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Appeals Court Rules On Internet Obscenity Standards
dark_requiem writes "The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that online content can be judged by the standards of the strictest community that is able to access it. The court upheld the conviction of pornography producer Paul F. Little, aka Max Hardcore, for violating obscenity laws in Tampa, despite the fact that the 'obscene' material in question was produced and sold in California. From the article: 'The Atlanta-based court rejected arguments by Little's attorneys that applying a local community standard to the Internet violates the First Amendment because doing so means material can be judged according to the standards of the strictest communities. In other words, the materials might be legal where they were produced and almost everywhere else. But if they violate the standards of one community, they are illegal in that community and the producers may be convicted of a crime. ... Jurors in Little's trial were told to judge the materials on the basis of how "the average person of the community as a whole — the Middle District of Florida" — would view the material.'"
...in the Land of The Free, corporations have a right to free speech so your constitution does not apply to you anymore, only to whom will financially benefit from that.
Smile, don't click...
So by that measure we should censor all pictures of women's faces as it violates the decency standards of Iran.
We just need to file a lawsuit in Fascistville, Texas to have the whole internet taken down for obscenity.
Trust me, I'm a Texan--we've got plenty of towns that would do.
expandfairuse.org
This has to be, without a doubt, the worst decision I have ever heard a court involving the internet. It shows a blatant disregard for how internet works.
The Appeals Court dropped the ball on this one. If a crime was committed in that backwoods locale, it should be the person who viewed the porn who is charged, because they're the ones who took the active step of bringing it 'into' the jurisdiction. Yeah, it's some pretty foul porn, by most standards, but it was the police who ordered the damn things and downloaded them, not some otherwise innocent person. Frankly, it's a mockery of the law to charge him with crimes in that jurisdiction.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Yay. Time for this to be ruled by the scotus. They've been pretty clear on "community standards" and it's about time the internet was defined as "a community." SCOTUS did not say obscenity is defined by the most prudish members of the community. You can't simply pick the 13 most uptight pricks in town for your jury. It's time for people to be given full responsibility for the speech that is tolerated in their own homes and not the freedom to rule everyone else's homes based on the redneck perversions of that backward few.
Little is from California but was tried in Tampa after investigators here ordered his videos through the mail and downloaded them over the Internet.
Emphasis mine.
So basically these investigators took something that was legal at it's source and imported it into an area where it was illegal, and then blamed the supplier.
If they had of not actively done this, then no crime would have been committed.
(Of course IANAL etc).
Or how declaring that Mary is not a virgin is technically a criminal offence in Ireland, but not wherever the server for slashdot is located.
How can people know what's legal/illegal in each and every bacwater community across a country as large as the US?
So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
LOL, that's probably the silliest name you can have in that industry!
No wonder he's using a pseudonym...
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
At least the Amish don't use computers.
So now because of this idiotic ruling most every web site will need to locate offshore. By these standards we could not put the bible or anything else up as some community might take offense and object. Maybe we could outsource our court system, its obviously broken beyond repair.
So does this mean I can sue Walmart for selling me shoes online that were made using slave-labor in the 3rd world?
If restrictions on speech are unconstitutional to the point that anyone with enough money can drown out opposing viewpoints in an election, how the hell do they justify allowing a district in central Florida to censor the internet?
It is very likely that corporate advertising that lies and tries to scare people into voting a certain way offends the standards of more than a few communities- say, Berkeley, for one. Under this precedent, Berkeley should start suing the folks who air those highly offensive anti-healthcare reform ads. I guarantee you that they'll have a sympathetic jury if all it takes is a local community standard.
Perfect! Now we can have some GNU/Linux fans form a community, declare all proprietary software obscene and shut down sites of Microsoft, Apple and so on! Wow, and I thought that I'll never see "A Year of Linux on Desktop"!
What do you think, will RMS look good in black amish hat?
Absence of proof != proof of absence.
This ruling is entirely unreasonable for two reasons:
(1) This effectively extends the jurisdiction of an community law to the entire country
(2) This requires that someone know and understand all the laws of every community
I don't know whether the ruling is wrong with regard to the law or whether the law is horribly broken, but rulings like this are entirely unreasonable. It goes against the principles of the US to allow a small group of people to inflict their personal views and opinions on the entire country. I really hope that this precedent is changed, either by a successful appeal to the supreme court or better laws.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That pictures of women who are not covered top to toe are considered porn.
