Cartoon smut law to make life sucky for Olympic organisers

A bit too late

This law has come out a bit too late. I often feel like I'm one of the few remaining who hates the 2012 logo *and* still remembers my hate for it on a regular basis. It's unfortunate that after the uproar when it was revealed, it just died down and was forgotten. Once we get closer to the 2012 Olympics, it'll be pointed out a few times, but nothing's going to happen. We're going to travel in those wonderful underground trains in the morning, full of foreigners, and I don't know about you, but I am going to feel embarrassed for my city with this logo "proudly" splashed everywhere.

This new 'smut law' seems like a ray of hope, but I'm not going to hold out on any; the 2012 logo is going to stay as it is and it will be *everywhere* soon. *sob* *sniff*

It's a bad logo anyway

I've been waiting for "the powers that be" to admit that the Olympics 2012 logo was just a place holder until they could come up with something better. Here's a perfect excuse.

London: 2012 - I'm offended, it's outrageous, etc!

Where do I claim?

When do I get my cash ?

Hmmm... thoughtcrime .... children....

A cake so appealing that few lawmakers have the mental ability to resist. I doubt whether any consequences will come out of really shite and sinfully expensive official rorschach blobs for chest-beating "panis et circenses" programs that a nearly bankrupt government can ill afford. Laws apply to YOU.

Now excuse me while I fap to anime porn while I still can.

That hand logo should do.

Think of the children

Clearly those responsible for this outrage are all paedophiles and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

And those who try to give them cover are just as guilty and should be prosecuted with them.

And the law should follow the trail of responsibility wherever it may lead.

Hmmm.... Mr. Brown, those nice policemen would like a word with you. They think that you could assist them in their enquiries. Now, Mr. Brown.

With apologies to the NRA

Laws don't put people in jail. Judges do.

Let's start a new pro-law group, which appreciates the legal system precisely for not working in the way paranoiacs believe it does.

We'd almost belive it was clean

If the first choice hadn't been a poorly disguised take on Goatse. Clearly they're pushing illegal pornograpy.

This article is incredibly daft...

...and I'm really rather daft for spending a few minutes reading it, as are you for reading the comments about it.

It fails at being funny too.

"those possessing such images are considered to be... creating an economic demand for it"

So, presumably that means that people who file-share child pornography are harming the creators, and are thus heroes?

In other news - wow, is your legal system screwed up. Jailing people for not decrypting files, jailing people for looking at cartoons, and eight bucks a gallon for gas. Yikes.

Quick deletion of the crap logo

I hope someone does make an official complaint to the police about the sexual nature of the logo (when the law becomes official) and that it causes the Olympic committee to change the logo to something that incorporates London properly into it's design.

If the police and government then say "don't be stupid it's obviously not a sexual picture" then they've pretty much shot themselves in the foot as people can use it as a defence in the future. Any politician who tries to bring in catch all laws should have learnt by now that human nature being what it is there will always be exceptions and work arounds that make the law pointless. I think Mandy should be educated about this aspect when it comes to his law trying to stop copyright pirates.

Really now...

This is the first time I've seen that logo and I must say, it is horrible. I had to stare at it for a couple minutes just to figure out that it was supposed to form a 2, a 0, a 1 and a second 2. But the Lisa Simpson angle is absurd. It took me another couple minutes of staring at it after I read that section to figure out how you could possibly piece that together to get anything even remotely like someone giving oral sex.

All I can say, is that there must be WAY too much repressed sexual tension over there if that's what everyone saw when they first looked at that logo.

...Though, you should probably send someone to get back that 400k they stole from you.

Paris, cause the logo looks about as much like her as it does Lisa Simpson.

Proclivity?

Legislation based on proclivity is extremely dangerous, bordering on thought crime. The current laws, as explained in the article, do make sense as a child would have to be abused for the picture to be produced. But by criminalising the production of someone's mind is very difficult to justify. What if I doodle a cartoon of me killing someone? Does that give me proclivity to murder?

Translated: it's waiting for the law to be ratified

I think the time between the law being ratified and some joker filing the complaint is probably going to be measured in microseconds. The reason for that is IMHO obvious: I haven't found anyone yet in support of this law, or any other recent additions to the books (like the copyright law which would give unelected Mandelson uncontrolled power over stating what constitutes an offence and what not).

It is thus time to break out the popcorn - this going to be a show worth watching..

Question...

How would this law relate to (illicit) cartoon imagery of Smurfs engaged in 'adult activity'?

Does anyone know how young or old Smurfs are meant to be? Who decides whether Smurfette is of legal age or not?

What the…???

People actually see Lisa Simpson giving fallatio in the logo? Is this like one of those magic eye posters? That or some people have really sick minds.

