Given the horribly loose language used in the "extreme pornography" law recently passed in the UK and that the extreme pornography law covers staged acts as well as real ones I wouldn't be surprised if the language used in this law is also horribly loose. It's probably unlikely to distinguish between whether the drawing depicted a real act or not.
They've made it clear that this will cover drawings that are nothing to do with real acts.
I agree entirely with your comment - I suspect that despite assurances, this will be just as vague a law, if not more so. According to the consultation response document, they are borrowing the term "of an obscene character" that exists in the "extreme porn" law. Which is not the same test that's in the Obscene Publications Act (that an image must deprave and corrupt). I'm sure that mainstream works won't be caught, but all it means that material on your computer, imported from abroad, or downloaded from the Internet, gets seen as "obscene" or "not a work of art", and will be illegal. Some police chiefs can't wait to be able to arrest someone simply because of Hentai on their computer.
What's to stop the Hentai Artists to just say that their characters are over 16? Indeed, what's to stop any of these artists just saying that their CGI models are over 16?
Nothing. Just as there's nothing to stop the police arresting them anyway, and the jury ignoring the claims that the girl who looks to them to possibly be 16/17 is actually a 400 year old demon in disguise.
The difficulties in judging the age show the absurdities in such a law, but I suspect that the age will be based on what a jury thinks, not what the defendant claims.
I agree, though note age of consent is irrelevant for images. They don't mention the issue of age at all in the consultation response, but I bet that they use the same age for child porn, i.e., 18 (even though the age of consent is 16 - so sex with a 17 year old is fine, but a fantasy drawing of someone who could be 17 would be illegal!)
But an article I read on the subject quoted one of the main proponents
There's your problem right there. The Government and its supporters on laws like this are keen to make claims that are unsupported by evidence. (Link?)
And what if they were converting images to something else? Should we criminalise anything by claiming that "pedophiles are converting child images to such things"? It sounds like something from that Brass Eye episode...
But this new law covers all sexual images of under-18s.
If pedophiles were "circumventing the law" by using computer technology to manipulate real photos into adult images, should all adult porn be illegal? What if they superimposed them onto pictures of Gordon Brown's arse, would those have to be illegal too?
I was under the impression that they want to ban this imagery because paedophiles are just converting photographic media into drawn forms to evade the current bans. I'd imagine you could probably just run a set of cell shading-esque toon filters over them if you so wanted, though I can't imagine it'd work too well.
That's just Government spin - see my other comment - the loophole is already closed in a recent law. This new proposed law will cover all drawings and cartoons of underage sexual acts, whether derived from abuse or not.
The claim that pedophiles are converting real images into cartoons (is there any evidence for that anyway? Why would they do that and not use non-abuse-derived cartoons?) may well just be scaremongering to get the press resporting this law as "Computer generated abuse" rather than "Sexual drawings of under-18s".
And no, there will be no progression from this proposal to banning The Simpsons. That's not the way the British legislature works.
The way that British legislature works is that The Simpsons will be legal, simply because it's a classified work, but the same scenes in a non-classified work (or even a screenshot from The Simpsopns) could still be made illegal.
The fact that things exist in legally available material doesn't stop this Government wanting to criminalise such depictions.
I agree, even if I conceded that some law on cartoons was required, an age limit of 18 makes no sense, and catches far too much. I raised this issue when I responded to the Government "consultation", but needless to say the issue was not addressed in the consultation response.
Talking of Ghastly's Ghastly Comic, there's this (NSFW) image where Rice Krispie Elf Crackle is bum-raped with a dildo. Crackle is in fact a child (according to Kellog's website). I did ask the Government if there'd be a separate age of consent for Elves and other mythical creatures...
[I do take consolation that the phrase "anally penetrated with a dildo" now exists in official Government records...]
As you say, there is the problem when a characters age does not match up with their apparent age. Another example is Bleach, which features a character who appears as a teenage schoolgirl, but in fact is over 100 years old.
