back to article Beeb, British Museum face smut issues over saucy pot

The BBC and the British Museum could be in a tight spot if the legal system puts two and two together over a Roman cup which also puts two and two together... in a naked, underage sort of way. A sharp-eyed Reg reader (who may now need locking up) draws to our attention the BBC’s online publicity for a Radio 4 series entitled …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    well

    "The Met Police declined to comment on the grounds that they have received no allegation of an offence being committed. ®"

    Someone best hurry up and report them so we can see this f---ing stupid law in action.

    As by my reconing the kid on the cup isn't real and if he was real he's been dead for a real long time. Not that either matters to the f---ing lunatics that make up the police force/ceop/etc.

    1. Sooty
      Joke

      don't worry

      Once someone does report it, they won't be able to comment on an ongoing investigation.

      1. lglethal Silver badge
        Unhappy

        @ Sooty

        I wish what you were saying was a joke, but unfortunately its the most likely outcome!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      Welcome to Talebania

      So what's next? Blowing up Buddah statues and other UN heritage objects if they happen to depict something of remotely sexual nature?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Bettany Hughes!

    Now she's real filth!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dear Met

    Here is an allegation of kiddie pr0n being in the posession of the BM.

    Question - are there laws against audio porn yet, and if not, why not? Because any *description* of this object is going to be pr0n, surely? Which means that this elreg article is pr0n.

    Where does it end?

  4. steogede

    What amazes me...

    It amazes me that this cup survived the 19th century without being censored/vandalised by the Victorians.

    1. Version 1.0 Silver badge
      Happy

      Victorians

      Perhaps it was in one of the "Royal" collections?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Victorian PR

      ...was all about being uptight. The reality was that they were quite naughty, really.

    3. Steve Roper

      Ah, but...

      The cup may well have survived the 19th century, with its moral prudery, but it probably won't survive the 21st, with its moral idiocy.

  5. Station Grey
    FAIL

    Oh dear

    Much more worrying than the story is the headline. It's the first time I've noticed our poor Reg slipping into the abyss of the US style of confusing commas and the word 'and'. Is 'Beeb' a place in the county of 'British Museum' or is it just gobledegook?

    When are you going to start capitalising all words in a headline for the sake of it and putting Zs in as many words as possible?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      They've been doing it for ages..

      ..and it's very annoying.

    2. J 3
      Headmaster

      Commas, and

      Hm... I recall seeing that on El Reg titles many times -- not that I was keeping track, mind (I get a little confused by the practice). I didn't even know there was a British x American difference in that regard (or are you just trolling?). I just thought it was common journalistic practice to save space in English headlines everywhere. I don't recall seeing it in Portuguese, though, so maybe we don't do that.

  6. BongoJoe
    Big Brother

    Audio?

    So if you talk to me in the pub and describe the cup are you also guilty?

  7. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Just ignore it

    There is a similar vase in the Fitzwilliam that is captioned "man and boy dancing" - oh no they aren't!

    Of course you could simply arrest anyone who suggests that anything rude is going on - since imagining an act is probably against the law.

    1. Mr Grumblefish

      That's the problem with sex

      leads to dancing. </end methodist mode>

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Those crazy Romans

    Snails or Oysters?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Great lawmaking there

    I hadn't realised that: an adult can legally have sex with a 16 or 17 year old (as long as they consent of course), but if they take a picture or even a drawing of they'll be breaking the law.

    Wondrous.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. scrubber

        They can also...

        Join the Armed Forces, fight and die, to protect the freedoms of over-18s.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I'm sadly afraid, scrubber...

          ...that, in the minds of many of our armchair-general bureaucrats and politicians, cannon fodder is pretty much all our young people are good for. Unfortunately, nothing much new in that.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Correct me if I'm wrong but

          Actual combat is restricted to the 18+ year olds.

      2. Richard IV
        Pint

        You _can_ consume alcohol

        You just can't purchase it.

        You're allowed to drink at home from the age of 5 under adult supervision, and with food in a restaurant from 12.

        Personally, I'd bump up all the anomalies to 18. Give those teenagers a gap year to not remember ;)

      3. max allan
        WTF?

        Pissed?

        >You cannot however:

        >...

        >Consume alcohol.

        >...

        >Is it any wonder teenagers are pissed and armed to the teeth?!

        So how do the teens get pissed if they can't consume alcohol???

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Gaz Jay

      And don't forget

      The 16/17yo will not be able to smoke or drink any booze either.