I am sure thare are some communities of strict muslims in the US.
As a result, all newsstands must be closed down, and all newspapers will have to show pictueres only of men.
Stupidity rulez
Tar and feathering of stupid judges.
This will almost certainly be overturned but this court had to force the waste of millions of dollars anyway.
Corporatism != Free Market
Frankly, it isn't the first time the USoA has dragged someone from somewhere else (like, oh, another country on a different continent), and tried and convicted them for ``crimes'' that might be arguable at best under any applicable law, or not even committed near the North American continent, or both. So the country, so the county. If you'd like this changed, don't stop at the county level, fix the country too. People the world over will thank you.
Right below this story in my RSS feed was this comic. How appropriate.
Dilbert RSS feed
The onus should fall upon the pornographers to keep their content out of Florida's tubes.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Nobody's forcing you to type playboy.com into your computer
Except the people who post links on forums that claim to point somewhere interesting but in fact point to shocking gay porn. OK, maybe you're right, that's not forcing, but it's still coercion because it's fraud.
The practise is called 'venue shopping'. http://epic.org/free_speech/censorship/us_v_thomas.html
The Miller decision was applied and found to be applicable to this case. If you offend
someone in their place of residence, they are still offended. This is why buck naked fornicators
do not enter your home over the broadcast airways.
The Thomas case was a little different, but a conviction was obtained anyway.
This is completely insane. Under this standard, Dan Savage could be prosecuted in Arkansas for writing about sex in California. A large percentage of the professional musicians in the US could be prosecuted for their lyrics. Everyone on 4chan could be prosecuted. (There had to be a silver lining somewhere.)
We clearly all forgot that little footnote in the Bill of Rights which says "not a guarantee, void where prohibited by law, some rights sold separately"
What makes you think, you got any power at all to rule over the Internet? The Internet is outside of any nation. You got as much power over it as you got over Saturn or Middle-earth.
So go ahead, make your fantasy rulings, living in your fantasy world. Until you lose any connection to reality, and we’re rid of you.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I have to wonder if the 11th would have been so quick to insist that the strictest local community standards apply in every case if non-pornographic material was involved. Hypothetical case in point:
1) Some particularly radical bastion of liberalism / progressivism (Berkeley, perhaps, or another community with similar values) passes a city ordinance declaring particularly inflammatory anti-abortion speech as "obscene", "inciting to riot", etc.
2) Arrest warrants are immediately issued throughout the south-eastern US for various high profile clergymen (e.g. Pat Robertson), and other pro-life firebrands as various pieces of inflammatory pro-life literature (e.g. videotapes) are purchased and received by members of the local police.
3) Said individuals are arrested, extradited to California, tried, convicted, sentenced, and begin their prison sentences.
4) During this time, they appeal their sentences through the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
If the members of the 11th Court suddenly "switched team jerseys" and were sitting on the bench of the 9th Circuit court, would they uphold these convictions?
Using the reasoning they applied against Mr. Little (the defendant), they would. However, if you believe that these same judges would actually choose to follow this reasoning, I have a nice bridge to sell you.
Normally, I would expect that the Supreme Court would (eventually) backhand the 11th for such an egregious violation of the 1st Amendment, but given the recent much-broader-than-necessary ruling on campaign finance reform, I suspect that they'll find a way not to.
What makes you think, you got any power at all to rule over the Internet?
Well the fact that Max Hardcore is behind bars should be your first clue.
I don't agree with the court ruling, but they certainly have the power - and are (ab)using it.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. If an ethnic community should decide that woman not wearing a burka is obscene then all photos etc. on the internet not showing a burka should be considered pornographic. I've lost an enormous amount of respect for our judicial system with this decision.
Why judge based on silly "geographical" community when we already have perfectly good online communities by which to judge what is obscene or not. So I guess the best judges of that is 4chan. We can go by the standard: "If it is too obscene for 4chan, it is too obscene" And solve this whole silly "obscenity" issue.
one of the problems the type of business I am in has, its illegal to sell certain items in certain locales but adjoining ones can buy them. In some cases its not even legal to ship through (we are talking environmental laws mostly - some protect the local industry laws too)
We used to joke that some locales would have inspectors waiting for the trucks to leave the warehouse, let alone arrive at stores to see if "contraband" was on board. Of course this was all done to raise revenue for the locale. Where it got messy were the same buyers ordering from other distribution centers in hopes of getting around the restriction. My favorite restrictions are where the same product can be sold in a locale for one use but not another. This of course requires signed off paperwork stating the buyer is using it for the legal reasons and we confirmed they are. Trouble is, we have more money so if the buyer does something wrong we usually get fined for selling it.
