CyberLaw Blog

Archive for the ‘possession’ Category

Comment: The other face of ‘Digital Britain’ – politics.co.uk

Julian Petley, professor of Film and Television at Brunel UniversityJulian Petley, professor of Film and Television at Brunel University

Monday, 26, Jan 2009 08:02

A while back, British newspapers were harrumphing about the Australian government banning Aboriginals from accessing pornography, as a knee-jerk response to a report showing high levels of sexual abuse of Aboriginal children. What they signally failed to notice, however, was that one of the nineteen new offences announced in New Labour’s 54th criminal justice bill since it came to power was the possession of what it calls ‘extreme pornographic images’. Those found guilty risk three years in gaol, or a hefty fine, or both. They will also be put on the sex offenders register, and thus have their lives wrecked.

In spite of a concerted three-year campaign against this measure, and great swathes of the bill being dropped as it passed through parliament, the anti-porn clauses not only remained in the bill but were actually widened in scope. This can only be regarded as a direct smack in the faces of those like Backlash, the Spanner Trust, Index on Censorship and a considerable number of academics, who had the temerity to object to it in the first place, and a clear warning that the government intends to intimidate and criminalise not only the entire BDSM community but very considerable portions of the DVD/video-owning and website-visiting communities as well.
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U.K. Shifts Toward Censorship: “While U.S. citizens possess free speech by constitutional right, U.K. subjects must go cap in hand to representatives of our constitutional monarchy to check what we are — and are not — permitted to see, say, read or view.”

(Via XBIZ.com | News & Articles.)

Could you get arrested for owning a graphic novel? | Coffee House

Wednesday, 28th January 2009
Could you get arrested for owning a graphic novel?
William Blackstock 5:27pm

Film adaptations of graphic novels such as Zack Snyder’s 300 and the upcoming Watchmen mean that graphic novels are growing ever more popular. They’re not just in dingy comic book shops anymore but on the shelves in Waterstones and Borders. So is it right that they are now under threat by government anti-pornography legislation?

There are two bills in parliament at the moment that, if successful, could make the possession of ‘extreme pornographic images’ an offence.

An ‘extreme image’ is defined in The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act as one that is ‘grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character’. So far, so good, right? That all sounds normal enough, but there¹s a sting in the tail for unsuspecting readers of the graphic novel: ‘and a reasonable person looking at the image would think that any such person or animal was real.’ There¹s a similar set of rules for child pornography. So, in a nutshell, if it looks like it¹s real (i.e. it¹s well drawn), then you can be prosecuted for owning it.

Fans of Frank Miller’s Sin City probably have little to fear; his stark high-contrast black and white panels are explicitly violent yet a far cry from ‘realistic’. If, on the other hand, you prefer Alan Moore¹s Lost Girls or even Neil Gaiman¹s Sandman, you may be in for a shock. In an interview with MTV here, Gaiman said (of the similar US PROTECT Act):

‘I wrote a story about a serial killer who kidnaps and rapes children, and then murders them, we did that as a comic, not for the purposes of titillation or anything like that, but if you bought that comic, you could be arrested for it? That¹s just deeply wrong. Nobody was hurt. The only thing that was hurt were ideas.’

I¹ve read the story and it¹s not as explicit as Sin City; is written extremely well; and, even more important than that, is necessary in order to understand the world of Sandman.

Works like Lost Girls really blur the line. Alan Moore¹s story of Alice (from Alice in Wonderland), Wendy (from Peter Pan) and Dorothy (from The Wizard of Oz) talking together of their sexual exploits as adults in 1913 is filled with rich, beautiful language and wonderfully illustrated by Melinda Gebbie but it is erotic in content (Moore himself goes further, saying deliberately that it is ‘pornography’ and rejecting the ‘erotica’ label). It is also, in places, quite uncomfortable to read. But then a huge part of the point of literature, erotic or otherwise, is to challenge our expectations of what is acceptable and what is not.

For the government to step in and say what we can and cannot own, to define the morality of art in that way, is both ludicrous and impossible; especially when it concerns entirely fictional situations with equally fictional artwork.

And where will it all end? If Alan Moore can be censored, then why not Angela Carter or James Joyce in a few bills’ time? Why not Renaissance art? Much better, I think, to let the individual choose what they want to see or read and to censor things for themselves.

Extreme pron vigilantes are after you: “

Or are they?

Just when you thought it was safe to dip your toe back in the waters of internet smut, along comes a bunch of vigilantes who could be about to make life a great deal more worrying. Or perhaps not – read on and make your own mind up.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Deviants, perverts, ‘weirdos’ – who’s going down?:

Opposition rises to extreme porn law

Comment The die is cast. From today, it is illegal to possess ‘extreme porn’ – though exactly what that means, despite two years of debate, is still unclear.…

(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

The Guardian: Police will not target offenders against law on violent porn

• New ban expected to bring just 30 prosecutions a year
• Women’s groups worried by lack of active approach

Rachel Williams, The Guardian, Monday 26 January 2009

Officers will not actively target members of the public to track down those who own violent pornography banned under a new law, police chiefs admitted yesterday.

The law, which comes into effect today, was passed in response to a three-year campaign by the mother of the teacher Jane Longhurst, who was murdered by a man obsessed with hardcore internet pornography.

Its aim, according to the government, is to protect the public from exposure to material which ’should have no place in our society’, and to tackle demand for such images in order to hit supply. On the internet these come almost exclusively from websites hosted abroad, over which Britain has no jurisdiction.