      Oh what a wonderful set of rules we have to govern us!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Tip of the iceberg

    given the fact that the ancient Greeks and Romans had absolutely no respect for UK law, I can tell you that the British Museum is in possession of *far* worse stuff than this.

    1. SirTainleyBarking
      FAIL

      In those days

      The limitations they set were purely anatomical and physical.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      You forgot Polinesia

      You forgot about artefacts from Polinesia and the Pacific basin where there future young bride had to go around to "collect some experience" before choosing a husband. This was usually done at the age which in the UK falls under the definition of statuatory rape (or at most an year after that).

      Compared to those the Greco-Roman ones are very very very tame.

      So what do we do now, take all CCTV recording from the Polinesian exhibitions and put all people from them on the sex offender's register?

  11. Jonathan Richards 1
    Go

    No problem...

    I estimate the ages of all the people depicted on the Warren cup to be in excess of two thousand years.

    1. Stef 4
      Coat

      Hmmm, nice concept...

      ... but that does mean that the image I am thinking about drawing, is technically a fetus right now. And that is a whole new can of worms that shouldn't be opened.

  12. sig
    Thumb Down

    Better censor my bookcases

    Amongst my books covering Classical antiquity I have a few volumes covering Attic red figure and black figure pottery. Plenty of depictions of man-boy love. And Satyr-human interactions too.

    I'm assuming then that reprints of these books won't now be permitted?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    misleading cases part 94

    The BM kindly allow non commercial use of this image for print runs < 4000, or you can commission photographs from them : http://www.britishmuseum.org/join_in/using_digital_images/using_digital_images.aspx?image=ps334687.jpg. So would they refer inquires to the Met? Would my friend have a defence of but it's art yer honner?

    BTW, I read the BM article with my thumb over the image so as not to pollute my mind with this filth.

  14. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    @Great lawmaking there

    Even better, you can get married at 16 - but take a picture of your wife giving birth at 17 and you are a peodo.

  15. Tim Bergel
    Stop

    Come on

    "namely that the person in possession of a particular image had a "legitimate reason" for doing so"

    You mean like being a major museum rather than someone suddenly inventing some "research"? Come on - surely if the legitimate reason let out applies to anybody it applies to a museum - I think you are simply scaremongering.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Here we are

      Scaremongering? That't spelt ``poking fun at bad law'', which is right and proper in a democracy. In fact I'd like a (well-written, thank you) law that puts some nice and severe penalties on the crime of writing and passing laws as bad as this one. Can't be too tough on crime, et cetera.

  16. kevin elliott
    FAIL

    Insanity Rules

    While I can understand what this law is trying to do, the wording is, to say the least unfortunate.

    We bought a book for our kids that explains just how and where babies are made. One of the pics in the book is of Mum & Dad making love, while a kid happens to see what's going on - something all parents have been through - or nearly been through. I can't remember the exact words, but the caption suggests that it'd be better not to disturb Mum and Dad.

    Great, so an educational kiddies book now becomes pornography - just as well I don't live in the UK any more, cos I wouldn't throw this out just because some fools wrote the laws wrongly. But I'll have to seriously vet any literature the kids want to bring on our next trip 'home'.

    No laws about computer games that let kids blow people to bits, with lots of blood, flying body parts though. Even though the kids become really nasty and aggressive after playing them....

    Sick, sick, sick......

  17. Tom Melly

    FFS

    while we're at it, what about

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Angelo_Bronzino_001.jpg

    (NSFW... err.. SFW... err... oh, who the f**k knows?)

  18. Maty

    pure filth

    Ah, yes. My extreme porn collection. It contains explicit violence and inter-species sex featuring various illegal combinations of age and gender. It sits on the third shelf of my bookcase in books with racy titles such as Athenian Red Figure Vases of the Archaic Period (by John Boardman).

    Rest assured, good citizens, these volumes will be first on the pyre when the book burnings begin.

  19. blackworx
    WTF?

    Ok

    So this cup is... how old?

    And its mere existence over however many intervening centuries has not caused the world to stop turning?

    No? So what is this law for again?

  20. Martin Usher
    FAIL

    The American Infection

    Your problem is that the UK's turned the "special relationship" into a full-on cargo cult. You copy everything from here regardless of whether it makes sense or is relevant to the UK. This kind of BS is normal in the US because people are free to speak and act, and that freedom extends to bigots and busybodies. We have defenses against such people, though. The UK's allowed itself to be raped by such people but you are relatively defenseless -- your ACPO seems to make the laws there with lots of other NGOs chiming in about what's good for you and no Constitutional constraints on their worst excesses.

