in their daughter. The parents knew that, when their daughter stayed with the man, they slept in the same bed. If this man is convicted then the parents should also be charged with some sort of child endangerment. At the point that the evidence is at this really becomes a case of parental consent.
Oh. You didn't know that? Well, that's what you get for reading the carefully selected news in the public media.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
If that is indeed true, it sounds almost worse than letting your kid stay with Michael Jackson.
That would indeed be a sticky trial. Were the parents stupid, suckers, incompetant(criminally), or negligent? Probably a combination of the above, but in what porportions?
I don't read AC A human right
I know this is out on a limb for the sake of debate... but...
Dismissing entirely the possibility that the parents recognized that the young girl actually expressed an interest in having contact, au naturale, with the man?
It's been shown that children as young as 3 or 4 will begin taking a pleasure response from stimulating their sexual organs. Is it really unnatural for a 10-year old to want to have sexual contact?
Or does society have a dirty little secret that's used to rile up the ignorant masses? Check out the numbers. Average age of first contact for girls is down to 15. That's the AVERAGE. The same studies which report the average age also report that the average psychological health, related to sex, is normal.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
I read the appeals court's opinion. It stated that there were over 50 CD-Rs in the man's possession. It didn't state whether or not this was a "personal" collection, or the guy was possibly distributing them.
My assumption is that the prosecutor argued that the sheer number of CDs showed an intent to distribute. This is considered a valid argument even if there is no proof that the man actually distributed anything. The same type of argument is made in drug cases all the time. If someone has a few ounces of marijuana on him, it is assumed to be for personal use. If that person has three or four kilos, it is assumed that person is a distributor. If you are caught with contraband, you don't need absolute proof that you intended to be a distributor. Just the amount of contraband can show that.
Just so you know, I've been educated by experienced psychologists. If what I say is wrong, then to hell with all of their reputations and experience.
That is an argument by authority. That is acceptable in the event that two people are making assertions based purely on their reputation, but not when someone asks specifically for factual support. If the authority is justified, one should be able to support these claims.
It's also true that in other cultures they mutilate genitals.
Okay, this is actually goes against your point. There was a significant social push in the US to eliminate female circumcision in other countries. Why? Because it offended US sensibilities.
On the other hand, in the US, it's just fine to circumcise males. Why? Because there is Biblical support for the practice. Now, both practices involve slicing up someone's (usually a baby's) genitals with the intent of making sexual sensation less pleasurable later in life. Granted, female circumcision involves more significant surgery, but it's a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one. To a culture that does not accept male circumcision, this is also "mutilation of the genitals".
There is no advantage to having any kind of sex with children.
Nor is there an advantage to masturbation, post-menopausal heterosexual sex, sex while using condoms, homosexual sex, sex where a chemical or hormonal contraceptive is being used...
If you're going to take this route, you need to argue why these other forms of sexual gratification are acceptable.
This is clear evidence that sex with children is wrong and damaging. If it was ment to be, then it wouldn't hurt. It is not a cultural phenomenom.
The age at which we set as minimum for sexual activity is most definitely a phenomenon that changes as a function of culture -- it varies based both on time and physical location.
And at least a naive reading of that argument is patently absurd -- by that logic, no woman should ever have sex for the first time.
Check out this site for more information
I did. I was really more interested in debating the legality of pornography than the problems associated with sexual abuse, but I figured, hey, might as well address this too. I was hoping for something that described physical issues, but it started out "Do you have any idea of the damage to a soul..."
The problem is that most of the arguments used in the paper seem flawed or to avoid the question. For example:
Are the negative effects of child sexual abuse due solely to societal disapproval of pedophilia?
Now this is an interesting question. However, after raising the question, the author never seems to actually answer it. He gave an example where the variable was whether or not a child was sexually abused rather than whether or not the child was raised in a culture with or without societal disapproval of pedophilia, which clearly does not answer the question. He then addresses varying the reaction of a mother. This is not varying the societal values, this is varying a single reasonse. If the problem is an inability to reconcile major conflicting inputs (as would seem most likely to me), the study has not addressed the question.
