Free porn's illegal

[DaveKnell]

http://publicaffairs.linx.net/news/?p=621

- so that's that, then.

--Dave

[mOBSCENE]

So we're all going to jail in 2007. Ho ho ho merry Christmas

Well as far as I can see if you use ICRA, RTA or another labelling system you would be in the clear. I think they would also have to heavily prove that your material was being pushed in the direction of minors.

Whoever has written the article has written a hell of a lot into it... The case moreover was under the OPA, and involved heavy scat. R18 is legal because the BBFC have asserted in their wisdom that regular hardcore poses no threat to minors.

[Carrie]

It doesn't seem like in the Perrin case they had to prove that the material was heavily pushed to minors, just that it was freely available for a minor to see it without proving their age in some way.

Also Perrin resided in the UK but had his website on a US server, so where your site is located has no bearing (just as with US 2257/4472 laws). It's where *you* are located... which makes me wonder, anyone considering leaving the UK? Over in the states with all of the 2257/4472 stuff many EU webmasters were telling us to move out of the states, so I'm curious if this is the same general feeling in the UK now.

[adultbusiness]

I've always thought that a majority of tour videos are too extreme and it was a matter of time before they were subject to this sort of thing.....

[mOBSCENE]

This case came under the OPA. The OPA concentrate on cases involving scat, bestiality, necrophilia, rape and torture.

They do not go after hardcore.

Sorry, but for whoever has this agenda, this is not the end of free porn on the internet :crown:

[mOBSCENE]

I do think that webmasters should self regulate though - if parents were more responsible and used filters, used in conjunction with appropriately labelled sites, we would have less of a problem with minors accessing sites.

I reckon if we all label our sites with this:

http://www.rtalabel.org/

It would be not only a good idea, but also a defence if they do decide to build another couple of jails to house us all with the murders and thieves...

[SGS]

The sky is falling....

[spann0]

hmm interesting

[strictlybroadband]

Beat me to it Dave - ignore my thread on the same subject!:blush:

[Simon]

Its not really about what they've gone for in the past - they now have a precident thats vague enough to apply to other lower cases. The dividing lines we see as porn people aren't always the same as those seen by people outside the biz.

On the face of it, it does look more serious than previous cases.

"in respect of freely available material the question is whether it would “tend to deprave and corrupt” a child, a direction approved by the Court of Appeal"

Where would you draw the line against that arguement? topless, nude, open legs, insertions, boy/girl, anal, DP, peeing, scat, beastie?

Bet you didn't even make it to insertions. And you're a porn person anyway.

[globalguy]

http://publicaffairs.linx.net/news/?p=621

- so that's that, then.

--Dave

Dave, LMK which flight your are on and I'll meet you at the airport. 25 degrees here today btw...

[mOBSCENE]

"in respect of freely available material the question is whether it would “tend to deprave and corrupt” a child, a direction approved by the Court of Appeal"

Where would you draw the line against that arguement? topless, nude, open legs, insertions, boy/girl, anal, DP, peeing, scat, beastie?



Don't forget the high court ruling precedent which happened in 2000, where it couldn't be proved that ordinary hardcore was dangerous enough to children to warrant it staying illegal.

I very much doubt the line will be drawn anywhere in front of BBFC guidelines - but scat, beastie, rape and yes even peeing are prosecutable anyway under the OPA.

[Simon]

Don't forget the high court ruling precedent which happened in 2000, where it couldn't be proved that ordinary hardcore was dangerous enough to children to warrant it staying illegal.

I very much doubt the line will be drawn anywhere in front of BBFC guidelines - but scat, beastie, rape and yes even peeing are prosecutable anyway under the OPA.

You are missing the point: There are now two lines.

1 What is likely to corrupt a child in an unrestricted area of the internet.

2 What is likely to corrupt an adult in a restricted area.

I totally agree, that 2 has not changed, nor is likely to, but 1 is entirely new.

So following your BBFC analogy, whats the level of explictness they find acceptable for a viewer age 12?

[mOBSCENE]

You are missing the point: There are now two lines.

1 What is likely to corrupt a child in an unrestricted area of the internet.

2 What is likely to corrupt an adult in a restricted area.

I totally agree, that 2 has not changed, nor is likely to, but 1 is entirely new.

So following your BBFC analogy, whats the level of explictness they find acceptable for a viewer age 12?

How is a case from 1999 which was decided in 2002 entirely new? It was a scat case - which would be considered extreme even now when a lot has changed. The idea is that mainstream hardcore is not really going to deprave and corrupt a child, but it is better kept as R18. A hardcore scat video is on the other hand going to deprave and corrupt (according to this ruling).

R18 made hardcore acceptable and the responsibility of adults to protect from it in the home. The OPA exists to stop people publishing beastie, scat, rape etc - they no longer prosecute hardcore and won't start because it is well nigh impossible to prove that regular straight or gay hardcore is obscene under the "deprave and corrupt" test - whether it is seen by children or not. That's why all these cases - from the DVD trader who was done for selling scat dvds to this chap in this brand new case from 2002, were dealing with extreme material well beyond BBFC guidelines - that's why I mentioned it. It would be interesting to look at the number of cases lost by the CPS around the same time because the court ruled that regular hardcore was not harmful. Ok, a lot of people still think it's harmful, but what people think and legal rulings are different things.

I expect the minister in question answered 2000 other questions about things that day, but I doubt this is the start of a new government or police policy or crackdown. The question was, does the OPA apply to the internet, and the answer was, yes. It always has. Nothing's changed as far as I can see.

[DaveKnell]

Dave, LMK which flight your are on and I'll meet you at the airport. 25 degrees here today btw...

That's very kind of you, but I arrived in Greece yesterday and I'm not planning on moving until well after Christmas..

--Dave

[adultbusiness]

That's very kind of you, but I arrived in Greece yesterday and I'm not planning on moving until well after Christmas..

--Dave

By choice or because you're having to serve the sentence out?

[Pandemos]

I think that this issue is worthy of attention and discussion.

It looks to me like Iddon's question was a plant, enabling Coaker to put on record some views about child access to porn and age verification. I have to wonder what his motivation for doing this is. Given that Coaker is very much anti-porn, it's entirely plausible that he's pushing an agenda.

A written answer to the Commons doesn't make something law, but if the legal interpretation of Perrin is correct then a change in the law might not even be required. Forget that Perrin was about scat, that's a red-herring. The real issue is that there's now a legal argument that publishing 'R18' material of any kind where children are likely* to access it is a breach of the OPA. That's something that should give every UK webmaster pause for thought.

*Coaker used the word 'likely' twice. I haven't read the whole of the Perrin appeal notes, but if the Criminal Law Subgroup have told Coaker that an OPA breach can only really occur if the material is likely to be accessed by children, it may be a ray of light. There's a distinction between what's likely and what's possible.