A minor minor correction?
That gives me a minor headache. 
Was going to say, it’s not as if this hasn’t been going on for quite a while. Back home we’d say “wow, the NYT just discovered America”. As brought up in the thread, these sorts of exploitation displays have had many prior iterations, they seem to come and go in waves depending on what’s on the rise as a publicity or distribution tool. USENET, Template-designed sites, P2Ps, -chans, Yahoo Groups, social apps, whatever,
(Just to be clear: there are specific definitions under both statute and case law of what is legal or not legal in this regard – a lot of this falls on the side of the line of, to quote Monty Python: “This, it’s quite nasty. But we can’t arrest you for it.” )
That one is in the “you could not make THAT movie nowadays” column for sure. 'cause even then many could not believe it was made. However…
…that content just did not meet the conditions for that specific crime.
Today, I believe you could go more easily for some category of abuse/endangerment, and I can’t help but believe that even back then depending on where you filmed there could be local law provisions about activity that is harmful to the child’s morals, but yes, the vibe historically has leaned a lot more in the direction of it being the parent/guardian that has the last word and what Stage Mom wants, Stage Mom gets. Has been a bane of child actors/models since there have been child actors/models, Shields’ case tends to attract special attention because of the salaciousness factor but she’s not alone.
That’s the problem. We’ve had laws for many years protecting children from being exploited, and it protects them from everyone but their own parents.
I remember watching some former child actors who spoke out about the problem and have tried to get laws passed to protect kids but I don’t know that they’ve made any progress.
Again, I didn’t post at all clearly: I meant everyone involved in the playboy photo(s). I thought Pretty Baby was a pretty sick environment for a child, but arguably it could have been done without harming her (it wasn’t) but it could have. The playboy thing? Ugh!. Everyone involved in that should have been in prison imho. Mom, the aptly named photographer (gross) and anyone else who thought putting a child in that situation was “art” or just dandy . The same goes for the op. I know what they’re doing hasn’t quite crossed the line (that we know of) yet. It’s so close though it’s ridiculous. Pimping your kids out virtually should be against the law. It’s rather sick and damn greedy.
Oh, but I was referring to the whole sordid saga including that. In that sequence of events, all the published content did not configure the specified elements of a crime, either. Which from here we can look back at it and say “Really? So everyone was like “nothing to see here” (while very much inviting you to look)?” but that’s as much as we can do.
And Happy Birthday, BTW.
Nvrmd
If you’re out of free NYTIMES links for the month, here’s another free take:
The most relevant bit is as follows:
California’s Coogan Act remained unchanged for 61 years until revisions were eventually made in 2000. It is now necessary for a minimum of 15% of a child actor’s earnings to be placed in a trust fund (no longer at the discretion of the judge). Additionally, the 15% must come from the child-actor’s gross income, not their net income, protecting it from being reduced by “management” or “secretarial” fees. Finally, the income earned by a child actor is legally recognized as the child actor’s property. It is no longer the property of their parent or guardian.
Similar laws to California’s were adopted in New York, the film industry’s second-favorite state, where 15% of child actors’ incomes are deposited in what are known as Child Performer Trust Accounts.
Child entertainers are exempt from the federal labor laws created by the Fair Labour Standards Act (FLSA), which means that they are completely dependent on state law to protect them. Unlike California, 17 states have no specific laws for child entertainers, so child actors are protected only by general labor law in most of those states.
So some progress has been made.
Oh, thank you.
I don’t remember a lot of socio/political stuff from back then, but I have trouble believing that having a provocative nude picture of a child in playboy for cry eye didn’t violate some law or other. I’m just assuming the powers that be decided to turn a blind eye 'cause her worthless mom was ok with it. It’s just my opinion, but I remember how horrified the press was with the later movie, which was probably a bit less provocative than the play boy pics. The movie folk and mom tried to hand wave away all the concerns, but it had to have been pretty loud for me to have noticed it back then.
Just to be clear as mentioned earlier upthread – that photoshoot was not a “feature” shoot in an issue of their mainstream mass-market magazine. It was included in a coffee-table-book collection of “artistic nudes” from a number of their contributing photographers, published by Playboy Press in 1976 and AFAIK never reprinted. That said, you may not believe it, but in 1976 the applicable law was only the overall general Miller Test for whether a published work is legally obscene. I am willing to be corrected but I believe the publication was never seriously challenged on those grounds, or if it was it cleared the hurdle, so it remained in the realm of scandalous, but not illegal.
Although the book does turn up for sale from time to time. I think there’s one listed on Amazon right now.
I actually googled that earlier. Though the Google results list a copy for the low, low price of $1,699 when you click through no copy is available. The list of recommendations is filled with well known much worse options that are available, though.
Sadly, you are probably right and I was being overly “optimistic” about what the law was. Like I said I was pretty ignorant about politics and the like back then.