Isn't it true that some children desire and initiate sexual contacts with pedophiles?
Frankly, I don't think that this is relevant to whether or not sexual behavior in children is a problem or not. Children will initiate all sorts of activities that can be harmful to them -- I don't think that the author even need treat this as an argument that sexual behavior in children is acceptable. However, the author again ignores the question, and instead starts a tirade on how pedophiles "court" children.
Shouldn't children be permitted to engage in sex with adults if they so choose?
This was listed under "morality", and while I'm looking for pragmatic arguments and almost skipped it, it did address informed
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
These guys have it: Statutory rape can be a bit iffy for the older teenagers. I have alot more sympathy for a sub 25 year old sleeping with a 15 year old than a 38 year old doing it to a 6 year old. Still not happy with them, but it wasn't too long ago that 15 year olds could marry in most states. Given the better nutrition, girls are maturing quicker, and you pretty much need to check ID's to tell. Between fake ID's, alchohol, and a willing girl, and it's a situation I can see happening to a unwary guy. The way most laws are written, the girl is pretty much allowed to try to trick you in any way she can, and it's still your fault if you fall for it. The idea with statutory rape is that the kid is too young to realize the consequences of his or her actions in an adult fashion. The difference between many 15 year olds and 18 year olds is often very slim today in that regard.
I don't read AC A human right
So rather than spend some money and help these people into a life where they can follow that most basic, essential urge and yet not get AIDS...
You want them to oppress themselves with laws about who can have sex with who? Shit, while you're at it, why don't you outlaw having more than 1 child?
We should have invaded Africa instead of Iraq. They need Freedom even more than the Iraqis!
Blar.
Actually, if you research the background on this particular case, you'll find out that, if you were the parent of the girl, you were donating your girl to this man.
I've read the story on multiple major news sources, such as CNN, and even a local source, the Burlington free press. If this is true, well, sheeesh. The 'parents', if this is true, don't deserve to be. Still, looking at the statistics, most pedophiles pick kids of parents who are 'enablers'. Whether they outright allow it, are incompetent, or are simply too trusting of an authority figure(priest, teacher). The vast majority of parents wouldn't have given this guy the opportunity to even start.
I don't read AC A human right
To quote some evidence from decision: "Lohman agreed that police had no information or evidence that defendant took any of the original pictures or made any of the original videos found on the CD-Rs."
Further " -3- Defendant argued against bindover on the counts related to the CD-Rs, contending that the burning or saving of images or data onto a CD-R does not rise to the level of producing, creating, manufacturing, or making child sexually abusive material. Defendant further argued that the transference of the images from the Internet to his computer's hard drive and then to the CD-Rs constituted nothing more than the storage of data. Defendant maintained that at most there was only evidence of possession of child pornography pursuant to MCL 750.145c(4)"
To get back on point, the issue is not punishment or justice or whether possessin is illegal (it is only for _child_ porn in most cases), it is whether burning some images to a removable optical medium is PUBLISHING and DISTRIBUTION.
So let's examine this arguments implication through some hypothetical cases.
This over-zealous and poorly considered decision materially blurred the line substantially and might just have handed th RIAA and MPAA the equivalent of the 'A Bomb' depnding upon how far this is stretched. Right now, thankfully, this is not a ferderal court or in an infulential state supreme court. Let's hope it is an anomaly.
If you're going to resort to statistical arguments ("vast majority"), then the vast majority of parents wouldn't approve of their children killing another person either. Yet society teaches them to love and worship a child which enter military service. The vast majority of parents wouldn't want their children to enter into spamming or debt collection, yet many of those people end up extraordinarily wealthy.