Never underestimate the ability of government employees to abuse their position to impose their views upon you or bolster their community at the expense of yours
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
There goes another huge waste of our tax dollars. Now that we have had an expensive witch hunt we get the thrill of paying huge money to lock these guys up for no reason at all.
And just why should the most conservative county get to hold power over all of us. How about letting the most l;iberal county declare when something is pornographic in nature?
And I live near the center of Florida and nothing at all is offensive to me porn wise. So these judges are not representing the people at all. They are catering to the lowest element of dried up dullards. Sometimes I understand the loonies who go off and gun down people at random. It's because of nonsense like this courts rulings.
So does this make it illegal for alcoholic beverage ads to be broadcast in dry counties?
Most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. If an ethnic community should decide that woman not wearing a burka is obscene then all photos etc. on the internet not showing a burka should be considered pornographic. I've lost an enormous amount of respect for our judicial system with this decision.
Well it should not be hard to find someone who would go beyond that:
Unfortunately.
Who gets to decide which judges are stupid?
Not that I disagree on -this- decision being 'stupid' (on the face of it, I haven't read the judge's motivations and whatnot), but I can't help but disagree with your idea there.
If I simply disagree with a judge, deeming them 'stupid', does that mean I should be allowed (at least in the eye of the public) to tar and feather them?
Wouldn't that undermine one of the principles - however much they're ignored - of a legal system? If every judge making a decision would have to fear being tarred and feathered just because *somebody* may disagree with the decision, wouldn't that be a Bad Thing(TM)?
I'm a pedophile, and I find the lack of child pornography on this internet obscene.
Porn sites in the US will smell the java and move abroad, then sell their services from there (and pay tax there). Some bum on Aruba beach will become the figurehead CEO and business continues as usual. Case closed.
What? What else do you expect the result of this will be? That these "indecent" and "obscene" pages cease to exist?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Government is the Leviathan turned against the people.
How did the U.S. get corrupt judges? From lawyers who originally became judges because of corrupt elections driven by money. Because they can be easily corrupted, there's a lot of money spent to elect people who are mentally incapable.
On my tiny sovereign island nation, it is now prohibited to be wrong on the internet. I expect the court of Atlanta to pay the standard fine within two weeks of this message.
The setting of this precedent means that any grouping of people can hold anything they find objectionable on the internet hostage. This means that Google can hold Microsoft Hostage, Microsoft can object to Apple's ads and bearded Linux ogres can object to Bill Gates taking a bath more than once a month.
It should apply to the Bible - The Song of Songs and everywhere it is fornication and incest is mentioned.
The government consulting citizens about laws? Craziness!
:P
OK, so this situation is a bit different, as it depends on whoever might be in the court that day instead of on a wide consensus of citizens, but I still wish the government actually asked citizens what they wanted, but everyone knows they don't want to as they want to stay in power.
No one from the government has yet asked me what I think about software patents! I don't want to go out demonstrating, it's cold out.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
and remove whatever we want off the internet.
We just need to file a lawsuit in Fascistville, Texas to have the whole internet taken down for obscenity. Trust me, I'm a Texan--we've got plenty of towns that would do.
They're so strict they don't even allow proportionally spaced fonts!
Putting moderation advice in your
Surely I can find a place where anything is illegal. How did these judges get into office again?
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
it would be valid under this precedent for them to sue
Note the problem is that these aren't merely civil issues, but criminal ones.
You poor chaps over the pond
Oh, it happens both sides. Here in the UK, not only do we have similar criminal laws on publication of "obscene" material, but now new laws will have you locked up for private possession of "disgusting" "extreme" pictures, even if no one else sees them.
The ruling will probably be struck down on interstate commerce grounds.
Giving senators the right to veto and void laws based on simple majority seems like an exceedingly stupid thing to do.