Now, the Government would claim it was an obvious loophole if you could draw babies being raped, but claim they were really babies that were 5,000 years old in your story. But consider it the other way - e.g., I've seen Harry Potter fanfictioners drawing sexually explicit images involving Harry Potter, where he's intentionally been aged (though still ambiguous, and possibly could be 17), yet people will claim it's still underage, because Harry Potter was underage in the books. So which is it - is it apparent age, or intended age of the character? They can't have it both ways - but they probably will.
But what are the purposes of these images, from a social/personal/psychological perspective?
There are two main issues with such a law:
* Images that are intended to clearly be for pedophiles (e.g., they're of babies getting raped, and we know that they were drawn for that purpose).
* All sorts of images that would be caught under such a broad law, such as drawings of characters who might look 17, manga/hentai where the ages are unclear. An age limit of 18 simply doesn't make sense when with drawings, there exists no person whose age you can determine (how old is a cartoon character?) and whilst children look different from adults, a drawn 17 year old doesn't look any different to a young 20-something.
For the former, well perhaps there is no purpose for such images, but still, that is not necessarily sufficient justification for locking people up. Also one could equally argue that such images act as an outlet, rather than encouraging them - there is no conclusive evidence either way. So a ban could do harm.
For the latter, there are plenty of purposes of such images, and a law that criminalises possession of all these things is far too broad.
There is, for instance, a recognised pattern with (adult) porn that certain types of user will inevitably seek out harder and harder stuff because the less extreme stuff no longer excites to the same degree.
Is it? I've seen that claim by supporters of criminalising porn, but not seen the conclusive evidence. I've also heard the claim that people will move on from "extreme" adult porn to child porn, which makes no sense. It's the sort of stuff that Jack Chick would claim...
consider that kiddy porn
We're talking about drawings and cartoons, not kiddy porn, please don't divert the debate. Either way, I wouldn't consider them to be physically addictive drugs.
"The government has acknowledged that paedophiles may be circumventing the law by using computer technology to manipulate real photographs or videos of abuse into drawings or cartoons."
But under the new Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, Section 69:
"References to a photograph also include- a tracing or other image, whether made by electronic or other means (of whatever nature)- which is not itself a photograph or pseudo-photograph, but which is derived from the whole or part of a photograph or pseudo-photograph (or a combination of either or both)"
So not only is it absurd to suggest that all drawings need to be criminalised because pedophiles are allegedly converting child abuse images into them, this simply isn't a loophole anymore anyway!
What if pedophiles start converting images of children into page 3 girls, will they need to be criminalised too?
The claim that this material is already illegal to sell or distribute is also bogus (they made this same false claim with the extreme porn law - on that note, expect to see "extreme" adult cartoon images made illegal in a few years). The Obscene Publications Act requires a jury to believe that the material would "deprave or corrupt" those likely to see it, but these new laws do not have such a test, instead using a dictionary definition of the word "obscene" (i.e., disgusting etc). I suspect that a jury made up of Daily Mail readers would consider plenty of Manga and Hentai to be illegal.
I fear that to the police, hentai is not merely something that may be unintentionally caught, but it is a direct intended target. In the response to the "extreme porn" law (a different law, but the comment is relevant), Greater Manchester police stated"Would like to see account of several child cartoon images e.g. Hentai material."
And note that whilst the age of consent is 16 in the UK, the age for child porn was raised to 18 in the Sexual Offences Act 2003. So sex with a 17 year old is legal, but a fantasy drawing of someone who might look 17 would be illegal!
The fact is that continuity does lead to an infinite regress, something that even children can grasp.
Children may struggle with this perceived problem, but there are no mathematical problems with the model to anyone who has studied analysis.
PS - just because the theory of relativity or whatever may ultimately turn out to not be a 100% accurate description of reality doesn't mean that it is completely wrong, nor does it mean that any pet "theory" is right.
What you're talking about is essentially communism.
A state dictating that ideas are "owned" and can only be used by one person? That sounds more like communism. Meanwhile, people working together without state intervention fits nicely with laissez-faire capitalism.
Wait - you do realise that Macs and PCs use the same kinds of hard disk?
