From: mike@batpad.lgb.ca.us (mike batchelor)
Newsgroups: ca.politics,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Phil Ronzone says he looks for dirty pictures (Was Re: ...harassing calls)
Date: 14 Sep 92 04:26:03 GMT
Organization: The Batchelor Pad

farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:
>
> In article <mike02512920808220543@batpad.lgb.ca.us> mike@batpad.lgb.ca.us (mike batchelor) writes:
> >phil@netcom.com (Phil Ronzone) writes:
> (I've deleted a lot to cut down the size of the post.)
> 
> >> When the yahoo responded with a rude fuck you -- I told my boss (who enjoyed
> >> the choicer specimens of abpe). When he saw the latest work posted ( a .dl
> >> of two young boys sucking a pony) he turned white -- quite an achievment
> >> cosnidering he's asian.
> >> 
> >> Do YOU think it is O.K. to post such things (i.e., the .dl) from a company's
> >> systems? I don't.
> 
> >Personally I am not interested in pornography - it's boring.  I have
> >absolutely no objection at all to anyone wanting to look at it, or
> >whack off to it, and I am certainly not going to tell anyone what is
> >good pornography, what is bad pornography, and what is appropriate
> >pornography.  It's just a picture.  Your soul is not captured by the
> >camera, once the image is made it is made.  Without question the act
> >of making the boy/pony picture should be illegal, but the picture itself
> >is JUST A THING NOT AN ACT, you anthropological throwback!!
> 
> Far be it from me to agree with anything Ronzone writes, but this is
> not how child pornography is viewed.  In a Supreme Court ruling
> (Ferber 1982), the court found such pornography harmful in part
> because it constituted "a permanent record of children's participation
> and the the harm to the child is exacerbated by circulation."  So, I
> wouldn't be surprised if not only making the boys/pony photo but also
> just circulating it is illegal.  (Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.)

I'm not a lawyer, either.  I wasn't addressing the legal aspect of the
distribution of the picture.  If you want to get nit-picky, almost
everything posted to a.b.p.e is is violation of someone's copyright.

I completely disagree with the SC ruling you mentioned.  A person who
merely distributes or possesses a photo like the boy/pony image has
hurt no one, and has contributed nothing to a crime which has already
taken place.  I don't think that a photo like that even constitutes
proof that a crime has been committed, especially if it is in
electronic form.  It is within the realm of possibility to completely
fake such an animation on a lowly IBM PC.  It's a routine matter for
anyone with some graphics skills to fake something like that on a high
end graphics workstation.  Transferred to videotape, you could not
tell the difference between a forgery, and a live scene.

Marina Sirtis of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" fame is suing Event
Horizons BBS for distributing a faked GIF of her and William Frakes
(Cdr. Riker) engaged in intercourse.  As much as I admire Marina, and
I sympathize with her distress, I don't think she has a leg to stand
on.  The faked image is very well done, and except for the incongruous
expressions on their faces, I could not tell that it was not genuine.
I don't think there is any way to tell where the faces were taken from,
so there can be no proof of copyright or licensing violations.

The point of all this is that I do not think that photographic
evidence is sufficient any longer to prove that a crime has been
committed.


[] ---
[] Mike Batchelor -- mike@batpad.lgb.ca.us
[] Long Beach, California
Xref: sparky ca.politics:7501 ca.environment:874