Imagine what would happen right after the SCOTUS came to their senses and said straight out that marriage is a constitutional human right covered by "pursuit of happiness", regardless of the gender of those involved, and that states should not be permitted to ban it.
How long do you think it would take before this would be stricken down in the Senate for blatantly religious reasons?
Similar for other controversial issues where there is a real risk of a majority imposing their morals on others, declaring it a constitutional issue because that gives them the power to do so.
The very reason we HAVE a SCOTUS is to protect the individuals from majority abuse. Giving this power to the majority (or their representatives) is a very braindead thing to do. Even the most extreme right wing liberalists seldom go that far in their populist demands.
"The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that online content can be judged by the standards of the strictest community that is able to access it.
Well, here in my parts, we are pretty damned strict about polygamy . . .
. . . so change your monogamous ways, or be sued by me . . .
. . . oh, and yes, my family tree has routing loops . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Data that goes across the Internet is not obscene. It's just one's and zero's. It doesn't become obscene material until the device that receives the data assembles it into something that appears obscene. Nothing obscene traveled across state lines. These are not photos rolled up and shoved in an air tube.
Does anyone have the docket number or a copy of the opinion?
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
I consider Glen Beck obscene. Can I sue him for allowing his filth (aka his ideas) to be distributed to all media outlets?
I would seriously consider giving up porn if I could get Glen Beck taken off the air. ;p
This ruling is actually not the "Great Evil" it's being portrayed as. We've got one Court of Appeals saying the one thing, and another saying the opposite (yes, Courts of Appeal have ruled the reverse several times in history).
Which pretty much guarantees that if the defendant appeals to the Supremes, they'll have to take the case, and come up with a definitive ruling.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
For years people have suggested that filtering of porn sights for adults only was a good thing. So I remember in the early days of the web, people mentioned making an extension like the .com, .org, .net, etc... to include .xxx which would then allow communities whose law prohibit such materials to be sold in their community to be able to have their local IP providers block such web site extensions. A .xxx extension also would make it much easier for parents to filter content that they don't want their children to see. If I remember correctly, I think I recall even the Porn industry wanting it's own extension.
This then allows those people in those communities to don't want content filtered to be able to then petition their local governments for changes in freedoms.
There are a lot of logistics that would need to be worked out to what should go into a .xxx section of the web, but that would allow the industry to have more openness as they want and parents to have the control they want.
Besides, since you can have access to the internet in the privacy of your own home, an you have the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, wouldn't the obscenity laws in Tampa contradict that if obscene porn is your pursuit to happiness?
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
FACT.
We failed at being Free. Humans just dont like real freedom. We're too selfish.
Emphasis mine.
So basically these investigators took something that was legal at it's source and imported it into an area where it was illegal, and then blamed the supplier.
If they had of not actively done this, then no crime would have been committed.
(Of course IANAL etc).
My fiancée IAL who wrote her thesis partially on this issue. This was basically just a riff on a sting operation, which is obviously an extremely common technique for gathering evidence against various flavors of consensual crook (prostitutes, drug dealers, etc). The courts will not reject the technique any time soon, and legislators will never write laws banning the technique because they would hate to seem soft on crime.
Basically, consensual crimes are more expensive to prosecute because no involved party is interested in revealing information that could lead to a conviction. The most effective ways cops and feds have come up with to do so is through intricate surveillance methods (wiretaps, inside informants) and sting ops. The reasoning is that if a person commits a consensual crime with an undercover agent then the person would probably have committed the crime anyway.
Of course, I believe it's stupid to criminalize most of the consensual crimes we hear about (drug dealing, prostitution, (adult) porn creation/consumption), but once you decide that it's illegal, you have to come up with a way to prosecute it.
This leads to some pretty hilarious cop behaviors. Fiancée told me about a sting in which cops leave an old car parked unlocked with the keys in the ignition in a crappy neighborhood with a bunch of audio recording equipment in the trunk. The minute someone tries to take the car, a cop swings around the corner, arrests the guy and sends him off to jail for grand theft auto.
So in one particular neighborhood they parked their sting car in front of a nice couple's house. Couple called the police multiple times to report the apparently lost vehicle. But the cops didn't want to give away their little ploy, so they just ignored them. After two weeks, the couple decides to go have a look at the car to see if there was an ID or something there. The minute they open the door, the cops pull up from around the corner, arrest both of them, and charge them with attempted grand theft auto.
