geoegress opened this issue on Sep 14, 2006 ยท 76 posts
AntoniaTiger posted Sat, 16 September 2006 at 3:57 AM
Quote - The ruling posted at the top effectively means nothing in the UK, anyway.
That's an important point. As I understand the US system (and I Am Not A Lawyer), this Supreme Court ruling pretty well kills dead the legislation it decided on. It doesn't stop a later law being enacted which has the same ban on "virtual" child porn if it was worded to take into account the ruling. British law on child porn is pretty close in effect to the US law the USSC ruled against. If it looks like a photograph of a child, it doesn't matter that it's CGI or somebody who just looks young. Which means that possession is illegal. For computer users it also means that, under the basic legislation dating back to the 1950s, downloading such an image will be considered to be "making" the image, attracting a higher penalty than mere possession. Add in the incompetence and dishonesty apparent in "Operation Ore" (Wikipedia is not wildly wrong on this affair), and it would be insane for a site to carry such material, or for a British resident to use such a site. That, alas, is the shabby reality. Photographs of people old enough to marry and fuck each other's minds out are dreadfully illegal. And even if you can be 100% certain it's not real, the cost and effort of defending against an accusation is a punishment in itself. So, while it may be legal, it's also incredibly stupid to fake child porn.