You do also realise that there is more than one make of PC motherboard, so your anecdotal "evidence" is useless without knowing which manufacturer it was?
Anyway, my old Amigas lasted years longer than your Macs, without fault.
iTunes and the iPod have been successful because of the public perception that they just work
All products just work - if it doesn't work, I take it back and get a refund. What sort of products have Apple been peddling, that just working is now seen as a good thing for their products?
Actually I would consider the iPhone to be a handheld computer.
Welcome to the 21st Century. You do realise that all modern phones are effectively hand-held computers? Some of them (like my old dirt-cheap one) can even run Java.
I often hear people talking about how wonderful the Iphone is with its web browsing and email - I'm guessing the Iphone must be reaching to Apple fans, who take a closer look because it's Apple, but have obviously never looked at phones before (or at least, not for a few years).
Is there something computer-related that the Iphone does that no other phone can do? (And please don't give me "It just works"...).
I assume that this is the funny part that got you modded up.
There's no excuse for the trolls, but they tend to get modded down, so that doesn't change the OP's point.
Generally, anything critical of Apple has got modded down, when the same comments made with respect to other platforms wouldn't. Apple stories are the only one that I have to browse at -1 to follow the thread properly.
I have noticed this become less an issue since the release of the Iphone - possibly people are getting fed up of seeing story after story about Iphone hype.
Whilst I agree that there can be considered a difference between "cult" and "religion", often organised religions are a lot more than simply "just a set of spiritual principles".
The point is that it shouldn't matter if they're a religion or not. It's their behaviour that they should be judged by - the problem is that faith is seen as a virtue, and religion is seen as being above criticism and needing special protection, which leads people who don't know much about Scientology to defend it as a religion.
Indeed, there is an argument that we shouldn't have to distinguish between cult and religion - it's a shame that saying "Scientology is a dangerous religion" isn't enough.
Obviously a genetic clone is insufficient to bring back a dog who behaves the same, but:
I have seen this stuff before and remember the pet may not even come back looking the same. Even if they got it looking EXACTLY THE SAME, the memories, the personality, the... soul will not be the same.
If you could get everything the same, an exact copy, what is this "soul" you speak of? Can you define it for me?
And - whether or not it really is the same consciousness - would an observer have any way to test the difference?
I disagree. Most people won't have a friend with a Mac that they look closely at enough to see how Quicktime works. What they will see is that the thing causing problems on their machine is an Apple product - which will make them doubt the "But, but, Apple just works" claims so often made of Apple's products.
I remember recently here someone telling me how Apple just works, and insisting that my PC would always distract me, or be "noisy" (I'm not quite sure what he meant), giving examples such as watching a DVD. Needless to say, he didn't believe me when I told him my PC just worked too (and does more than simply working).
But funnily enough, the next day I did have distractions when trying to view a video - because it was a quicktime movie, and I couldn't get it to do basic functionality, such as full screen mode. So I have to concede he was right after all - my computer doesn't just work, when it's running Apple software at least.
the boring stories like mine dont get told often because... well, theyre boring. people would much rather read about how someone was illegally detained because they wouldnt give up their bios password, tortured until they capitulated, and TSA/customs/whoever got to see their encrypted amateur poetry before confiscating the laptop and uploading its contents into CARNIVORE to locate your favorite jazz club.
Maybe, but the thing is that large numbers of boring stories don't mean that those awful stories are okay - they're still awful, even if they only happen to a few people.
Slashdot Mirror
Given the horribly loose language used in the "extreme pornography" law recently passed in the UK and that the extreme pornography law covers staged acts as well as real ones I wouldn't be surprised if the language used in this law is also horribly loose. It's probably unlikely to distinguish between whether the drawing depicted a real act or not.
They've made it clear that this will cover drawings that are nothing to do with real acts.