    What's weirder is that Australia, the country I used to associate with a rather laid-back attitude to life, has gone hyper-bigoted. Its like they got the worst of the UK's small-minded surbanites on those five pound assisted packages and the damn things have *bred*!

  21. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Law of unintended consequences

    As usual with government laws, the law of unintended consequences comes to bite them in the butt (though it might be nicely formed).

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    How delightfully smarmy

    She knows what i mean.

  23. Graham Marsden

    They can probably get away with it...

    ... by claiming that this image is "not for sexual arousal".

    However what would be better is if everyone writes to their MP (find their contact details on http://www.writetothem.com) and urge them to include the Cartoon Porn and Extreme Porn laws in the Government's Freedom Bill which, as stated in the Queen's Speech is to "Repeal unnecessary laws" as it's clear that these laws are most definitely unnecessary, unneeded and unenforceable.

  24. AJO
    Stop

    Not Really

    Nice idea, but not really. To be a 'prohibited image', it has to be all of three things:

    a) be pornographic,

    b) portray a prohibited act, and

    c) be grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character

    So the fact that the image might fulfil criteria b) means nothing unless it also fulfils a) and c).

    Legally, something is only 'pornographic' if "it is of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal". Given the original cup was produced primarily to be drunk out of, and the images produced by the British Museum were produced entirely for educational and cultural purposes, a) is almost certainly not fulfilled, and so it could not be a prohibited image.

    In addition, it seems unlikely that one of the greatest treasures of the British Museum is going to be classed as 'grossly offensive or disgusting' or legally obscene any time soon, so it probably fails on criteria c) too.

    So is it a prohibited image. Er, no, almost certainly not.

    The original article rather leaps to conclusions without looking at the detail of the legislation, unfortunately.

    1. Chris Miller

      IANAL

      and maybe you are, but ...

      The image was arguably intended for sexual arousal, otherwise it could just have been vine leaves and mountains. If not, surely I can take any image, have it print it on a coffee mug and say - that's not porn, it's principal purpose is to be drunk from.

      "grossly offensive, etc" depends entirely on the eye of the beholder. I'm sure we could find some members of the public who would be disgusted by it - whether this would include the notorious 'man on the Clapham omnibus' is a matter for debate.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      @AJO's "its a cup so its ok" stance

      @Ajo

      So to take that further, if I print some horrible images which would be extreme under the law on a cup, because its "primary" purpose would be to drink from that would be ok? No, it would be abuse of the law's spirit.

      Dont make excuses for a bad law and provide contra arguments for its validity without thinking reasonably how it will be misued please.

    3. Intractable Potsherd
      FAIL

      I don't agree.

      "Given the original cup was produced primarily to be drunk out of, " - ??? It may have been created exactly for the purpose of sexual arousal. It might only have been used to indicate that the owner and user are hot-to-trot (I don't see that as being too big a stretch of logic - the owner put it on display, and if the visitor responded in a particular way then it was a form of acceptance). The point is, neither you or I know, and so it is purely subjective. (Interestingly, your argument means that someone could produce hardcore porn by printing it on everyday objects - "It's a plate, not porn, gov"!). Nonetheless, my argument allows part a), prima facie, to be satisfied.

      Part c) goes straight to the old "art v porn" argument. Why is it art just because it is old, when something produced today, depicting exactly the same, would be porn? Let's put it this way: could anyone could get away with producing and selling reproductions of this cup without falling foul of the law, or at least causing the "moral" minority to start wailing? I doubt it. Thus, the mere argument that i) it's old, and ii) it is one of the BM's "greatest treasures" really counts for nothing under the law.

      I agree with an earlier poster - if the crap porn laws are to remain, we need test cases on stuff like this to see what knots the courts can twist themselves into justifying "art" depictions of what today are prohibited.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not Really...

      You're trying to be reasonable here - what does that have to do with the law as it is practised on this subject?

      It's probably not a 'prohibited image' because the British Museum owns it - but if I did, then it probably would be? And what if I owned a vase that wasn't 2000 years old that also had similar scenes - I'd probably be prosecuted depending on the opinions of my local CPS. A national Arts gallery probably wouldn't.

      The problem is that the crime depends on what you believe someone is *thinking* when they look at an image.

      That's why the law is bollocks. Nothing to do with the image.