Paris cuz, well… do you really have to ask?

We'll see

It'll all come out eventually - suck it and see :o

What The HELL?!!!!

While I have no love for the Olympic Committee...

I would like to say that it's not the committees fault that Sexually Frustrated individuals began seeing pornographic images in everything. Including the Olympic logo.

The committee and the rest of the civilized world should not have to suffer from the delusional perceptions of these pedo-perverts.

The Simpsons Movie...

...intentionally shows Bart's penis during the bit where he is skateboarding nude.

So, owning a copy of The Simpsons Movie will now be a strict liability offence.

So..

I guess using one of those "nude ladies" fonts in size under 18pts is now illegal?

Drawing Curtains?

As John Ozimek mentioned in his article, this law criminalises possession of images of sexual activity in the presence of children (Section 62 (7) (a)).

So, I can legally possess a hardcore porn photo of some adults having sex. But I can't legally draw a picture of a child in the background, because then it's an image of sex in the presence of a child. But if I draw a picture frame in the background, and then draw a child in it, that's okay, because then it's just an image of sex in the presence of a picture of a child. But if I then draw some curtains around that picture frame, it turns it into a window frame, and it's back to being an illegal image of sex in the presence of a child again.

If I've got this right, you can commit a sex crime against an imaginary child by drawing a picture of some curtains.

That's insane!

I'm assuming that an image of sex in the presence of a picture of a child doesn't count as an image of sex in the presence of a child, but I might have got that wrong. Section 65 (8) says: "References to an image of a child include references to an image of an imaginary child." Would a picture of a child within an image count as an imaginary child? If so, then drawing a picture frame around a drawing of a child wouldn't make an otherwise illegal image legal to possess after all.

But that would mean that while you can still legally have real sex in front of a drawing of a child, you can't legally possess a photo of that!

But this law is insane anyway.

Seriously, if you had a choice between stopping one real child from being subjected to real abuse, and stopping a million cartoon characters from being subjected to fictional abuse, which abuse would you choose to stop?

Those who say that drawings are as bad as genuinely abusive photos seem to have a dangerous lack of ability to distinguish between what's real and what's imaginary. Or maybe they just don't think real children are worth anything more than drawings. Either way, such people are obviously not to be trusted when it comes to child protection.

Maria Eagle is a real danger to all of us.

give us the .gif

GIVE US THE .GIF!

Sweet!

Age?

With a photo the subject has an actual age. With a cartoon how can tell an 18 year old from a 16 year old? I wonder who gets to decide. Like porn in general extreme examples may be clear enough but who draws the line on the boarder line examples?

Of course the big problem is that it's a &$#^#%@ cartoon!

It's not real... no people were harmed in the making of this image.

Splendid

Now I can se the blow job but not Lisa Simpson, however, good for me, she is 8 years of age according to the Wikipedia with 4,450,000 hits for Lisa Simpson on Google.

Rubbish logo, no doubt, on the other hand I suppose there will be more jobs of that sort during the Olympic in London than normally.

So lets leave it to the jury.

More Importantly....

Which moderator is authorizing posts at 4:49am?! Go back to bed!!!!!!!!!

I've an excuse for being up, I'm in Asia.

There is this website...

... it's intended to promote good parenting by pointing out some really bad parenting. The site is named why the fuck do you have a kid. I'm not linking it because I'm no longer sure if a photo of a woman flashing her tits (with black censor bar) while her child just looks embarrassed and annoyed is considered evidence of peadophilia or not.

Non Story

As much as I think this new law is a terrible knee-jerk unenforceable piece of legislation and that the 2012 Olympic logo is almost certain to be remembered as the worst Olymic logo ever, I have to say this article really is clutching at some very desperate straws to try and cobble them together into a story.

There is no chance in hell the government will ever entertain any kind of legal challenge to the Olympic logo based on these new porn laws.

This is not a law

It's a bunch of clause within an Act. These ones happen to be rubbish.

These are a particularly pointless and fairly petty minded group put in to a suitcase act for reasons I cannot begin to imagine but which probably say a lot more about the upbringing and home lives of the people concerned than about real crime.

Had it been split out as a seperate law it would have been a fairly short Bill which should have been shown up as the draconian but stupid piece of legislation it is.

Mine's the one with "The British Legal System for Dummies" in the pocket.

What if...

...someone e-mailed all the MPs a cartoon containing illegal images. Could we then arrest anyone who received said e-mail?

Skizz

Sins of the Fathers

I'll say it again. You guys think the USof A is oppressive and stupid? That's just a laugh and the jokes on you!

Simpsons "Child" Porn!?

