UK 'bad' pics ban to stretch?

@David Roberts

"Can I therefore conclude that scrawling "Mandy is a great shag" on the wall is perfectly acceptable but any pictures added for the hard of reading will contravene the act and render the artist liable to prosecution?"

Actually, it's getting damned-near close to criminalising anyone who uses that cubicle and makes the mistake of glancing at the poorly-drawn sketch.

"Number two was it, sir? If you wouldn't mind stepping this way. Mind your head..."

Streaming is already covered

R. v. Smith and Jayson [2002 EWCA Crim 683]

Downloading an indecent image onto the computer screen is an offence of making, even if a copy was not separately saved onto a disk. Once an image is downloaded, the length of time it remains on the screen is irrelevant.

Hooray for Jenny Willott, MP!

Hooray for Jenny Willott, MP!

I'm so glad there's someone in the Commons who's tackling this.

During the second reading debate, another MP, Sir Paul Beresford (Conservative) (Mole Valley), had some worrying things to say.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090126/debtext/90126-0004.htm#0901264000001

Firstly, he wants written material to be made illegal as well as images. When it becomes a crime to simply write the wrong kind of stuff down on paper, we know we're no longer in a free country. I wonder how many teenagers will have to burn their diaries?

Secondly, he wants similar penalties for drawings as for photographs. (Seems he doesn't care much at all about whether the children and abuse are real or not. That suggests he's just a paedo-basher, rather than someone genuinely concerned about protecting children.)

Thirdly, he's got a Private Members' Bill going through the Commons, the Protection of Children (Encrypted Material) Bill 2008-09. The purpose of it is to deal with the problem of paedophiles hiding material in encrypted files so as to get away with lighter sentences when they refuse to disclose the keys.

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2008-09/protectionofchildrenencryptedmaterial.html

Second reading of his Bill is on 20th March 2009.

Who's with me?

Now, if simply looking at an image on paper is a crime... who's with me on the quest to send an image to every single member of UK gov't and every UK judge? Just cost you each a stamp.

Then at least we'll all know the place is being run by a bunch of criminals in robes. Can they arrest and detain each other then? WILL they arrest and detain each other?

Re: Presumably

"The next step, no doubt, is to make it illegal to *THINK* about children."

Won't SOMEONE think of the children ?............oh, bugger.

It would not be hard.......

for a Prosecutor to argue that the possession was completed when the images appeared on the screen being used to watch whatever it was. The fact that it was "possessed" only in a form that

could not be captured onto the computer would not, I dont think, stop a Court interpreting it that way IF THEY WANTED TO. On a related subject ,I hate it when I see them charge someone with "...making indecent images of children...." because most joe public would think that they had actually taken the photos NOT that it was "made" simply because it was viewed and cached.

This is highly misleading and unfair.

Oh dear

Looks like we were right not to import British Beef in the 90s.

Old Blighty has a serious mad cow epidemic running. Try to keep it contained, please. We've got enough troubles with the mad oxen here.

conciousness

yes, that's right. everything we know, understand, study etc are due to our perception of things.

perception that includes 'seeing with our eyes'. unless we are able to see into the future, how do we know what will present itself to us? and so how do we know when not to look?

then there's the issue of, how exactly is the law going to prove that you actually saw something. just because something 'unfolded on a screen' doesn't mean you saw it. a person can always argue that they were looking the other way. this in itself is 'reasonable doubt' to me..

there is also the matter of how much we can control what we see. has anyone out there not had the unpleasant experience of unwanted and unrequested things popping up?

and so in closing... with such a new law in place, it's completely feasable that if i don't like someone i can sneakily send them something, or put up an 'illegal to see' picture on their front door... then hand them over to the police saying they broke the law... and who's to say that this isn't exactly what our disgusting leaders have in mind for us all?

you will be a criminal. no matter what.

do you know all the laws? all hundreds of thousands of them? you don't huh? well that's no excuse. (unless you're a lawyer of course).

Oh yes, I can see it now

"What's this link? tinyurl.com/3v9nx98 - let's see what it is."

*clickety-click*

And suddenly you did not pass Go, did not collect your £200, and found yourself in jail.

Lock 'em up.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_(1825-1905)_-_The_Birth_of_Venus_(1879).jpg

Bouguereau is a fucking nonce.