I'm not defending the offender. A truly despicable person. I'm just saying that you shouldn't finalize your argument with statistical majorities. 99% of us are, in some way or another, not in the statistical majority.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
Of course what is not shocking is that some troll would come along to slashdot and post such nonsense, conveniently without citation -- some TV station somewhere said something. Yawn.
Not to be a jerk, but...
Everyone keeps harping on these "consequences". Just what would those be if both parties just keep their mouths shut about the fact that they were doing the ba-hon-go behind closed doors?
That's like saying there are consequences the first time you drink a beer... placing some sort of voodoo magic over it. I don't agree with deliberately seducing an unwilling 6-year old... but if a 15-year old purports to be 18 so that she can drop you in the sack, whose fault is it?
And why is this always gender one-way except for the stray major media case?
It seems to me that society has a dirty little secret which makes for good *awe* *shock* *horror* *gasp* media headlines.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
This is highly disturbing in and of itself.
I just wish they would stop calling it "child pornography".
Actually, isn't "child" exactly the right word? If you use something like "pedopornography" or "prepubescent pornography", then you make it a sexual definition. The word "child" refers to someone who is socially immature, not necessarily sexually immature. It refers to someone who hasn't lived long enough to learn what the consequences of his or her actions may be. It's the same "child" in the phrase "think of the children".
when it comes to child pr0n, it doesnt matter in my book. when something like that is downloaded anything the person viewing should have that rights taken away and beaten senseless. sure the courts decision was totally bogus and normally i would be all for helping the dude. but not in this case, the guy is getting what he deserves (or maybe not). he should be put away for some time whether the court spazzed out or not.
Menya zovut Shnur
I don't think it has any bearing on copyright lawsuits. It arises largely as a result of a terribly-worded statutory provision. In Canada, the provisions are much clearer, with separate sentences for each of four crimes: "making" child pornography, "distribution" of child pornography (each max 10-year sentence), "possession" of child pornography and "accessing" child pornography (each max 5-year sentences) (http://www.canlii.org/ca/sta/c-46/sec163.1.html). The possession provisions have been subjected to constitutional scrutiny.
As previous posts indicate, this decision is problematic because possession without distribution should certainly not bear the same penalty as creation of child pornography. The Michigan appellate court got itself tied up because there is no reference to "distribution" in the provisions--so the Court decided it couldn't countenance distribution bearing the same penalty as possession.
Aside from the obvious policy problems the decision generates, it's also premised upon a very poor statutory construction. First, the court has improperly imported the word "reproduction" from the definitional provision and substituted it for "production" in the offence provision, which runs contrary to principles of statutory interpretation.
Second, the Court neglected to consider that the definitional provision applies to both the child pornography "creation" provisions and the "possession" provisions. Obviously, the Legislature intended to criminalize the *possession* of both originals and copies of child pornography, which is why the word "reproduction" appears in the definitional provision.
Third, although section MCL 750.145c(2) should really be broken into subsections, there are clearly three types of offences of increasing distance from the true *creation* of child pornography: 1) activities directly with the child ("persuades, induces, entices, coerces, causes, or knowingly allows a child to engage in a child..."); 2) completed crimes of production ("arranges for, produces, makes, or finances"); 3) incomplete crimes of production ("attempts or prepares or conspires to arrange for, produce, make, or finance"). There is the same *underlying* criminal activity to each--*production* (not reproduction) or child pornography, or the person creating it.
Fourth, there's a principle called "ejusdem generis" to be applied in interpreting statutes--lists of words are taken to have related meanings. In this case, the verbs "arranges for, produces, makes, or finances" should be given similar meanings. In this case, the shared meaning must reasonably involve *creation* of child pornography.
Fifth, the mental element to the offence (mens rea), specified in the end of the provision, may not make any sense in the context of simple media reproduction. If you ask me to simply burn a copy of your CD with child pornography, I could be caught by this offence, without knowing *anything* about the content of the CD, simply because the photos on the CD "includes a child or that the depiction constituting the child sexually abusive material appears to include a child". If one is involved in filming or financing the original creation of the child pornography, that would likely not be the case.
