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Forum - View topicNEWS: Restrictions Lifted on Maine Man Arrested for Explicit 'Anime'
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5599 |
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Not quite that simple last I checked... |
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Splitter
 Posts: 1276 Location: Knockin' on Heaven's Door |
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Seven pages.
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Sailor S
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So, am I understanding it right that he was found going on sites that contain actual child pornography? If so, then he should be charged.
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Nemo_N
Posts: 272 |
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I'm confused about that point mostly because of the bad habit some authorities have of talking of actual child pornography and drawings as if they were the same thing. |
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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Yeah, I can't tell if they mean real child pornography sites or sites with anime/manga images. If he's collecting the real stuff as well...
Though, as it is, the anime images are not just "illegal," like the guy makes it sound. There's more to it than just that. It's a messy issue in terms of law. I wonder how a federal investigation would go, though. Could it potentially create a precedent? If they decide it's not illegal, I mean. |
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Sailor S
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It all comes back to the vague and ridiculous Miller test. Is it judged as "obscene"? If the community standards view it as obscene, then yeah, it's illegal.
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Sunday Silence
 Posts: 2047 |
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Question is, community standards can change from place to place. If one county over deems the material as "not obscene" then what now? Also, theirs alot of material out there that would theoretically violate "community standards" if taken in the wrong context. |
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Kaibaman21
Posts: 26 |
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This also comes down to how did the Federal Government even know in the first place,they even admitted searching his files didn't have "actual child porn" so they want to bust us on images that's only fantasy? I also like how they say its not Maine's Law this is Illegal anyway but it is by Federal Law,so let me get this straight. If a state says Marijuana is Legal but it isn't by Federal Law they can bust you anyway? Plus Suppose if SOPA is passed and states ban the law themselves and Countries even(sense it affects the whole world not just the US) would people still be charged for Copyright by Federal Law? What the hell!?
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Josh7289
Posts: 1252 |
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It sounds like he only has lolicon or something like that. I'm not a lawyer but reading the relevant federal laws, it seems to pretty explicitly state that lolicon is illegal and is considered child pornography in the United States.
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AlanMintaka
 Posts: 99 |
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Would that mean that the image shown on Wikipedia's page for "Lolicon" is illegal? I know this topic has probably come up in the context of harem animes. I've seen series like To Love-Ru on Anime Channel On Demand whose characters look certainly look underage and who engage in what is called "sexual innuendo". On the DVD versions, there are also nude scenes per the various online product descriptions where the videos are sold. The characters in such series keep referring to "Middle School" when they talk of themselves as students. But that age range would be 14-16 if I've figured the Japanese school system right. Would all this mean that such characters engaging in sexual innuendo and/or nude scenes suggesting sexual activity (even if no actual activity is shown) would make a harem anime illegal under that "Lolicon" law you mentioned? Yeah, I know they're being sold on Amazon and streamed online, but I'm seriously wondering if some puritanical person or group is going to take issue and use that "Lolicon" law to shut them down and bust anyone who owns copies. I rented a copy of Konokan recently, thinking it was the usual harem anime. When I saw the male protagonist in the series, I got rid of the DVD fast. The characters were supposed to be the usual middle school cast, and they kept repeating that the kid was the same age they were. But this kid was drawn and voiced like he was a lot younger than that. Essentially, he was depicted as just a little underage kid and being aggressively, sexually pursued by two of the much older looking female characters. I'm frankly amazed that the lolicon law fanatics haven't gone after it, |
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CrownKlown
 Posts: 1762 |
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Dude Dance in the Vampire bund is licensed in the US both as an anime and manga, plus you have things like strike witch; if they were illegal a major company like Funimation would have gone down in flames a long time ago, but the fact they can license and sell them to US customers seems to indicate other wise.
The fact is the law is ambiguous and like someone said I think all you have is that miller test, its never had a chance to go to the higher courts though because each time it seemed like it would they settled. |
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DrizzlingEnthalpy
 Posts: 255 |
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Wasn't it just last year that the part of the PROTECT Act saying illustrated sexually explicit depictions of children was unconstitutional? There's still a law against pornography depicting nonexistent minors, but it only applies if the material is deemed obscene as per the Miller test. And since obscene material is illegal anyway, the only difference is the severity of punishment, if even that.
And there's no precedent to determine whether lolicon hentai is inherently obscene or not. I hope this guy pleads "not guilty" just so an actual precedent can be established. Not that that precedent would necessarily apply to someone in a different "community"... The existence of the internet has really screwed up the concept of "community standards" in regards to legality. Really, I'd love to see the Miller test applied in action to anything distributed over the internet just so there'd be some precedent in some regard. The bothersome part of the linked article:
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AlanMintaka
Posts: 99 |
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The way they mention the feds (twice) It almost sounds like they know they don't have a case and they want the feds to pick it up. If they had left the kid alone, the feds probably wouldn't have wasted time and money on him. He's wrecked anyway, even if he's innocent by law. All it takes is an accusation in this culture, even if the accused is cleared. No one in that community will ever trust him again and he'll never get a service job in an educational system there. He might be able to successfully fight that, but then he'd wind up working in a pretty hostile place. The only solution is to sue the pants off 'em, if you'll pardon the pretentious irony, and use the money to set up someplace else. Where he is now, he might as well have a predator notice on his front door. |
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VORTIA
 SubscriberPosts: 946 |
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If the Feds were serious about prosecuting the guy, they wouldn't let him walk like this, they'd have transferred him to Federal custody.
I think the facts of this case are painfully clear: Investigators got a tip that a school employee was involved in child pornography and jumped the gun, raiding this guys house, arresting him and finding.....nothing but unprosecutable cartoons. The police can't just come out and tell the media "we're releasing a pedophile back into the community because he hasn't commited a crime", so they've concocted this explanation of how they are trying to hand the case off to the Feds to save their own face. Federal Authorities wrote explicit images into the PROTECT ACT from a "where there's smoke, there's fire" sensibility. It's there to give them just cause to sieze a computer with lolicon to search for actual child porn. They've got their hands full just chasing actual sexual predators, and I sincerely doubt they have the resources to waste prosecuting a guy on a obscenity charge that he could easily walk on. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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No, it's not. You might want to ask how then are all the ero-anime and manga legally licensed and published here and all the related sites still up? The FBI knows about 4chan, and has investigated it for other activities. If it were that clear cut, it and many erotic fanart and hentai art sites would have been long gone. In fact, for example, California law actually allows obscene materials, though only to be sold to 18+, and explicitly exempts "drawings, figurines, statues, or any film rated by the Motion Picture Association of America" from any child porn charges (ca code 311.11). The federal law in question (1466a) part of which that banned specific speech or visual depictions was struck down, now entirely relies on the legal definition of obscenity--which itself relies on a process that cannot determine that fact by itself (i.e. cannot judge something inherently so or anything beforehand)--and uses interstate commerce. Thing is, all porn can be subjected to the same treatment since legal obscenity is classed as "unprotected" speech (not banned or illegal, just not immune from prosecution) It doesn't make it illegal though even if you're the unlucky bastard who gets charged (where for the same material, someone else can get away with it--a CA court or DA may and has dropped such charges), which is why most except the most zealous prosecutors/LEO go after it. Still, it's a bad law and should not exist. However, it's also depressing to know that there are many such bad laws in general, so much so that a person on average can be committing several felonies a day, completely unaware |
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