    5. Jane Fae

      er, actually...

      i spoke directly to the Crown Prosecution Service about the scope of the Act and possible defences.

      The problem with this particular law is that it is untried (literally) and so is in the lap of a jury.

      The "produced for sexual purposes" clauses has yet to be tested in respect of this OR the extreme porn law.

      The issue? Well, if it relates to the purpose of the original maker of the filom/image/whatever, then there is one defence available. On t'other hand, if it relates to the intentions of the downloader - because remember, in UK law, downloading = making of an image - then we are in very different territory.

      I agree that the primary purpose of the cup was for drinking...but you'd have to be a lawyer of the highest water to stop at that point.

      M'lud: here is a cup. Insofar as it is a cup, it is clearly for drinking. However, on the side of the cup is a drawing. What is the purpose of the drawing? Can we in any way say that the drawing is "for drinking"? No. The drawing is separate to the cup. It is an add-on that neither adds nor detracts from the function of the cup.

      The cup is made for the purpose of drinking: the drawing was made for the purpose of titillating the drinker. Given the nature of the drawing, it must be highly likely that the effect created by any drinker sat contemplating this object would have been sexual - arousal even. The maker of the drawing must have understood that.

      The drawing was created for purposes of sexual arousal. QED.

      On t'other hand, whilst that is an argument about the rationale for creating the drawing, there is also the issue of why any given individual would possess the image.

      M'lud - again. The individual before you has no interest in history whatsoever. He plays football, runs the local scout group, and had an extensive collection of child porn. He also has a series of pics on his pc which are taken from historical artefacts. Every one of these pics depicts some antique scene of sodomy or otherwise unnatural vice.

      I put it to you that the purpose for which this individual posesses this image is quite separate from the purpose for which the British museum possesses it - and is clearly for purposes of sexual arousal.

      So... i think the argument is makeable...though whether a court would accept it is another matter.

      as for detail, i spend half my life reading through legislative detail. Do you?

  25. King Jack
    WTF?

    @ Kevin Elliot

    There are laws governing computer games. Violent games unsuitable for children carry an Adult or Teen rating. Parents who decide to allow their offspring access to these are breaking the law. Same with movies.

    1. kevin elliott

      How?

      Just tell me how, as a parent, I can keep reasonable control over what my kids get exposed to at other kids houses? On hand held games at school?

      And what if the generally applicable standards of age restrictions are not suitable for my kids, precisely because of the content of the games and what it does to them.

      And I remember, as a teenager, doing things I wasn't allowed to.... Pubs, X movies.... All behind my parents backs.... Guess you did/are doing the same. Only things in those days were nowhere near as bad. Or as violent.

      And my kids are doing the same, but with really bad effects, precisely because of those violent games, that are legal fo their age, even though I won't have them in the house. I guess you'll learn first hand, one day. .

  26. david 12 Silver badge

    Picture is gone now

    "Featured prominently on the page publicising this series is a picture of the Warren Cup" Not any more (unless that site only works with new browsers)

    1. Chris Miller

      Still there

      It's a daily series, so they've moved on to less 'controversial' items, you've just got to work back to Monday's - see here (possibly NSFW):

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sfgxd

      for the offending pic. Oh dear, I suppose I'll have to go down to the local nick and turn myself in, now ...

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Write to your MP

    Write to your Member of Parliament!

    http://www.writetothem.com/

    Point out the inconsistencies in the law, and remind them that if they have any nude baby photos, then the law considers them a pedophile. Remember that newsreader Julia Somerville was arrested for having innocent family photos, see:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/julia-somerville-defends-innocent-family-photos-1538516.html

  28. Bernard M. Orwell

    @king Jack

    The PEGI rating system on games is purely voluntary and is not legally enforced and is therefore different to the system used for film.

  29. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    Remember Jonathan King

    Or what was alleged about Michael Jackson. But he's dead so no one seems to mind now.

  30. Semaj
    Big Brother

    a

    Notice that this hasn't been covered by the mainstream press. They really hate the fact that people have been drawing dirty things for as long as there's been something to draw on (loads of cave paintings depict bestiality).

    The media really needs to point out that they are now being prevented from showing pieces of classical "art" because it really is no different from modern porn and therefore the whole thing is so stupid.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Pathetic....

    It's a historical artifact and to attempts to apply "modern attitudes" is ridiculous. In 500 years time, our current attitudes will be placed under the same spotlight and will be rightly ridiculed.

    I wonder what tv producers in the US would make of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_the_militaries_of_ancient_Greece

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