Sixth, there's a maxim of "strict construction" applied to criminal statutes, at least in Canada (and I would think all over the Western world): in the case of legislative ambiguity in criminal provisions, they are to be given an interpretation most favourable to the accused.
All in all, this is a somewhat embarrassingly unsophisticated judgment to come from an appellate court. And alas, I have little hope that your Supreme Court, based upon its current composition, would correct these clear errors.
Love and worship a child? My parents love me, but I think support would be a better word than worship. I like the term 'approve'. My parents will always love me, they'll even support most of my decisions, but their true approval is reserved for when they agree with my actions.
.5%. Most military members are support, not combat ops. Police are about .2% of the population in the USA. There is a statistical significant overlap between police officers and reserve/guard service.
The case of 'approval' for killing varies. My parents are prepared for the case of me killing somebody, as I am military. They acknowledge a difference between killing for wrongful reasons(murder), killing in self defense, killing to defend others, and killing as an act of war. For that matter, the possibility of their child killing a person is something any parent of a police officer has to face. Being a police officer, upholding the law, keeping the peace is considered a good occupation, at least for many parents. It doesn't pay the best, but then again, it's usually a good steady career choice. Police don't often get laid off without some significant cause.
Society teaches parents to approve of military service? Then why is the Army having recruiting difficulties? According to the articles I've been reading, the major problem the recruiters are having are not with the young adults(who are as eager to join up as ever), but with the parents nixing the idea.
Besides, military service is a fairly rare occupation today. Per the CIA factbook, 3.3% of GDP is dedicated to the military, and that there are 108 million people considered fit for military service(both male and female). Of that, 1.4 million are active duty. That's 1.3% of the eligible population. Out of the whole population of 295 million, about
Spamming and debt collection, interesting choices. Spamming as a career is very new. Still, most kids don't grow up saying 'I'm going to be a Janitor!'. Most spammers don't get rich, and debt collectors, from my understanding, actually tends to run in families. Still, remember I seperate love, support, and approval. Good parents will love their spamming son, maybe support him in his choice of career(not throw snit fits over it), but not approve(Dear, I'd prefer for you to find a new career path).
I don't read AC A human right
Everyone keeps harping on these "consequences". Just what would those be if both parties just keep their mouths shut about the fact that they were doing the ba-hon-go behind closed doors?
Happens more than many would think. Still, most 15 year olds still live with their parents, who pay attention to when their kids come home. They may not have a vehicle, which allows somebody to see the older partner picking the younger up. News gets around, or the teen gets pissed and tells during a snit, etc.
but if a 15-year old purports to be 18 so that she can drop you in the sack, whose fault is it?
That's why I'm more sympathetic in this case. 15 year olds get tried as adults fairly frequently. A simple means test would be good. "Did the teenager engage in deliberatly misleading acts in order to get the adult to engage in sexual acts?".(rewritten to be gender inspecific)
And why is this always gender one-way except for the stray major media case?
Because the consequences are traditionally much more extreme for females than males. I mean, men don't have to worry about pregnancy except for maybe child support. Until DNA testing came along, even if she did bear a child, it took a high level of circumstantial evidence(compared to DNA testing) to get a court to make him pay child support. Women are, on average, more susceptible to STDs than men, etc. Religious values also plays a role, as does the traditional role for women, that places them as lesser in society, to be protected and sheltered*. We're still feeling out the changes of women's emergence, in mass, from the home. Personally, I feel that at least one of the parents should be a stay at home parent until the child is old enough to enter school.
*As I was writing this I kept thinking about the difference between the role for women in older western society and many areas of the middle-east today. In western society, women were to be protected, even at the possible cost of your life. Men would be sent to prison or hanged for what was effectivly the suspicion of rape. In Iran, a woman who is raped is guilty of adultury or extra-marital sex and faces various penalties unless she can reach an outrageous level of evidence(multiple male witnesses willing to testify that she was forced).