So by "hilarious" I guess I meant "terrifying".
In my community, reading anything about any language other than the one true language, perl, is illegal.
There are laws right now against proselytizing , and giving innformation about abortions to minors without parental consent.
thus all religiion, abortion and programming info must be removed from the internet (expect of course perl)
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Have you met our Supreme Court recently?
If this were anything else but porn (and especially the kind of porn it is), I'd be with you. But, I'm afraid of the right-wing judges on there, and what they'll say about this.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
This will be appealed for sure -
Individuals must choose, decide their "essential" nature rather than having it given from some transcendent source.
If an ethnic community should decide that woman not wearing a burka is obscene
Wouldn't "religious community" be a more accurate description?
Last I heard, the burka-wearing rules go with Islam, not with being a citizen of ${country where Islam is the dominant religion}.
I realise that there's a great degree of overlap, just like most (US) Americans are Christians, but for someone to talk about how people are going to set up a lot of crosses and churches in "the American community" sounds a bit silly, doesn't it? You'd feel like they missed a (not so subtle) distinction, right?
Amazon sells porn.
Have Jeff Bezos arrested and extridited to Florida.
Watch as Florida looks like the complete dipshits they are when routers across the country refuse to recognize any IP within the state of Florida. Let's see how well Floridians do without the internet.
Great firewall of China? Ha! They ain't seen nothin yet!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
If they disable the Internet access to their local community then we have less traffic to deal with. This, in my humble opinion, is a win for the rest of the enlightened world in the US
The good part is that this means that it's only a matter of time before the Supreme Court throws the lower decision out on the grounds of being "unbelievably stupid"
This is great news for the Amish legal community. I expect lots of calls to Amish attorneys to try these kinds of cases by the standards of the average Amishman or Mennonite.
Of course, they'll have to get a computer first.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
By this standard I believe that the advertisement of adult services in Vegas are obscene. Considering that this is the basis of their latest ad campaign I trust that their tourism board will be duly sued by every other state in the union.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Of course it is. For instance, there's probably at least one Wahabbian community somewhere in the US; that means any pictures of unveiled women may be prosecuted as obscene according to the reasoning of the 11th circuit. That's pretty damned evil.
The fact that the 9th circuit (and also the 3rd, I think) have ruled otherwise means the decision is more likely to be overturned than it would be otherwise, but it's still evil.
Its obvious theses laws our far outdated, and not meant for electronic data as opposed to shipping physical media which A business owner has more control over. A businessman/women/other cant control who or where the electronic data goes.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Anyone else read that as:
Appeals Court Rules On Internet Obesity Standards?
mods are on crack again, I guess.
There's no 'flamebaiting' in saying that it would be a bad thing if judges had to worry about the repercussions (tar and feather, or maybe a little 'housecall', or hey.. just shoot their offspring.. that'll get the message across) of their decisions if they believe they are acting in accordance with the law; and anytime they aren't, that's what the higher courts are for.. and if they end up deciding that the lower court's judge didn't just make a boo-boo but royally screwed up, they can then take care of things from there.
Beyond that... what am I, too subtle with this one?
Did you mods honestly miss the whole double-applicability of my rhetorical question there? I.e.
"If every online business selling goods would have to fear getting sued just because *somebody* may disagree with the items for sale, wouldn't that be a Bad Thing(TM)?"
Geeze. /rant and /nokarma.
I was going to say the same thing about Ashcroft but you beat me to it.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Killing polar bears is offensive in my community. Book Palin!
Table-ized A.I.
...is the strictest, though?
I've read radical feminists who would view pretty much any diamond, alcohol, or shampoo commercial I've ever seen as obscenity. Hell, there's an article online (ICBATG) about the Firefly episode "Mrs. Reynolds" by some wingnut (Allecto, IIRC), which talks about it portraying homoeroticism, advocating misogyny, and showing sexual slavery positively/jokingly. I'm quite sure she'd find Firefly obscene.
The problem (well one of them) is that the 'strictest community' is inevitably going to be radical to some degree, and not representative of the larger community. That's pretty much tautological. They'll be a group more interested in changing the mores of society than in actually addressing the individual instance of a crime.
For the fun of it:
One of my favourite Bradbury lines: in Usher II from the Martian Chronicles
Wait..
