Manga collector prosecuted for child porn

[mr ploppy]

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.p...article/10349/

How long before this spreads to descriptions in books too?

[Giggleton]

I think it already has, that guy who wrote the pedophilia guide and sold it on Amazon was arrested after he sent some police officers a copy of his book through the mail, across state lines or something.

This is really the only concern,

"Olof Risberg, a psychologist who works for Save the Children in Sweden, said he was concerned with illustrated sexualised images of children becoming normalised, as this means the step to accepting sexual images of actual children will get smaller. He admitted that in illustrated images there are no victims, but still insisted it is wrong to ‘expose children in a pornographic context, whether they’re illustrated or real children… but even in this case, I think the [Manga] images are unnecessary and wrong’. "

But I am more concerned with images of violence becoming normalized. Unconsenual sex with children is violence so it is a tough decision to make, I think we should err on the side of free expression though.

[Penforhire]

This sort of prosecution makes my head spin off in anger. In principle, no real children were involved at any step. Is someone who enjoys that sort of purient artwork mentally ill? Perhaps. Probably. But I'm a big believer in being responsible for your actions, not your thoughts.

Does this sort of artwork incite crimes against children? Okay, debatable but certainly not clear-cut. I read (and watched) a ton of ultraviolent material, including a version of the Anarchist's Cookbook, but I do not rampage against my neighbors. Everyone is different and a weak or predisposed mind might take direction from words or images. But I still hold that the material itself is not intrinsically evil or illegal. Hitler is one of the most evil figures in my personal history, having lost relatives to his actions, but people should be allowed to read Mein Kampf if they want to.

This virtual (unreal) child porn witchhunt is no different. In the near future we will get past the "uncanny valley" in computer generated imagery and there will be interactive virtual child porn. Perhaps it will become an outlet for would-be child molesters and prevent more harm than it incites.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

I think it already has, that guy who wrote the pedophilia guide and sold it on Amazon was arrested after he sent some police officers a copy of his book through the mail, across state lines or something.

I got the impression from the description on Amazon that was non-fiction, telling people how to do it without physically damaging the child (too much). I was thinking of fiction depicting people under 18 having sex. In A Clockwork Orange Alex rapes two 10 year old girls, for example. And in a lot of the Skinhead books by Richard Allen there is sex between 15 year olds.

[Anthem]

Humans and Sex: It's all a big mess!!!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

There are so many vagaries involved in the decision...

Swedes are not allowed to own or intentionally look at drawn images of non-real characters that a court could determine might to some people resemble child-like figures in situations that for some could be sexually arousing. (my emphasis)

...that it's hard to believe they could bring the decision at all.

If this could happen, then I could see the same society convicting the owner of A Clockwork Orange of similar indiscretions or violations of the law. The differences are largely subjective (as is the decision), and depend wholly on the society in question.

But as I said, the vagaries of the decision would upset me greatly, and if I were a Swedish citizen I'd want to demand greater clarity and detail to bolster that argument (or at least to make clear what would violate it).

[ardeegee]

Here's a link to an article showing 12 of the images originally part of the claim of child porn that were later decided by the court to not be pornographic and released:

http://www.sekventiellt.se/2011/03/n...rnography.html

To be fair, the stuff that they didn't release was probably more hard core, and much more difficult to acquire, including steps as complex as typing the letters "loli" into Google Images.

[tompe]

I totally hate this law even for real photos. Looking at or having information should never be illegal. Producing real photos should be illegal. And as somebody pointed out, since it is illegal to look at the images it is impossible to tell people what is illegal and what is not illegal. Just take this case were a lower court thought some images were illegal and a higher court disagreed. How could normal people then know when they are breaking the law?

As I understand US also have laws concering drawn images:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28319199...me_and_courts/

[silasgreenback]

A lot of us in the U.S. see stories about the censorship and prosecution of free speech and smugly think to ourselves that we're glad we don't live under such regulations. Wrong.

During the Bush years, there were agents that actively sought out internet sites for prosecution; most of them BDSM sites that were adult-centric.

We see stories about things like what happened to a man in Australia and chuckle:

Australian Man Arrested for Simpsons Images

What we don't know about are things like the outright violation of Mike Diana's free speech:

Mike Diana Wiki

It can't happen here? It does happen here.

[Conor]

There's also this
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...bookshops.html
A man was convicted and later cleared of having a book bought from Waterstones.

[cfrizz]

Child pornography whether comics or pictures of real children is still illegal. In the case above this guy is a convicted offender. Trying to justify by saying it's just comics doesn't wash. If you get off on watching children get raped, abused whatever, then you deserve what you get if you get caught.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Child pornography whether comics or pictures of real children is still illegal.

Thanks for your astute observation, with the typical American attitude that US laws apply to every country on Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_s...picting_minors

If you want an idea of something sold openly and legally in Japan, search google images for the manga series "comic lo."

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Child pornography whether comics or pictures of real children is still illegal.

In the US, child pornography has to be pictures of real children. It includes drawn pictures, not just photographs, but as the crime is based on harm to the child, it has to involve a living human being; fictional characters can't be "child pornography" in the US. (They could still be "obscenity," which is an entirely different pack of laws.)

Note that age of consent is lower than 18 in many states, and we've now got "child porn" convictions that involve consenting boyfriends & girlfriends taking pictures of each other doing things they're legally allowed to do. Apparently, they can have sex; they just can't have kinky pictures of each other, because that's worse than sex.

One of the problems with prosecuting manga is that the (national) age of consent in Japan is 13. (Some regions have different laws.) That means comics that might be "child porn" in Sweden could be depicting entirely legal acts in the place they were created.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Child pornography whether comics or pictures of real children is still illegal. In the case above this guy is a convicted offender. Trying to justify by saying it's just comics doesn't wash. If you get off on watching children get raped, abused whatever, then you deserve what you get if you get caught.

What about books like A Clockwork Orange that create pictures in people's minds?

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by silasgreenback

A lot of us in the U.S. see stories about the censorship and prosecution of free speech and smugly think to ourselves that we're glad we don't live under such regulations. Wrong.

I don't think that anyone thinks that this is true in the US wrt child pornography.

And the biggest difference between what happened in Sweden and what would happen in the US is that the sentence the guy would get in the US would be a felony conviction with 3+ years of prison, plus being placed on a sex offender registry. It looks like the guy in Sweden received a $500 fine.