I don't read AC A human right
Basically you are calling people illiterate for reading the article, something you clearly have not done, and are arguing about dictionary definitions, rather than about the legal definitions of the specific law in question. If you remove that specific law from the argument...then the entire argument is moot because out of that context, the words do indeed have different definitions. But too bad, the specific law clearly states that creating child porn includes making copies or reproductions of it. You can argue that copying files to a CD is not, in fact, creating a copy of those files. In fact, go right ahead. But because "child sexually abusive materials" are define to include copies, prints, and reproductions of said materials, if he created a copy of them, he did, in the context of this law, create "child sexually abusive materials". You are correct that if I copied an episode of friends to a VCD so I can watch it on my DVD player, you wouldn't say that I produced an episode of Friends. But you would say that I created a copy of it. He's not charged with taking a picture or filming a movie, he's charged with creating a copy. Feel free to argue that burning something to a CD is not copying it, but it would take a pretty compelling argument. A copy is defined as an imitation or duplication of another work. Copying is defined as the act of making a copy. So that's why the judge brought up dictionary definitions. Are you actually saying that putting a CD in a burner, and burning files to that CD, is not creating a copy of those files?
Just to repeat myself, child porn is defined to include a copy, not just original works. Since he made a copy of it, he made child pornography according to the laws definition of making child pornography. The fact that it was child pornographs is not moot. It is in fact critical. If it was any other content, the law wouldn't apply, so it wouldn't matter what its definitions are. But it was and it does and they do.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
But you're ignoring facts for media hype. FACT: It takes two to tango. FACT: Many of the men convicted for having sex with a minor were only 50% of the courting/dating behavior. I'm not talking about rape. I'm talking about sex. For many " underage sexual offenders", the supposed victim was just as willing as any high-school jezebel looking to laugh and giggle and get her hormones wet.
WTF are you supporting? Look. I'm all in favor of abstinence until marriage... but until society makes this a law then you must accept that "underage" girls are going to be tempting, luring, and entrapping "overage" guys. Yet your rhetoric clearly assumes that every single one of these cases involves a 40 year old man and a 1 year old baby.
Where the fuck do you get off?
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
Hopefully you wouldn't go and burn those files to a CDR
Some backup programs do that automatically. So much for intent.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"Causing illegal materials to be transmitted" and "attempting to download an illegal file," i.e. the very act of requesting your computer retrieve the file from a remote computer, is generally a crime even if every bit is sent to /dev/null upon arrival.
If you are asking if the person could be charged with possession of the requested illegal files, I doubt it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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
Are you sure that you replied to the right message? I'm fully aware that there are differences, depending on the various ages and maturity levels. I never once mentioned abstinence. Heck, I even implied that no prosecutions happen in alot of cases where the activity never makes it to the government's notice.
Heck, I even used a 15 year old as an example. I suggested a test for borderline statutory rape charges.
Should there be laws in place to prevent older adults from exploiting teenagers? I think so. But there needs to be some protection the other way round.
Each case should be judged differently, but when you're talking about pre-teens, well, I think that the book should be thrown at them.
I don't read AC A human right
A dorm is not a public place. It's an private building full of even more private places. People who leave their dorm rooms without locking the doors do not have enough brains to be away from Mom & Dad, let alone in college.
Well.
Someone's not planning on running for public office for the rest of their life.
Oh, wait, your homepage is listed as Japan. Does that change things? I don't know how they roll over there.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Yes you can. It's the principal that reproduction inherently cannot be the original production. Copying kiddie porn to a CD from a hard drive is worlds away from photographing/videotaping under-aged kids having sex with adults.