I agree entirely with your comment - I suspect that despite assurances, this will be just as vague a law, if not more so. According to the consultation response document, they are borrowing the term "of an obscene character" that exists in the "extreme porn" law. Which is not the same test that's in the Obscene Publications Act (that an image must deprave and corrupt). I'm sure that mainstream works won't be caught, but all it means that material on your computer, imported from abroad, or downloaded from the Internet, gets seen as "obscene" or "not a work of art", and will be illegal. Some police chiefs can't wait to be able to arrest someone simply because of Hentai on their computer.
What's to stop the Hentai Artists to just say that their characters are over 16? Indeed, what's to stop any of these artists just saying that their CGI models are over 16?
Nothing. Just as there's nothing to stop the police arresting them anyway, and the jury ignoring the claims that the girl who looks to them to possibly be 16/17 is actually a 400 year old demon in disguise.
The difficulties in judging the age show the absurdities in such a law, but I suspect that the age will be based on what a jury thinks, not what the defendant claims.
(It'll probably have to be over 18.)
I agree, though note age of consent is irrelevant for images. They don't mention the issue of age at all in the consultation response, but I bet that they use the same age for child porn, i.e., 18 (even though the age of consent is 16 - so sex with a 17 year old is fine, but a fantasy drawing of someone who could be 17 would be illegal!)
But an article I read on the subject quoted one of the main proponents
There's your problem right there. The Government and its supporters on laws like this are keen to make claims that are unsupported by evidence. (Link?)
And what if they were converting images to something else? Should we criminalise anything by claiming that "pedophiles are converting child images to such things"? It sounds like something from that Brass Eye episode...
Loophole is already closed anyway.
But this new law covers all sexual images of under-18s.
If pedophiles were "circumventing the law" by using computer technology to manipulate real photos into adult images, should all adult porn be illegal? What if they superimposed them onto pictures of Gordon Brown's arse, would those have to be illegal too?
I was under the impression that they want to ban this imagery because paedophiles are just converting photographic media into drawn forms to evade the current bans. I'd imagine you could probably just run a set of cell shading-esque toon filters over them if you so wanted, though I can't imagine it'd work too well.
That's just Government spin - see my other comment - the loophole is already closed in a recent law. This new proposed law will cover all drawings and cartoons of underage sexual acts, whether derived from abuse or not.
The claim that pedophiles are converting real images into cartoons (is there any evidence for that anyway? Why would they do that and not use non-abuse-derived cartoons?) may well just be scaremongering to get the press resporting this law as "Computer generated abuse" rather than "Sexual drawings of under-18s".
And no, there will be no progression from this proposal to banning The Simpsons. That's not the way the British legislature works.
The way that British legislature works is that The Simpsons will be legal, simply because it's a classified work, but the same scenes in a non-classified work (or even a screenshot from The Simpsopns) could still be made illegal.
The fact that things exist in legally available material doesn't stop this Government wanting to criminalise such depictions.
I agree, even if I conceded that some law on cartoons was required, an age limit of 18 makes no sense, and catches far too much. I raised this issue when I responded to the Government "consultation", but needless to say the issue was not addressed in the consultation response.
Talking of Ghastly's Ghastly Comic, there's this (NSFW) image where Rice Krispie Elf Crackle is bum-raped with a dildo. Crackle is in fact a child (according to Kellog's website). I did ask the Government if there'd be a separate age of consent for Elves and other mythical creatures...
[I do take consolation that the phrase "anally penetrated with a dildo" now exists in official Government records...]
As you say, there is the problem when a characters age does not match up with their apparent age. Another example is Bleach, which features a character who appears as a teenage schoolgirl, but in fact is over 100 years old.
Now, the Government would claim it was an obvious loophole if you could draw babies being raped, but claim they were really babies that were 5,000 years old in your story. But consider it the other way - e.g., I've seen Harry Potter fanfictioners drawing sexually explicit images involving Harry Potter, where he's intentionally been aged (though still ambiguous, and possibly could be 17), yet people will claim it's still underage, because Harry Potter was underage in the books. So which is it - is it apparent age, or intended age of the character? They can't have it both ways - but they probably will.
But what are the purposes of these images, from a social/personal/psychological perspective?