Don't look at it or your a nonce too.

To add to the list of non-paper items...

What about kids drawing on condensated windows? Happens all the time on school buses. So when the bus drives past, anyone who looks is now a criminal?

Of course, they're a disgusting peadophile for looking at a bus with children in.

Why all the complaints?

They're only trying to prevent people having child porn and other horrible stuff on their PCs. Why are you lot up in arms? Worried about losing your stash?

Don't Blame The Ministers...

I think it's important remind everyone who is actually behind all this bullsh*t legislation and every new 'thought crime' that slithers out of Parliament in connection with these issues. It's not actually the politicians, surprisingly. Politicians, being the supine, populist freelancers they are, take 'advice' about issues like this from advocates - from 'agencies' who have a particular agenda to peddle (and budgets to defend).

There is a common tendency to blame idiot politicians for these kind of bad laws - I suggest you redirect your ire to the likes of CEOP, NSPCC and IWF. Who do you think the government takes it's advice from in all those 'consultations' it undergoes? These are the kind of organisations with a narrow remit and a very focused agenda - to get the law changed at every possible opportunity to suit their business models, consequences be damned. It was CEOP, in part, who have been urging this government to classify sexual drawings of wholly fictional children (or CGI, or cartoons) as punishable in exactly the same way as photographs or videos of real children. Please do not underestimate the zeal of these people to criminalise at every opportunity. Proof of CEOP's preferred sentencing around this area can be found in Parliament's own consultation report, where they are noted as one of the agencies pushing for the strongest possible penalties.

Politicians know nothing of the injustice they cause, but are daily beset by lobby groups calling for them to 'think of the children!' and scaring the bejesus out of them with all kinds of sensationalist rhetoric. It's a form of bullying (and a highly emotive one at that), and while I won't ask you to feel in any way sorry for our poor, put-upon ministers, I would ask you to appreciate the kind of relentless pressure these people face from very insistent advocates, day in, day out.

The problem with the paedogeddon and all the issues around it is that we have now arrived in a place where common sense has long since left the stage. Which means the only people left occupying it are the vulnerable, the ignorant and the bullies.

@Jeremy

'... church run dictatorships of the dark ages, 500 years ago ...'

Bloody fool. Go and learn some history. The ignorant get the government they deserve, that must be what's happened to you.

Ya' See what happens

And I thought our cousins in the UK were more educated then us hillbillys in the US of A. Why is it that all of the news about UK government policy that I read about points directly to a hard core police state? And no, we aren't far behind in that reguard. Why haven't I heard about massive demonstrations in front of Parlament? I guess leathargy is a common thread we all have these days.

@keyboardless anonymous coward

Unfortunately all my keyboards have Is and Os next to each other, which is clearly sexual. And the B key looks quite provocative.

The % symbol is suspiciously like a soapy titwank, too. And let's not even mention * or ! or (worst of all) the interfering J.

In short, they've all been nabbed by the cops so I'm writing on the completely black keyboard I made when I was 17.

WTF

"it may become illegal to even look at images, not merely possess them."

Your Honor, I was blinking/had my eyes closed at the time the images were on the screen.

You've all missed the point

The point of this badly worded, badly drafted law/bill is NOT about criminalising pr0n watchers.. or kiddie fiddlers or the weirdos who get their rocks off on S&M

It is badly worded for a reason, in that the various interptations of the law and how its applied can be argued ad nausum by the lawyers while racking up a huge bill.

By a very strange coincidence, 95% of MPs are lawyers as well... ........

Mind you statistically speaking 1 in 10 people in the UK suffer from some form of mental illness, another interesting fact is that there are 655 MPs

The trouble with this....

type of issue, as well as Child porn, is that no one dare speak out for fear of being labelled a paedophile or pervert, as they authorities and police well know. This means they can introduce any crap laws that they wish to and no one speaks out. This Government has spent 11 years wrecking all the good things of this Country and we now live in a shell of a Country that is, im sorry to say but its true, full of TOO MANY FOREIGNERS !. The Govt are happy as long as they can sponge loads of expenses of taxpayers for their 2nd and 3rd homes, or live in plush mansions owned by the state etc etc etc. The Government would not care if we all took a hike and they replaced us all with cheap immigrant labour and turned all the factories into sweat shops BECAUSE at end of day they would still draw THEIR salaries and expenses no matter what.