As it has been pointed out elsewhere, copying Metalica MP3's to CD does not make me Metalica for that process. Copying Star Trek Episodes to DVD does not make me Patrick Stewart/Avery Brooks/etc.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
Due to various laws and legal requirements, counselors and therapists are required to report an individual to law enforcement if they suspect the individual to be abusing a child. Many of these people, who would otherwise be helping these individuals, instead turn their names over to LE regardless, just to cover their asses and play it safe, just in case, you see - because they could become liable (ie, jail time, loss of license to practice, civil suits, etc) if they didn't report it.
Said pedophile then enters the system instead of getting the help they need. Maybe all they end up getting caught with is some "questionable" (or real) child pornography they downloaded off the net. No matter, they will at least land in jail until their trial. Law enforcement, being the caring people they are to these suspects (they are supposedly innocent until proven guilty, right?), book them, places them in the general population of the holding area or whatever, then let's it "slip" to that self-same population that the guy they just put in there is a (suspected, but they leave that part out) pedophile - wink, wink...nudge, nudge. Then they walk away, and the CCTV system has a "glitch", and guards don't respond as the rest of the population act like animals and beat the guy (and/or rape him). If the guy is lucky, he survives with a little (or a lot) of brain damage, maybe a perforated colon (from rape), some (or a lot) of broken bones, etc. More often than not, he is killed in jail before he even makes it to trial.
All because he attempted to honestly get help before he "went too far". Do you honestly think that people who actually want help for this condition, knowing what the possible outcome will actually be from the system, will actually seek help? Don't bet on it...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
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?
You're not substituting like things for each other in the statement. Jaywalking != possessing kiddie porn. Nobody has to be molested for you to jaywalk. In order for you to possess kiddie porn, some kid, at some point, had to have been abused. That's why having kiddie porn is as bad as molesting children.
It's kind of like being the get-away driver for a bank robbery where someone gets killed. Or possessing ivory. Possessing/trading ivory is illegal, even if you didn't kill the animal yourself, because part of the motivation for killing animals for ivory is the market for ivory. Part of the motivation for creating kiddie porn is the market for kiddie porn.
It's also unfair to compare the crimes in a practicality sense. If you make driving 10 MPH over the limit a crime, you'll end up busting people who speed compulsively, and people who speed accidentally. More importantly, you'll ruin the traffic system because people will be so paranoid about accidentally breaking the speed limit that everyone will drive 15 MPH under the limit.
There's no downside to giving someone 20 years for trafficking in kiddie porn. The only people you're going to get are the irrational sickos; the rational people won't have kiddie porn because they won't want it.
paintball
"It takes two to tango."
This brought to mind a potential corner case in which it only takes one... (and which I'm sure some smartassed kid has already done, if only because kids do stuff like this!)
Is video footage of an underage person masturbating considered "child porn"??
How about if the kid makes the footage themselves, and distributes it via a webcam that all the world can see?
In such a case there is only one person involved in creating the "porn", and no "victim".
But in light of this court decision: Would someone who then downloaded this video be guilty of possessing and even *making* "child porn"??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Legally, in most states, it's probably completely illegal. Morally, however, I have to wonder "what the heck were the parents doing? Off partying with the neighbors?"
This only demonstrates the state of our society. Governmnet is a horrible parent yet government will still abuse/imprison the very children which it failed to properly parent.
It really comes down to "you reap what you sow". It's a sad situation for the people who get the raw part of the deal but that's the way the law is. Justice may be blind... but the law has a habit of simply burying its head in the sand.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
Not only that, but this "parenting by proxy" thing may eventually backfire in other ways, by leading to laws that actively prevent good parenting.
;)
In my weird hypothetical case of the maturbating teen armed with a webcam, who (besides the suckers who downloaded it) goes to jail? the kid for distributing kiddie porn? his parents for letting him do so? his ISP for "hosting" it? the company that made the webcam, for failing to restrict sales to minors?