There are two main issues with such a law:
* Images that are intended to clearly be for pedophiles (e.g., they're of babies getting raped, and we know that they were drawn for that purpose).
* All sorts of images that would be caught under such a broad law, such as drawings of characters who might look 17, manga/hentai where the ages are unclear. An age limit of 18 simply doesn't make sense when with drawings, there exists no person whose age you can determine (how old is a cartoon character?) and whilst children look different from adults, a drawn 17 year old doesn't look any different to a young 20-something.
For the former, well perhaps there is no purpose for such images, but still, that is not necessarily sufficient justification for locking people up. Also one could equally argue that such images act as an outlet, rather than encouraging them - there is no conclusive evidence either way. So a ban could do harm.
For the latter, there are plenty of purposes of such images, and a law that criminalises possession of all these things is far too broad.
There is, for instance, a recognised pattern with (adult) porn that certain types of user will inevitably seek out harder and harder stuff because the less extreme stuff no longer excites to the same degree.
Is it? I've seen that claim by supporters of criminalising porn, but not seen the conclusive evidence. I've also heard the claim that people will move on from "extreme" adult porn to child porn, which makes no sense. It's the sort of stuff that Jack Chick would claim...
consider that kiddy porn
We're talking about drawings and cartoons, not kiddy porn, please don't divert the debate. Either way, I wouldn't consider them to be physically addictive drugs.
FTA:
"The government has acknowledged that paedophiles may be circumventing the law by using computer technology to manipulate real photographs or videos of abuse into drawings or cartoons."
But under the new Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, Section 69:
"References to a photograph also include- a tracing or other image, whether made by electronic or other means (of whatever nature)- which is not itself a photograph or pseudo-photograph, but which is derived from the whole or part of a photograph or pseudo-photograph (or a combination of either or both)"
So not only is it absurd to suggest that all drawings need to be criminalised because pedophiles are allegedly converting child abuse images into them, this simply isn't a loophole anymore anyway!
What if pedophiles start converting images of children into page 3 girls, will they need to be criminalised too?
The claim that this material is already illegal to sell or distribute is also bogus (they made this same false claim with the extreme porn law - on that note, expect to see "extreme" adult cartoon images made illegal in a few years). The Obscene Publications Act requires a jury to believe that the material would "deprave or corrupt" those likely to see it, but these new laws do not have such a test, instead using a dictionary definition of the word "obscene" (i.e., disgusting etc). I suspect that a jury made up of Daily Mail readers would consider plenty of Manga and Hentai to be illegal.
Also see the official announcement, and consulation and consultation response documents.
I fear that to the police, hentai is not merely something that may be unintentionally caught, but it is a direct intended target. In the response to the "extreme porn" law (a different law, but the comment is relevant), Greater Manchester police stated "Would like to see account of several child cartoon images e.g. Hentai material."
And note that whilst the age of consent is 16 in the UK, the age for child porn was raised to 18 in the Sexual Offences Act 2003. So sex with a 17 year old is legal, but a fantasy drawing of someone who might look 17 would be illegal!
The Register has a better write up.
Will South Park's Red Rocket be illegal?
Is that you, Zeno?
The fact is that continuity does lead to an infinite regress, something that even children can grasp.
Children may struggle with this perceived problem, but there are no mathematical problems with the model to anyone who has studied analysis.
PS - just because the theory of relativity or whatever may ultimately turn out to not be a 100% accurate description of reality doesn't mean that it is completely wrong, nor does it mean that any pet "theory" is right.
If it's been done once, I'd bet good money on exactly the same system being used in London in 2012, too.
;)
Exactly the same? No, no - whatever China do to invade individual privacy, you can be sure that the UK Government plan to outdo them
As an added bonus, all of the microchipped tickets will be lost in the post.
What you're talking about is essentially communism.
A state dictating that ideas are "owned" and can only be used by one person? That sounds more like communism. Meanwhile, people working together without state intervention fits nicely with laissez-faire capitalism.
The same type but not the same manufacturer and some are better than others.
I'm curious - is this a type and manufacturer that is unavailable for PCs?