From the article he sold over $40,000 worth of porn in the community he was charged in.
Without even taking theft, borrowing, and other methods of seeing this for free we are talking about what?
2,000 + people PAYING for this material and ‘consuming’ it.
How can something be in violation of ‘community standards’ when the community in question is consuming it by the thousands?
The judgment itself negates the charges.
Because it's not an absolute right, you don't have the right to incite riots or sell child porn, there is limitations. A better argument would be that local laws should not supersede state law and state law should not supersede federal law. Having local and state laws apply to people never been in your state and to someone who has never mailed anything to your state is just retarded.
I sure did. HAHAHAHA
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
The 11th Circuit didn't reject a national standard. Rather, it said that the district court DID NOT ERR in applying the community standard, which comes from a 1973 SCOTUS case, Miller v. California.
There is a difference. What this means is that another district court, even in the 11th Circuit, could still use a national standard under similar circumstances. In other words, the 11th Circuit has ruled that such a call can currently be made by the trial court.
The area of the law is unclear, and courts have been applying it differently. While there has been some discussion of applying a national standard of decency by O'Connor, the Supreme Court as a whole has yet to rule this way. Until it does, Miller applies, and an interpretation of it that uses a community based standard is not an error.
Here's the actual opinion, this issue is discussed on pages 6-10: http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/unpub/ops/200815964.pdf
Apparently the judge doesn't understand the concept of jurisdiction OR democracy. Laws apply to people actually in a given jurisdiction. Now that he has decided we all effectively live in every jurisdiction, does that mean we all get to vote in all local elections? Democracy demands that the answer to that is yes. If I am to be subject to a body of law, then I have a right to elect the people who make those laws. Otherwise we're back to kings ruling from afar with no recourse.
In a month or two, I do the little annual paperwork dance to confirm that the government stole the correct amount of money from me to deliver its "services." I've been told that this is the "Land of the Free" and that there is "Liberty and Justice For All" and such... Product not as advertised. I'd like a full refund. Seriously, if they can't live up to the founding document, and go out of their way to specifically violate this theoretical freedom from tyranny and blow as much money as possible on the stupidest shit (remember when they were selling Invade Iraq? They even had this anthrax mailing scare that they linked to it... where'd that come from?)
The new guy in the Executive seat with a supermajority of his own party in congress got how much done? He did a bit of copyright maximalism stuff that was sadly expected, and not a damn bit of the expected reversals of his predecessor's blunders.
I'm sick of it. Is there a country that is not freezing all year that has this alleged "freedom" stuff? A country where the taxes pay for first-world quality of life infrastructure (which is falling apart here, literally, see bridges), and where the taxes don't go mostly to diddling about with other countries for corporate interests and violating its own citizenry for theocratic interests? Which country?
Am I pissed because I'm a huge fan of this guy's work? Nope... seen some and it's humorous at best... The problem is that there is not a damn thing about it that the federal government, nor a state government should be concerned with. Fix our damn roads and STFU.
Sorry about the rant. I just really hate that any fraction of a penny that I worked for goes into this sort of Evil... while so few fractions of those pennies go towards a damn thing that would improve quality of life around here.
I love the smell of facepalm in the morning.
If you are the true owner of your website, you would be allowed to put whatever you wanted on it. The government is in effect saying that no person fully owns any website. This is similar to how the government owns the mainstream media by fining organizations for the use of certain words that the government finds offensive. People choose to visit websites just as they choose to view certain networks. The government clearly doesn't believe that the individual has the capacity to judge which websites contain "appropriate material" as they define it.
It should be a crime for judges to make obscene rulings such as this one. I actually read TFA sure there was a catch but none to be found.
Lets forget about "porn" for now and ask a different question so the minds of the judges are a bit less clouded...
What if the garbage pail kids are concidered "indecent" in some backwards-ass town would the web site be liable when people located in that town download material that is known to the city of blah to cause obscenity?
What if the source state has laws that explicitly protect web site owners from such liability when "insert abitrary convention" is illegal in the receivers town? Don't the downloaders have a duty not to do illegal things in thier jurisdiction? (Such as investigators downloading porn and justifying it as "just doing my job")
Does the answer change if no such explicit law exist?
