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NEWS: Man faces life in prison over anime child porn


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v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6228
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 4:23 pm Reply with quote
you're kidding me, right?
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Advent_Nebula



Joined: 04 Jul 2004
Posts: 932
Location: Colorado
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 4:25 pm Reply with quote
I am not shocked, my friends is studying law and he has had some comments on the child porn laws in Canada.
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Proman



Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Posts: 947
Location: USA
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 4:39 pm Reply with quote
v1cious wrote:
you're kidding me, right?

My thoughts exactly. I bet that the person who came up with such panishment has plenty of sexuals anomalies of his/her own!

Seriously now, life in prison for downloading cartoons over the internet? Does it mean I should go to prison for watching Ranma 1/2? By the way, that's not always possible to tell the age of a character? Is it 18 already? Or will it turn 18 in one fictional day?

When I said that a person who came up with this law was a pervert himself/herself, I wasn't joking.
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El Oso



Joined: 20 Dec 2004
Posts: 105
Location: Rummaging through camp sites.
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 4:57 pm Reply with quote
Unbelievable. Stuffing people in the prisons for things like this instead of making room for real criminals. And for life no less Rolling Eyes
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Stormrider
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 29 Jul 2003
Posts: 41
Location: Hermitage, TN
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 4:58 pm Reply with quote
The 'would-be Thought Police' strike yet again.
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CorneredAngel



Joined: 17 Jun 2002
Posts: 854
Location: New York, NY
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:00 pm Reply with quote
Proman wrote:


Seriously now, life in prison for downloading cartoons over the internet? Does it mean I should go to prison for watching Ranma 1/2? By the way, that's not always possible to tell the age of a character? Is it 18 already? Or will it turn 18 in one fictional day?


No, no it doesn't; the prosecutors are presumably not stupid, and can tell the difference between "cartoons" of different kinds. Nobody is claiming that *all* cartoons are suddenly illegal. And if *you* can't tell the difference between Ranma and lolicon, well, that's your problem and nobody else's...

Having said that, chances are whatever unnamed law this individual is being charged under will be declared unconstitutional or invalid on the same grounds as provisions of the original CPPA were. Also, "faces life in prison" is quite a common journalistic way of talking about a potential sentence of, fifteen-to-life. Nobody wants to headline a story with "maybe possibly will be sentenced to life in prison, if the prosecution presents its argument well and the jury agrees."
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Dranxis



Joined: 23 Feb 2005
Posts: 591
Location: Ohtori Academy
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:19 pm Reply with quote
This is... completely unethical. Actual child porn I could understand, because forcing actual children to have sex/ watching it and supporting it is the real crime. But cartoons, where no individual is harmed?
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SalarymanJoe



Joined: 03 Feb 2005
Posts: 468
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:23 pm Reply with quote
CorneredAngel wrote:
Proman wrote:


Seriously now, life in prison for downloading cartoons over the internet? Does it mean I should go to prison for watching Ranma 1/2? By the way, that's not always possible to tell the age of a character? Is it 18 already? Or will it turn 18 in one fictional day?


No, no it doesn't; the prosecutors are presumably not stupid, and can tell the difference between "cartoons" of different kinds. Nobody is claiming that *all* cartoons are suddenly illegal. And if *you* can't tell the difference between Ranma and lolicon, well, that's your problem and nobody else's...


Excellent point, Cornered Angel; I was thinking quite the same thing.

Proman wrote:
My thoughts exactly. I bet that the person who came up with such panishment has plenty of sexuals anomalies of his/her own!


On that subject, having certain fetishes and such would be considered a sexual anomaly, wouldn't it? It's fine to have those - if those exist between consenting adults.

The problem here is that 1) these aren't adults and 2) if they're "forced" to have sex such as the article implies, means there isn't consent, even in a fictional setting.

However, concerning this new law, has anyone mentioned that this could very well simply be a Virgina Commonwealth Statute? If it is, it doesn't apply to anyone who is not a resident/citizen of Virginia.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:37 pm Reply with quote
Anybody else a bit suspicious of that date of when this person gets released? Could it be just a coincidence? And What "New Law" has come in to replace the old CPPA that got overturned? Also what is a "conviced sex offender" who was suppose to be doing time, doing on a computer in a Virginia Employment Commission office, and long enough to be downloading lolicom anime in the first place? This whole story smells like last weeks fish dinner. Razz
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Shii



Joined: 25 Mar 2005
Posts: 110
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:41 pm Reply with quote
I'm pretty sure that this guy did not actually violate any law, he only violated the terms of his probation (he's been arrested for real child porn before). I assume the probation said something about not posessing any underage pornography, in which case we go back into a gray area.