I point out I've had Mac hardware last years without problems but had hardware problems with 3 out of 4 PCs.
I've had no problem with my Intel motherboards, but I once had a non-Intel one die after several years. So I'd better not get a Mac, by that logic.
Nope, I'm just smug that I can get my non-Apple products to work, unlike the fanboys who thing that a working product is the pinnacle of achievement.
Wait - you do realise that Macs and PCs use the same kinds of hard disk?
You do also realise that there is more than one make of PC motherboard, so your anecdotal "evidence" is useless without knowing which manufacturer it was?
Anyway, my old Amigas lasted years longer than your Macs, without fault.
iTunes and the iPod have been successful because of the public perception that they just work
All products just work - if it doesn't work, I take it back and get a refund. What sort of products have Apple been peddling, that just working is now seen as a good thing for their products?
Actually I would consider the iPhone to be a handheld computer.
Welcome to the 21st Century. You do realise that all modern phones are effectively hand-held computers? Some of them (like my old dirt-cheap one) can even run Java.
I often hear people talking about how wonderful the Iphone is with its web browsing and email - I'm guessing the Iphone must be reaching to Apple fans, who take a closer look because it's Apple, but have obviously never looked at phones before (or at least, not for a few years).
Is there something computer-related that the Iphone does that no other phone can do? (And please don't give me "It just works"...).
I assume that this is the funny part that got you modded up.
There's no excuse for the trolls, but they tend to get modded down, so that doesn't change the OP's point.
Generally, anything critical of Apple has got modded down, when the same comments made with respect to other platforms wouldn't. Apple stories are the only one that I have to browse at -1 to follow the thread properly.
I have noticed this become less an issue since the release of the Iphone - possibly people are getting fed up of seeing story after story about Iphone hype.
Religions are just a set of spiritual principles.
Whilst I agree that there can be considered a difference between "cult" and "religion", often organised religions are a lot more than simply "just a set of spiritual principles".
The point is that it shouldn't matter if they're a religion or not. It's their behaviour that they should be judged by - the problem is that faith is seen as a virtue, and religion is seen as being above criticism and needing special protection, which leads people who don't know much about Scientology to defend it as a religion.
Every religion is a cult, just a popular one.
Indeed, there is an argument that we shouldn't have to distinguish between cult and religion - it's a shame that saying "Scientology is a dangerous religion" isn't enough.
Obviously a genetic clone is insufficient to bring back a dog who behaves the same, but:
I have seen this stuff before and remember the pet may not even come back looking the same. Even if they got it looking EXACTLY THE SAME, the memories, the personality, the... soul will not be the same.
If you could get everything the same, an exact copy, what is this "soul" you speak of? Can you define it for me?
And - whether or not it really is the same consciousness - would an observer have any way to test the difference?
I disagree. Most people won't have a friend with a Mac that they look closely at enough to see how Quicktime works. What they will see is that the thing causing problems on their machine is an Apple product - which will make them doubt the "But, but, Apple just works" claims so often made of Apple's products.
I remember recently here someone telling me how Apple just works, and insisting that my PC would always distract me, or be "noisy" (I'm not quite sure what he meant), giving examples such as watching a DVD. Needless to say, he didn't believe me when I told him my PC just worked too (and does more than simply working).
But funnily enough, the next day I did have distractions when trying to view a video - because it was a quicktime movie, and I couldn't get it to do basic functionality, such as full screen mode. So I have to concede he was right after all - my computer doesn't just work, when it's running Apple software at least.
According to Jack Bauer, you also have to take the battery out, otherwise they can still track your movements.
the boring stories like mine dont get told often because... well, theyre boring. people would much rather read about how someone was illegally detained because they wouldnt give up their bios password, tortured until they capitulated, and TSA/customs/whoever got to see their encrypted amateur poetry before confiscating the laptop and uploading its contents into CARNIVORE to locate your favorite jazz club.
Maybe, but the thing is that large numbers of boring stories don't mean that those awful stories are okay - they're still awful, even if they only happen to a few people.