I believe it would count. As would running age progression software in reverse on an adult to obtain what looks like a child’s image. It’s about intent.
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my nudie pics
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
“Using the image of a (real) minor in the creation of obscene material through manipulation” of the image is an offense in and of itself and has been for a while. Not necessarily *called * by the words “Child Pornography” per se but gets you in a similar kind of trouble. As long as the likeness of an actual minor is in the pornographic scene, you may be nailed for that.
This one is trickier as it lands in the world of “virtual” porn and SCOTUS has esentially said, if there’s no child, you can’t call it Child Pornography. IF the material fails the Miller Test then you’d have an offense of “obscene material *appearing *to depict a minor” which apparently is a hassle to prosecute having been narrowed quite a bit after those court findings.
I’m no lawyer but it seems to me that if they can get you for soliciting a minor when the person whom you solicited is not a minor then they can get you for “kiddie porn” even if no actual children were exploited in its creation.
The flip side of this is the Traci Lords case where her videos were deemed child pornography, because she was probable 15 or 16 when most of them were filmed. even though they were of zero interest to actual pedophiles. I knew a guy who worked at a video rental place and he told me that the feds came in and asked to see an inventory of their adult material to see if there was any of her stuff on the shelves. I wonder if they would have visited some schlub if it was rented out at the time.
I think under such circumstances someone should not be prosecuted unless there is clear intent to possess child porn as opposed to intent to possess adult porn that, unbeknownst to him, actually contains a child.
As for the “virtual” stuff, the Potter Stewart line comes to mind. It’s all pretty disgusting.
They’ve certainly tried to get them for that, but the courts have spoken. And really, if virtual kiddy porn (with no actual children involved) is outlawed, it opens up some huge can of worms, since age of a cartoon character isn’t well-defined. If you use a live model, then it’s illegal if she’s 17 years and 364 days, but legal if she’s 18 years: A bright line test is possible. But how do you distinguish between a cartoon character who’s 17 years 364 and one who’s 18? What if the characters aren’t human: Is it illegal to depict Kes from Star Trek Voyager, who’s only seven years old but fully adult? Is it legal to depict a seventy-year-old elf who won’t attain adulthood until 120? What if the seventy-year-old elf happens to look just like a twelve-year-old human?
Is it really illegal to look at a picture of a topless 17 year old? I haven’t seen the pictures in question so I don’t know if the underage person was topless or naked, but does it make a difference?
If it doesn’t make a difference what should I do? I’ve seen that old version of Romeo and Juliet with a topless 15 year old in it.
It’s illegal if it’s for purpose of causing sexual arousal, so your defense would hinge on showing that it’s for some other purpose. It’s hard to imagine what that other purpose would be, in this context.
Which would seem a bit silly if the Age of Consent in that particular state (and many of them have done so) is 16.
I don’t see the problem.
- Guy who hacked the account and stole and distributed is a thief that needs to go to jail.
- Sites that distribute the photos are aiding and abetting. They can’t prevent their membership from uploading them, but they CAN delete the posts and the accounts of those who do so, which is what they should do.
- People who look at the photos are either exhibiting normal human curiousity or are doing it for sexual purposes. Not criminals in either event.
- The women who took the photos are female human beings. They like sex, and engage in sexy behavior, like the rest of us, which includes taking photos of themselves being sexy and distributing them to whomever they like. They are not sluts or whores or anything else, they’re normal women. No shame or opprobrium should be attached to their behavior.
- Saying it’s the celebs’ fault that their photos were stolen is blaming the victim, pure and simple.
- I have not seen the photos, having very little prurient interest in celebrities, but nothing in them leads me to believe that any of them portray something that is in fact shameful, like rape, child abuse or bestiality. I understand Kelli Maroney claims she took the pics when she was underage, but I’m assuming she wasn’t VERY underage when she took them. In any event, she kept them private, did not distribute them, so no opprobrium for her either … it’s all on the thief.
All of this seems like simple common sense to me, what’s all the fuss about?
You pretty much nailed it, Evil Captor. From my perspective, none of these women, among the ones I’d heard of anyway, is on my “people I’d like to see naked” list, with the possible exception of Ms. Upton. In her case, enough of her epidermis is out there, with her consent, that it hardly seems worth the effort to track down the last couple of percentage points.
What I find strange is the news reports claiming the distribution of the McKayla Maroney (where did “Kelli” come from?) pictures is child abuse. No child is, or was, abused in this case.
Mental slip on my part. Could have been worse … could have called her “Boney Maroney.”
The child abuse thing stems from the new modern law enforcement mentality that a child who takes nude pictures of herself and they get discovered – even if she is just under the age of consent, even if it is totally her idea – is a child pornographer and should be prosecuted/jailed. It is insane, of course, but it is real. Maroney could be facing jail time!
“I looked eighteen to me!”
“You should have gone to the trouble to make up a phony drivers license and show it to yourself, young lady!”
The most obvious one in this case would be the one I will freely cop to. I wanted to see the pics so I could have an intelligent conversation about them. It’s really hard to discuss this sort of thing based on rumors and bad reporting. I also had no intent whatsoever of downloading any underage pics, and don’t plan on keeping them.
I’ll also point out something I learned recently. Thora Birch was 16 when she showed her uncovered breasts in American Beauty. And, while it may have in-universe not have been about titillation, it sure was from the perspective of a Hollywood movie.
BTW, it’s not one thief. That report was inaccurate, apparently started by someone who thought 4chan was a single person. The hacking and distribution were handled by a group on the so-called “Dark web.” I posted an updated version of what happened somewhere (in response to someone else who had already given part of it.) I guess there has been more than one thread on this.
The leak had absolutely nothing to do with shaming anyone. It was a ring of people sharing novel naked celebrity pictures, many of them from hackers. There was even bitcoin involved. The guy who leaked the Jenifer Laurence pics said he’d leak more if people paid him, and he got a not-insignificant amount of money for it.
Finally, the thing I came in to share: This is so bad that 4chan has now finally added a DMCA policy. This is a place that where trolls will bomb child porn, but this ordeal is what actually got them worried.
Also, here’s another bit of info I stumbled upon, showing the software these “hackers” used. Apparently they’re just script kiddies (people who don’t know how to hack but just used pre-made tools), which doesn’t surprise me in the least once I learned they used 4chan. (Anonymous is also full of script kiddies.)
Apparently, breaking into people’s iCloud account is not all that hard at all, and the lack of a breach means nothing if these people had easily brute-forcible passwords.
The more I learn about this, the less and less surprised I am that this sort of thing happened. With these tools, why wouldn’t there be a sort of digital TMZ that uses photos from hacking instead of paparazzi?
Well if it’s a group the odds that the perpetrators will be caught go up tremendously.
She was 17 and the scene was played for titillation. To this day I still don’t understand how, even with “parental permission,” that it was legal.
Someone in Hollywood convinced the feds that it was “necessary for artistic purposes”, or some such.
Because a minor being nude or being in a titillating scene or one with sexual connotations is just not *per se * illegal. There’s more to the test than that.