Raises the question, given the rendering power of today’s computers and 3d modeling programs that can create hyper-realistic animation. If an individual were to render and animate a child pornography film approaching realism, say Final Fantasy the Spirits Within quality or higher, would this be illegal? From my understanding, the fetish/sickness itself, albeit disturbing, is not the reason it’s illegal. It’s the fact, that to make child pornography as DrDeth states, a child would have to be abused. Would such a film be covered under the first amendment?
The ban on “virtual child porn” was overturned by the Supreme Court on April 16th of last year. So, in theory, you could legally produce a virtual kiddy porn movie in the style of “FF:SW” – good luck finding a distributor, though!!
Certain aspects of virtual kiddy pron are still illegal, though; for instance, using Photoshop to cut-and-paste a real child’s head onto an adult’s body would be illegal. (One wonders, though, what self-respecting pedophile would get off on a girl with huge tits and a big hairy pussy??)
Oddly enough a similar situation was discussed last night on Law & Orser: SVU. The CEO of a Web porn company took shots of legal aged girls and used some photo software (“The same kind of software used to age kids on the back of milk cartons” says the forensic computer scientist) to make them look younger (ie underage).
The law said this was not illegal and not child porn because no one under the age of 18 was photographed. Even a story they published on their site that showed how to kidnap and rape a young girl was not illegal because the girl photographed was of age and the story itself was covered under the First Ammendment.
So, IANAL but I do trust the law cited in Law & Order (which escapes me)…from what I can tell child porn is only child porn if there were actual underaged children photographed. Photographing children in a “sexual” way is abuse. So I suppose DrDeth is right. A child has to be abused (at least by photographing them in a sexual way) in order for it to be considered child porn. Fake child porn, no matter how realistic it may be, is not illegal
That link is enlightenting and re-assuring (from a pro First Amendment, not a pro kiddy-porn standpoint).
But I recall a case in Ohio last year where an individual on parole from a sex crime conviction had his parloe stripped and was sent to prison to serve his full sentence for writing fictional accounts of child pornography in his diary (albeit with himself as a character).
I dont recall the cites, or the laws but I remember the prosecuter quoted as saying something along the lines of fiction depicting child pornography, or over-age models posing as children were criminal acts.
Well, the strictures placed on parolees are quite different than completely free citizens. Parole boards can require almost anything of their charges as a condition of their freedom. For a sex criminal, revisiting the urges that led them to their crime is often a stipulated no-no.
I remember a thread about this a while ago. One person brought up an interesting point. Say you’re 14 and really bored, and you decide to take a picture of yourself naked in a sexual manner. If you keep this picture until you’re older (like 30), and the cops find it on you, can you get into trouble? I don’t exactly remember the answer. Intersting to think about, though.
How real does “rendered and computer animated” child porn look? Can anyone cite a non-kiddie porn example?
Why don’t adult porn makers use this technology to avoid having to pay performers? or even regular movie producers? Or is the production expense more than what they would pay the actors?
Because it costs millions of dollars. For Final Fantasy to get produced, it cost well over 100 million dollars (around 140 I believe). I doubt any porn company has enough money on hand to do this.
well, there has been some speculation that eventually compter animators will be able to create photo-realistic “synthespians” and that the potential is there for actors to be superceded from the film-making process, but I find that all quite unlikely.
as for right now think Gollum and Jar Jar, and thats on two of the most expenisive pics of all time. but theoretically give it a few years and we will all be able to create photo-realistic animation on our Powerbooks.
Apos
now that I think about it i think that was the point, that the guy had violated his parole, though i must admit it still seemed eerily too much like a “thought-crime” to me. his lawyers arguement was, if i recall correctly, that this fictional release helped him keep his urges under control. who knows?
And they are mostly run by people who, whatever else they may be, would have their qualms about stuff based on children (as opposed to teenagers). They have enought trouble already. Plus few if any legit FX shops care to get openly involved with even straightahead adult-porn (and those that do are basically the one-guy-with-a-G4 type)… Sadly, the real C-P producers (a) find it dirt-cheap and (b) have no moral or public-opinion scruples about it, to exploit real children.
In any case, if we eventually get virtualized porno I hope someone pays a nice royalty to Ginger Lynn Allen to re-create her circa-1986 self
The content of many Anime and Hentai games, comics and cartoons suggests that fictional child pornography is legal in many places. AFAIK there’s been no actual ban on it in Britain or the States, although that may just be through ignorance - many polititians are utterly ignorant of popular culture unless someone tells them about it.
There is a bizarre virtual porn site made using ‘Poser’ the site is very disturbing, not from a picture quality point but from the idea that someone’s head came up with the things in the page. The images put the concept of that violence in my head though it is not nearly the same as seeing the real thing - nor nearly as disturbing.
As for CG ‘Thespians’ - I’ve helped make one that’s been running for over a year, we’ve had 15 or so animators and about 20 other lighting, modelling, rendering/texturists, directors and TDs on-board - It’s exceptionally resource-hungry and hard work.
Virtual Child Porn will appear in Poser-like unrealism in increasing ammounts as sex offenders realise there’s a way to express their feelings towards children without hurting or contacting children. I don’t think this will reduce child abuse levels but may even help flag people who are pedophiles but not yet child abusers.
Ccomputer generated virtual child porn of Toy Story quailty will not be in the hands of 1-person-and-his-PC for a very long time. The combined skills required to produce such quality are very very rarely found in a single human and it will be a program like Poser that has point and click child model creation that will remain the staple of the child pornographer.
I think this is one of those cases where the Supreme Court, anticipating advances in technologies, made a pre emptive ruling on whether such a virtual movie would be protected speech, even though the situation hasn’t really come up yet.