Considering the state of this can and the number of worms, I'd say the real problem is worm porn... and I'd describe the location of the government's head as somewhere more, ah, pornographic.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The alternative being what? To make the laws based on age-difference? No. That can't work. Because every day we have 40-year olds hooking up with 20-year olds. So the alternative is what? Pubescency? No. That can't work. Because I can't honestly support a 30-year old deliberately seducing a 15-year old. The alternative is what? Intent? Well, if we go with intent then 90% of our legal system is screwed. I've long said (and I still do) that I'll never own a firearm becaue there are too many people who I could rightfully shoot dead for the way they've treated me.
It's a fucked up world. That's the only real bottom line. Either you make it through life or you don't. Anything in-between is just technicality.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
Downloading nasty pictures for presumed viewing is to be guilty of doing the acts implied by the pictures? I know a lot of people would not be happy with this notion concerning our own porn tastes or the level of violence etc. we like in our games and other entertainment. If someone happens to have the leaning toward pre-pubescent sexual attracttion I would much rather they download pictures than actually act out such leanings in real life. Yeah it disturbs us, yeah some kids were victimized somewhere in the making of the pictures which is wrong (unless we are talking about simply pictures of children, perhaps even nude children). But some of the implications of this case are disturbing.
Yeah. There are just too many corner cases and but-that's-not-what-I-intended and just plain bad luck situations. Laws that try to deal with all of those tend to slop over into non-perps' lives in unexpected ways, generally not for the better.
Sometimes I think we were better off when justice tended to be more preemptory, but also more cognizant of individual cases (ie. left up to someone's good judgment rather than restricted by regulation). Perhaps so even with the occasional abuse or mistake. I think it also kept people more responsible for their own actions, something the legal system has been helping erode by promoting lawsuits as the first response to any slight.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
This is like a pun gone horribly wrong...
Knowing the types of people who seem to get into prosecutors offices (remember the big town wide witch hunts over child molestation) I suspect they would wait till said teen hits 18 and then charge them with all the child porn laws they can think of him violating.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Quite possible; many prosecutors find that witch hunts help their careers more than does mere seeking after justice.
So at the very least, such a kid would be put on a list of "people to watch", as a future arrest prospect.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
1. Under federal law, (18 U. S. C. 2251 et. seq.) definitions of child porn are limited to visual depictions, i. e., images. You can write anything you wish about minors. The problem with "fictitious minors" is that since the advent of sophisticated computer imaging technology, nearly everyone charged with child pornography has claimed that the images did not depict real minors. 2. In Free Speech Coalition v. Ashcroft (April, 2002), the Supreme Court overturned sections of 18 U. S. C. 2256 which defined as porn any image that "appears to be" or "conveys the impression" that it is of a minor, even if no minor was involved in the image's creation. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-795.ZO.ht ml
3. Congress responded in March, 2003, with a new definition (18 U. S. C. 2256(8),(9), & (11)), that criminalizes any porn image that is "virtually indistinguishable" from an "identifiable minor."
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/analysis.aspx? id=11865
4. 18 U. S. C. 2256(11) says, "This definition does not apply to depictions that are drawings, cartoons, sculptures, or paintings depicting minors or adults."
Bottom line: don't make your fake porn so well that an ordinary person using ordinary means of inspection can't tell if it's fake or real.
This leaves a lot of room for protected depictions of apparent minors engaging in sexual acts or just standing around naked.
The new definition of "fictitious child porn" has not yet been challenged in court.
Seriously, laws which legislate morality are never successful without an oppressive regime to enforce them.
Blar.
Seriously, laws which legislate morality are never successful without an oppressive regime to enforce them. 1. No type of law can be successful without a "regime" that "oppresses" violators by enforcing the laws. 2. All laws are legislations of morality. Morality is a generally accepted code of conduct peculiar to a given society. In South America and the Middle East, bribery is moral. In China, skinning dogs and cats alive to make them taste better is moral. Here in the U. S., neither pratice is moral.