Ahh poop...

Dump your perfectly legit porn (avi torrent files are legit right, right?) , because if the girl in it might possibly be deemed to *look* under 18 to some copper/lawyer etc then you are going to jail,

It doesn't matter from what I read that she is 18+ and the porn company has all the correct paperwork on record, if she *looks* underage that is all they need, you are going to get screwed harder than the girl in the vid.

This of course applies to to the cartoons, comics or graphic novels even more as there would be even less proof of age for a fictional character. I have some old manga (not hentai even) wallpapers archived somewhere on disk that I rather suspect *might* fall foul of the law as they are suggestive, with it being cartoon/manga style there is no guessing what age they are, you could probably argue them both ways which probably means I need to find them and destroy them, just to be safe as no-one has a clue where the line is gonna fall on this law :[

@What about sound recordings?

OH NO! They are not getting my library of slurping noises.

ideas in it that seem to have been only half thought-out.

That's right, folks. they took the part they "half thought-out" and threw it away and kept the other part they didn't really think about. Now you know how laws are made.

The solution: Find the name of every idiot who voted for this. email them so that it looks like spam and include a good half-dozen "illegal" pr0n piccys. Email is sent to their spam and maybe even "deleted", but most likely on their harddrive. Call the coppers and turn them in for having illegal pr0n on their computers and make sure you tell them it's "hidden"...you'll have to look around for it because you understand they hide it..... take a day off work to go to the trial

Mr. Starmer and the wacqui one sound like a good place to start..

How about going back to basics?

And having law punish people only when they hurt other people?

Guns

Too bad you gave them away. This is a classic sign of the control freak communists that eventually turn to torching and killing for fun. Cambodia...

You people better start a violent revolution before this gets out of hand. At the current rate you are loosing freedom in 2 years you will no longer have the option to revolt.

Does this apply to secondlife....

I mean if two consenting adults are engaged in some perverse carnal activity on secondlife they are both producing and watching animated pornography, who goes to the slammer and for which charge.

bah

I only just started getting into Japanese culture less than a year ago, and now it looks like I will have to get rid of a fair amount of my collection of anime and manga to be sure that I am not harbouring any "illegal art".

It's such a shame, I had barely started reading Rika-chan's House, there is a new OAV of Kodomo no Jikan coming out soon, and the latest Comiket (manga festival) was full of aesthetically pleasing Toradora/Strike Witches/Kannagi/Moe-tan doujinshi.

Despite all of the above titles being highly non-realistic artwork, most depicting only characters of age, presumably they are all now potentially illegal. Weak.

What Does it Matter???

Could you even be tried since any jury viewing the evidence is immediately guilty? Same for da judge. Same for the prosecutor.

@all the whiners

"I like many others, am fed up with this steady drip drip drip of poorly thought out legislation that is eroding every aspect of common sense."

Fine and dandy. Do something, then!

Bunch of Internet whiners...

In Soviet Britain...

...pictures take *you* (to jail).

Christ am I ever glad I left the UK a few years back. Orwell's calendar was only about a quarter century fast.

Right now you or I may not possess or watch anything which falls foul of the law, but this is just the thin end of the wedge. How long before the vaguely worded laws suffer some scope-creep and now BAM, you're a pervy law breaker? How big a jump is it from "sightcrime" to "thoughtcrime" anyway?

Got an open wireless router? Better get it secured fucking right quick, hadn't you? For a laugh, just imagine how many people you could make into criminals merely by DNS cache poisoning some high-profile UK-based website to point to a pageful of prohibited images.

This is how civil liberties are destroyed, one small piece at a time, with the most objectionable material leading the way. I'm glad my granddad isn't around to see this slide into the sort of fascism he got wounded fighting against. How soon we forget.

Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Childprotex!!

Reminds me of the good old times where Miss Teacher somehow hot ahold of my 10-year old extreme porn doodles which went missing during the break but somehow made the rounds, resulting in stern punishment and a sealed letter to the parents, probably outlining my imminent way into hell or something. I still carry that around.

Goggles icon because we need those which automatically turn to nuclear-blast-level filtering mode whenever government-unmandated flesh scenes become apparent so as to keep us all innocent and fluffy forever.