Oh come on....Lisa Simpson is at least in her 20's if not 30's by now. Didn't you see the episode where they uncovered that the producers were feeding them growth suppressants! lol

Even if it *is* Lisa Simpson..

She was 8 when the Simpsons was first broadcast in 1989 (cf. Wikipedia et al). The Olympic logo, featuring Ms. Simpson, was first aired on or around June 2007 making Ms. Simpson a somewhat more reasonable - and legal - 26 year old female. While watching the logo (especially on a train or any situation where it might appear to move slightly) might constitute pornography, it is between consenting adults and thus of no consequence in regard the Act.

Quite why Lisa feels the need to 'help' a gentleman this badly deformed is beyond me; he's clearly in more urgent need of medical attention than her administration.

Actually I think it's Amy Winehouse, photographed from a distance.

Nuff said. Can we have a reference to PH now, please? I think we've earnt one.

Wellspring of guilty...

So who's going to be painting little nappies on all the images of cherubs that bedeck our churches and galleries? Big hand to the first person who pops a pair of Pampers onto the statue of Eros outside Buck House!

Sit on this.

Considering the ambiguous nature of the Olympic logo and the loony-tunes legislation that reclassifies schoolboy smut as evidence of sexual deviance, could we please have a clear and unambiguous assurance from El Reg that the icon attached to this post is not an invitation to New Labour's corporate cocksuckers to indulge in further acts of sexual submission.

Failure to comply may result in a midnight visit by the Thought Police.

What next...? Pooh-Clouds?!!

Oh ffs..

Anyone that is put out by the association of this logo and some fictiious character should be rounded up and shot. Next will be Pooh-Clouds from the mind of A.A.Milne.. Look out the Thought-Police are out again...

Get a life, or better still get in the sea into the sea and keep walking.. Life will be better without you.

Pfft...

What if... Part II

Not only do you e-mail the MPs dodgy cartoons, you encrypt them as well, clearly supplying the decryption key. Then, when the cops turn up, they can be done for either a) not providing the decryption keys to access the file under the terrorism laws, or b) having dodgy pictures, which has strict liability and therefore it doesn't matter that they never solicited the e-mails. Brilliant.

Good reporting, Reg!

Glad to see that there are some people still reporting actual news stories, not who's crashed their SUV into a fire hydrant or gatecrashed a White House State Dinner this week (though I wouldn't mind crashing her White House, phwoar!)

Ahem.

Anyway, carry on. I'm going to see if I can vote for my own comment now...

Huh?

Is that a paint spill?

Am I following the correct link?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/images/2007/06/04/2012_logo_white_385x450.jpg

If that looks like any of the characters from The Simpsons doing anything, the show must be drawn quite differently over there from the one we see here in the States. I can't anthropomorphise those squiggles into anything, and it's not from lack of an instinct for the prurient.

Now if this story had been about how good a logo this was I would have used the FAIL icon big time. Just trying to see 2012 in it gives me a severe headache.

They should have farmed out the job to the graphics folks at Google.

Distraction

There is a very good reason why the logo triggers epilepsy. Kids are seeing something adults are not seeing....

Olympic Logo 2012 Exposed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww-V9K3UdHw

2012_London_Olympics_Logo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGZiDsgqAx4

Never mind. Only a couple of years to go before you Brits cash in.

A big mess of confusion

This is all so screwed up... The government will say (in response to the 2012 logo) that they are only intending works which already come under the Obscene Publications Act to be caught up in this (which is a very high standard in terms of what constitutes 'obscene'). That was their response when I asked about this in relation to Manga some time ago. The problem lies in the fact that these clauses are so badly worded that they are completely open to interpretation by the courts and police, meaning that any good intentions on behalf of parliament can be pretty much washed away by a particularly determined police force or judge.

The status of classified works is a prime example - take Battle Royale, for example; very well known film, book and Manga, available to buy in Waterstones - in the first volume there's a picture of one of the characters whose backstory involves her seducing men for money in nightclubs - there's a drawing there which most certainly (in isolation) would fall under this act. So by this law, own the book and you're ok - tear the page out and you will be on the sex offenders register. Don't forget that the police and CEOP etc lobbied that the punishments for ownership of cartoon images should be exactly the same as those for the real deal.

These weird laws do nothing to really target either the root causes of abuse or the people who are causing it - they just add confusion and in my mind dilute the issue into nothing more than a blind, moral panic. Remember the Scorpions stuff from this time last year? Go into HMV on Oxford Street and head to the S section - you'll see Virgin Killer on open display! And yet both IWF and the Police stated they believed this to be an indecent image (and did not go back on this assessment, even after it was unblocked)