The WRIC reporter may have gotten his facts wrong.
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EroKaos



Joined: 13 Feb 2005
Posts: 7
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:49 pm Reply with quote
Cartoons forcing children to have sex..... thats hentai right?
Having thoses cartoons wouldnt be illegal since there are tons of Hentai companies that releases Hentai DVDs in US and those are legal.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15558
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:00 pm Reply with quote
Nebula: But this case isn't in Canada. It's in Virginia. I guess Shrub's taking it out on rorikon readers cus he couldn't save Schiavo.

CorneredAngel:
Quote:

Having said that, chances are whatever unnamed law this individual is being charged under will be declared unconstitutional or invalid on the same grounds as provisions of the original CPPA were.


Tell that to Mike Diana.
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Acehole



Joined: 10 Aug 2003
Posts: 3
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:35 pm Reply with quote
CorneredAngel wrote:
No, no it doesn't; the prosecutors are presumably not stupid, and can tell the difference between "cartoons" of different kinds. Nobody is claiming that *all* cartoons are suddenly illegal. And if *you* can't tell the difference between Ranma and lolicon, well, that's your problem and nobody else's...


Even if the difference is obvious, it comes down to a matter of taste when determining what crosses the line and becomes "lolicon." For example, some parents might have problems with shows such as Serial Experiments Lain if they don't catch on to the symbolism behind certain questionable scenes. In this particular case the images mentioned are easy to classify, but what if this law were to be used against stuff such as SEL? Since no real children have been harmed, all this guy is really in trouble for is poor taste in fictional material. I can't say that I feel sorry for the guy with him already being a sex offender and all, but there is a possibility that he was trying to help himself by turning to fiction as a step in recovery.

Also, it sounds like this guy is in trouble with obscenity laws more than child pornography laws based on this in the original article:
"Now, he's facing 60 counts of possession of obscene material."

SalarymanJoe wrote:
The problem here is that 1) these aren't adults and 2) if they're "forced" to have sex such as the article implies, means there isn't consent, even in a fictional setting.


Under the same logic, you could say that posessing a horror movie that offers nothing more than people getting killed off one by one (many, many Hollywood movies) is the same as posessing tapes of a real murder.
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masa



Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Posts: 17
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 7:07 pm Reply with quote
v1cious wrote:
you're kidding me, right?



Why am I not suprised? More government involvement. Rather than dealing with Social Security, Tax Reform, or whatever, they stick their heads into the personal lives of it's citizens.. like Terri Shiavo. And now, this. The only thing I have to say was bad that the guy was doing it on State computer equipment. That's his own fault. Not that I agree with this whole he could get life BS for this. It's not that major of a crime.

I don't want to have to spend my tax dollars to help feed this guy a plush meal everyday and education because he download 'anime depicting child porn'. If real children aren't involved, it isn't child porn. plain and simple.

I'm waiting for the people to stop sleeping and rolling over on this and start making a stink. Start calling your representitives. Threaten not to vote for them next election if they support this cause, and that they should also be as vocal about this as you should be about these frivilous cases. It's total BS. We need LESS government, not more.

my $0.02.

I heard recently that the Los Angeles area has more lawyers than Europe and Japan combined. This is crazy, people. Crazy, and needs to stop.
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penguintruth



Joined: 08 Dec 2004
Posts: 8501
Location: Penguinopolis
PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 7:08 pm Reply with quote
SalarymanJoe wrote:
The problem here is that 1) these aren't adults and 2) if they're "forced" to have sex such as the article implies, means there isn't consent, even in a fictional setting.


Except that in a fictional medium there is no such thing as age, force, or consent, and therefore it's ridiculous to assign such designations to intangible creations.

Like I said in the topic about that Canadian, a person cannot be created by touching pen to paper, so a person cannot be exploited if they don't exist.

There's no logical reasoning behind locking somebody up for life for posessing virtual child porn. If it's not flesh and blood children engaged in sexual acts, then it doesn't exist. Drawings aren't living. There are no feelings to consider. They are fictional.

Therefore, it's an absurd injustice. It seems that because he was already a convicted sex offender, he's being railroaded to serve some (understandably) paranoid mindsets.


Last edited by penguintruth on Sun Mar 27, 2005 7:14 pm; edited 1 time in total
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