A Home Office-commissioned review of research into the effects of exposure to extreme pornographic material in 2007 found a correlation between the viewing of violent sexual images and pro-rape attitudes among the men surveyed.

But yesterday the justice ministry said it expected to see a only small number of prosecutions a year under the new law, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in jail and makes it illegal to own pornographic material that depicts necrophilia, bestiality or violence that looks life-threatening or is likely to result in serious injury to the breasts, genitals or anus.

Responsibility for implementing the ban will lie with individual police forces, which will receive no extra funding and will not be expected to devote resources to speculative hunts for people viewing extreme pornography.

The policy is in contrast with the investigation of the use of child pornography. At the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre in London, officers monitor file-sharing websites to try to work out who is accessing illegal material.

A statement from the Association of Chief Police Officers said: ‘The police will not be actively targeting members of the public but will be conducting investigations into the unlawful possession of this material where found.’

The justice ministry expects to see about 30 prosecutions a year. It estimates that 10 offenders will be jailed, for an average of six months.

Women’s organisations expressed concern that officers would not search for users of the material unless prompted by specific suspicions or other investigations.

Katherine Rake, director of the Fawcett Society, said: ‘It would make a nonsense of the legislation if there wasn’t proactive policing around it.’

Sandrine Leveque, of Object, which campaigns against the objectification of women, said: ‘Many women’s organisations see this material as a factor in violence against women. For a law to have any effect there needs to be the feeling that you might be caught breaking it, and if that’s not there it does undermine it.’

Liz Longhurst believes her daughter Jane might not have been murdered by Graham Coutts had he not had access to extreme pornographic sites. He had been viewing images depicting strangulation and faked murder and rape before he killed the 31-year-old in 2003.

Longhurst, 77, said she had expected that the implementation of the law would lack teeth and resources, but hoped it would eventually lead to tougher policing of violent pornography.

‘I think it will have a slight effect, but if it doesn’t have a lot of effect it will concentrate the minds of people and possibly they will tighten the law,’ she said.’

Extreme porn law goes live next week – are you ready?: “

Is it or isn’t it? A survival guide to your hard disk

Unless you happen to have been living on Mars for the last year or so, you probably know that next week (January 26 to be precise) it will become a criminal offence (in England and Wales) to possess pictures that the government deems to be ‘extreme porn’. You might also be aware of two diametrically opposed views on this legislation.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Govt uses Obscenity Law to stuff up cartoon sex loophole: “

We Need To Talk About Lisa

New Parliament, new legislation – and time for the government’s favourite pastime of ‘closing loopholes’. This time it’s about even more dangerous pictures, or maybe less dangerous, given that the subject matter is – allegedly – cartoons.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Here we go again…. More nonsense criminal provisions introduced based on previous nonsense provisions. The below provisions were introduced within the Coroners and Justice Bill on 14 January, 2009. Note clauses 48-56.

The following text has been taken from the Explanatory Note for the Coroners And Justice Bill.

For the progress of the Bill see the Parliament pages.

The Bill itself can be accessed here.

Note also the Ministry of Justice pages on the Coroners and Justice Bill.

Clause 48 and Schedule 10: Encouraging or assisting suicide: providers of information society services

332. Clause 48 and Schedule 10 ensure that the provisions outlined in clauses 46 and 47 above are consistent with the UK’s obligations under the E-Commerce Directive.

333. Schedule 10 ensures that providers of information society services who are established in England, Wales or Northern Ireland are covered by the offence of encouraging or assisting suicide even when they are operating in other European Economic Area states. Paragraphs 4 to 6 of the Schedule provide exemptions for internet service providers from the offence in limited circumstances, such as where they are acting as mere conduits for information that is capable, and provided with the intention, of encouraging or assisting suicide or are storing it as caches or hosts.

Clause 49: Prohibited images

334. Subsection (1) creates a new offence in England and Wales and Northern Ireland of possession of a prohibited image of a child.

335. Subsections (2) to (8) set out the definition of a “prohibited image of a child”. Under subsection (2) in order to be a prohibited image, an image must be pornographic, fall within subsection (6) and be grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character. The definition of “pornographic” is set out in subsection (3). An image must be of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or mainly for the purpose of sexual arousal. Whether this threshold has been met will be an issue for a jury to determine. Subsection (4) makes it clear that where (as found in a person’s possession) an individual image forms part of a series of images, the question of whether it is pornographic must be determined by reference both to the image itself and the context in which it appears in the series of images.

336. Subsection (5) expands on subsection (4). It provides that, where an image is integral to a narrative (for example a mainstream or documentary film) which when it is taken as a whole could not reasonably be assumed to be pornographic, the image itself may be not be pornographic, even though if considered in isolation the contrary conclusion would have been reached.

337. Subsection (6) and (7) provide that a prohibited image for the purposes of the offence is one which focuses solely or principally on a child’s genitals or anal region or portrays any of a list of acts set out in subsection (7).

338. Subsection (8) provides that for the purposes of subsection (7) penetration is a continuing act from entry to withdrawal.

339. Subsection (9) requires proceedings to be instituted by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

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What else do you expect from the Daily Mail?

Protesters say it’s their right to watch sadistic porn. Tell that to the mother of the girl murdered by a man addicted to it… | Mail Online

By Lorraine Fisher,Last updated at 1:33 AM on 03rd January 2009