What is the legal difference between "distributing" and "taking" ... On the Internet to access content you have to explicitly ask for it and the computers IP stack has to activly work on your behalf to receive such content. In this case it is extremely unlikely for the reciever to be confused about what they were downloading/purchasing.
It seems to me that when arguments and legal theories don't scale (for example internationally) they are ususally fundementally wrong. I would be surprised if similiar cases had not already been settled by the supreme court over more traditional channels... I'm just too lazy to look and like the rest of us I'm not a lawyer.
Can the Goatsex picture really be considered gay? I'm pretty sure it wasn't a penis that did that.
I take it you never clicked through to "the giver" and saw the comically 'shopped pingas.
It's just dangling there for everyone to see. Have you no morals, Florida.
Start suing every religious group that has ANYTHING posted on the internet, using this precedent as your battle cry.
Watch how fast this decision gets reversed.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"It's time that we the People stop bowing to judges as if they were the ultimate authorities. They are not. The LAW is the ultimate authority within the Member States and within our Union. Enforce the Constitution - it is the law, and no politician nor judge can trump it."
I cannot help but to laugh. It's not that your post isn't well-written, it's the way you glossed over the impossibility of impartiality in any system that might replace the present system. In other words, just because a judge might be corrupt, that doesn't mean you can create a system to regulate judges that won't also be corrupt.
More to the point, while the existence of a law has an effect on how an individual is treated, so too do the enforcement of the law, the punishment recommended by the lawmakers, and the influence of the bailbondsmen on the judicial system.
Don't know why the parent's flamebait. The rightwingers of the SCOTUS have already shown that they'll just make shit up on the spot when it comes to protecting the Christian Taliban's morality crusade. See also: growing drugs in your backyard is interstate commerce.
Actually there's a complication here not made clear in the summary nor highlighted in TFA.
By shipping goods he is exporting, the seller reaches out and does business in Tampa. Mailing the goods is an act of the seller appointing the carrier as his agent for the purpose of making goods available in Tampa.
The internet download OTOH is usually seen as the goods being made available on the server and the buyer importing from there.
A careful reading of the TFA, it does not disclose whether the internet download or physical supply is a factor here, it only says "materials sold over the Internet" (and then repeated instances of "the materials"). It does note that "the sentence had to be limited to the defendants' activities in the district" (my emphasis), which could be interpreted to support my theory.
My attempt at brevity makes me sound quite certain, but actually it's my vague recollection from accountancy studies - where the focus is more on spotting potential complications to raise with a lawyer rather than on being able to make legal advice, but the message about being very careful where you do business was a strong one. Secondly, my studies were based on Scottish law. It's just logical though, following the principle that goods lost in shipping make the seller liable to replace the goods.
I've heard of Tampa - year, the city with high morals. Isn't 'Tampa-Bukakke' made there? (don't Google that one at work)
The website can only be viewed if you actively seek it out. Likewise if you want obscene material in the physical world nothing is stopping you from getting it posted to you. Should every single business be held back by the most repressed neighbourhood full of parents who think everyone is a criminal and paedophile?
I can understand applying this logic to concerts that are loud and played in the area but you can't say the whole nation has to comply to the most backwards people in the nation.
Quick! Somebody form a community that considers Christianity and the Bible to be obscene! According to this ruling that will finally form a legal basis for removing it from the internet!
What part of "ordered his videos through the mail" do you not understand? You bet they were "actively sending the material to State A"- though the content delivery was over the 'net, the material had to be paid for, and these people processed the payment- which included information about the place of residence of those buying- and sent the investigators a password/private download link/whatever else. It's not like the stuff was just up on their server and investigators from FL just browsed onto their website.
but you have to admit its an improvement over the status quo
all of his arguments for the xxx domain are sound
therefore, it's a good idea, and you should support it
you can't reject his idea simply because the idea isn't a perfect answer to everything
on the basis of your standards in your questions, the entire history of human process is rejectable
the problem here is your impossible standards
the xxx domain is obviously an improvement. its not perfect. NOTHING is
for every advance in human history, we have to deal with criticism that is predicated on perfection rather than realism. i really wish such people would learn to shut up. but they are always unfortunately the loudest whiners
criticism is only valid in this world if it is based on realistic expectations. criticism based on a desire for perfection is fucking useless, counterproductive, and really fucking annoying
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Does this mean a community can rule the bible obscene and ban any and all mention of the bible on the net?