It's been suggested that this was the reason why the Daily Mail started going after Harriet Harman and her supposed links to the Paedophile Information Exchange back in the 1970s - because the Tories knew they had a paedophile of their own, so needed to start throwing muck pre-emptively.
I will point out that under the UK's child pornography statutes, a video of a 25 year old dressed as a high school cheerleader could be grounds for a child pornography charge, if the prosecution argues that the video is intended to make the user think the person is underaged.
Also, possession of child pornography in the UK is a strict liability crime - possession is the sole element, there is no intent or knowledge required. For example: As soon as your browser downloads this image, you're in possession of an archive of Starbound mods. Change the extension to .zip and see for yourself. If that were instead an archive of child pornography, even if you didn't even know the archive was there, you'd be guilty of possessing child pornography. See also, steganography.
Just saying, though, because it's interesting from a legal perspective. Proooobably neither of these are the case here.
I've got a file with the classic Errol Otus painting of Cthulhu around here somewhere, that's 7.5MB because if you rename it to .zip it's a zipped copy of PDFs of everything Lovecraft ever wrote.
It's because .zip ignores everything before the start of the "zip" section, and .gif ignores everything after the end of the .gif section - so you can take a .zip and a .gif and stick them together, and the same file will work as both. (Or vice versa: It might be that .gif ignores the before and .zip ignores the after. I don't remember and I can't be bothered to look it up. Point is: One of those things is true.)
In addition, if you viewed the picture, even if it was completely by accident and you instantly deleted it, you're guilty of "making child pornography" (because it's your computer "making" the picture from a bunch of electrons). So you get arrested on that charge and everybody assumes that you've been personally taking photos of abuse. It's interesting only from a legal perspective; from your perspective, not very nice at all.....
Okay, that is actually a strange enough concept to me that I tried to look it up and couldn't. Can I get a reference?
So hypothetically, if someone broadcasts child porn on TV, you're guilty of "making" it because your TV decoded the cable signals?
I presume there have to be boundaries to this--I mean, you're not guilty of "making" threats if someone calls you and utters threats because you own the device that was "making" the words up out of the cellphone signal, are you?--but I'm now really curious about what they are.
As a counterpoint: we live in a world where some places legally require that an adult submit to an invasive medically unnecessary procedure before they be allowed to get an abortion, but do not have that kind of requirement for other procedures.
I am totally willing to buy that the laws are different WRT child pornography than they are with other forms of illegal or regulated content, or that someone made stupid laws about the Series Of Tubes. I just want a better idea of what exactly these laws are.
Not really at all comparable. The mindset behind the introduction and passage of those bills is clear - it is to add an additional step to the process of getting an abortion, to try to get women to back out. But the mindset under which someone would introduce or vote for a bill that charges production, on the basis of a computer automatically making a local copy, requires a combination of knowledge and misunderstanding so precise that it just isn't plausible that anyone would ever possess it. You would need to know that a browser downloads a local copy of everything it's pointed at, but not understand that it is literally impossible to view anything remotely without being sent that information, and you'd need to confuse reception with production in such a fundamental way that I don't buy that anyone believes that. And you'd need to rewrite the relevant statute (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/part/1/crossheading/abuse-of-children-through-prostitution-and-pornography) to refer to the creation of images rather than the control or facilitation of a person.
So, like I said. Sounds like something that isn't true.
Maybe. I'm still curious to hear from the original poster of the comment; if a possible defense against the charge under the Protection of Children Act is that "making" a photograph or pseudo-photograph was done during an investigation or for the purposes of criminal proceedings, then it seems reasonable to come away with the understanding "making" a photograph does not mean "standing there with a camera in front of the subject" and could in fact cover "duplicating a pre-existing image".
I will go with "sounds like something that I would like not to be true, but since the Crown Prosecution Service is saying that making-in-quotes can be defensible when it happens during these procedures, it does not seem unreasonable to want confirmation on exactly what making-in-quotes covers."
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(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-07 06:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-07 01:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-07 08:57 pm (UTC)Also, possession of child pornography in the UK is a strict liability crime - possession is the sole element, there is no intent or knowledge required. For example:
As soon as your browser downloads this image, you're in possession of an archive of Starbound mods. Change the extension to .zip and see for yourself. If that were instead an archive of child pornography, even if you didn't even know the archive was there, you'd be guilty of possessing child pornography. See also, steganography.
Just saying, though, because it's interesting from a legal perspective. Proooobably neither of these are the case here.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-08 09:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-10 01:05 am (UTC)It's because .zip ignores everything before the start of the "zip" section, and .gif ignores everything after the end of the .gif section - so you can take a .zip and a .gif and stick them together, and the same file will work as both. (Or vice versa: It might be that .gif ignores the before and .zip ignores the after. I don't remember and I can't be bothered to look it up. Point is: One of those things is true.)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-08 07:12 pm (UTC)It's interesting only from a legal perspective; from your perspective, not very nice at all.....
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-09 11:41 pm (UTC)So hypothetically, if someone broadcasts child porn on TV, you're guilty of "making" it because your TV decoded the cable signals?
I presume there have to be boundaries to this--I mean, you're not guilty of "making" threats if someone calls you and utters threats because you own the device that was "making" the words up out of the cellphone signal, are you?--but I'm now really curious about what they are.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-10 12:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-10 01:00 am (UTC)But "production" would be a harder sell, even given that UK law is generally a little nuts.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-10 01:04 am (UTC)I am totally willing to buy that the laws are different WRT child pornography than they are with other forms of illegal or regulated content, or that someone made stupid laws about the Series Of Tubes. I just want a better idea of what exactly these laws are.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-10 01:30 am (UTC)So, like I said. Sounds like something that isn't true.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-10 02:23 am (UTC)I will go with "sounds like something that I would like not to be true, but since the Crown Prosecution Service is saying that making-in-quotes can be defensible when it happens during these procedures, it does not seem unreasonable to want confirmation on exactly what making-in-quotes covers."
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-08 04:18 am (UTC)prk