Once again we see how well the “zero tolerance” kind of policy works. Ugh.
When I worked at the Wal-Mart photo lab, we were told to use our judgment. Since anyone standing near the printer could see the photos coming out, I based this on what I felt a child shouldn’t see. And everything had to be considered in context. I had no problem with artistic nudes, or shots for medical purposes, but generally wouldn’t print anything involving a sex act, or that was extemely graphic.
Unless something was obviously illegal, the police would never have been called and the customer would have their negatives returned without the pictures being printed. And only the police would have held the negatives, not the store.
One of my co-workers would often go ahead and print the pictures of naked adults, but would crop out the “naughty-bits”. To my knowledge, no one ever worked up the nerve to complain anout that.
Now about the case in question, it sounds to me like the employee used bad judgement, but erred on the side of caution. The police should have told them there was nothing wrong with the pictures when they got there.
** Enderw24**, I don’t mean to single you out here as there are several other posters that are expressing your sentiments in this thread, but your post seemed to best sum up what is a ridiculous stance.
First of all, the “potential child pornographer” crack is emotionally charged and farcical. Are we to believe that the film developer is completely incapable of telling the difference between innocent pictures of children doing kid stuff and pictures of exploited minors in sexually charged situations? Bullocks.
Now, I am forced to agree with you that 75K in actual damages seems a bit high, but in this case I am not sorry to see someone suing a company.
This whole attitude of “well, too fucking bad, you surrendered your privacy when you gave them your film” is crap. I do not think that it is an unreasonable expectation of a mother to think that she can take the kind of photos of her kids that parents have been taking of their children since the advent of the camera and not get hauled in front of the cops.
Honestly, I would have liked to have seen this end with the cop showing up and looking at the photo and then charging Wal-Mart with wasting their time (or just rubber hosing to dipshit who called).
<total hijack>Ferret Herder, is it possible that you posted this story some other place and that I read it? I am getting the strongest feeling of DejaVu when I read it.,<total hijack>
I am neither a film processor nor a child pornographer, so I’m not sure how well I can argue this. I’m not in the habit of looking at naked kids so I couldn’t really tell you which photos were innocent and which were exploitative.
I would think that if a child pornographer got off on naked pictures of kids, pretty much any picture of a naked kid would do it.
I’m not saying that parents shouldn’t be allowed to take pictures of their kids. I’m saying
- if you’re going to do it, make sure the film developers will actually develop your film or go someplace else.
- when you hand over your pictures to be looked at by a complete stranger, don’t be surprised when that complete stranger looks at your pictures. You’ve given up your sense of privacy on this issue.
I did read the link.
Their policy, whatever others may think of it, is not print photos containing nudity. So she should have taken her film elsewhere for development. It’s not like we have a “right” to one-hour photo development down at the Wal-Mart.
Also,
Sounds like a reasonable policy to me.
How would a photo clerk know that the topless picture of the girl in the swimming pool was that of her own daughter, and that the man in the picture was the girl’s father? To a lesser degree, the same thing with the naked bottom laying on the floor. The clerk has again no way of knowing if the child depicted is the woman’s child, or relative, or if the woman is a babysitter, nurse, or nanny. Sure, it could be a photo taken after a bath or diaper changing, or it could be a photo taken after something really creepy happening.
So Wal-Mart takes a policy erring on the side of caution. What’s wrong with that?
Oh for fuck’s sake, milroyj.
You mean to tell me when you were a kid your parents never took at least one picture of you in the tub, or running around sans diaper?
But what about the children? Won’t somebody think of the chiiildren? :rolleyes:
This whole issue is crap. The concept that even a simpleton can not tell the difference between snapshots of her kids taken by some soccer mom and child pornography is laughable.
The $75,000 in actual damages is odd . . . show of hands, do you think she (a) actually ordered 150,000 prints of her naked daughter, or (b) couldn’t find a lawyer willing to take on a $12 lawsuit
And then some soccer mom will sue Wal-Mart for not sticking to their policy after her neighbor is discovered whacking off to pics of her half-naked kids that he shot with a telephoto lens through their windows or over the backyard hedge.
Exactly my point.
Mom taking pictures of naked toddler in the pool = family memories
Boo Radley next door taking pictures of (same) naked toddler in the pool = child porn
Wal-Mart doesn’t want to put themselves in the position of having to guess which is which, so they don’t develop nude photographs. (Notice, not just photos of nude children, but no photos of nudity in general.)
Their policy makes sense, in a real world way. So why all the outrage?
Hypermoralism? Sounds like good business, and common, sense.
YMMV.
Oh and Guin, for fuck’s sake yourself. :rolleyes:
Seems to me this arguement goes hand in hand with "I’m not doing anything wrong, I don’t care if the Govt searches my car/taps my phone/whatever.
Anyone who defends this action by Wal-Mart as proper and correct scares me.
GAH! If you don’t like Wal-Mart’s policies, don’t freaking shop there.
Wal-Mart is not the government.
If they don’t want to develop pictures with nudity, don’t take your film with nudity there. Go somewhere else. What is the problem?
Missed seeing this previously - I’ve probably posted it here before as an example in a thread where it was relevant. (Well, hopefully relevant. 
)
Wal-Mart is a buisness and as a buisness can be sued.
I dealt with this issue when working for a very large ISP. The policy of the ISP I worked for was simple. No Nudes! No emails with nudes, no websites with nudes. Nothing with nudes. If you were reported for sending email with nudes or posting nudes you were either warned or banned. The outcome depended on what was emailed or posted. If the photo was kiddie porn the FBI was alerted. (Note, the company did not seek out those sending nudes, we just acted when the emails or the users sites were reported)
This seems like a simple and reasonable thing to me. Big companies are open to lawsuits. They need to protect themselves. If a kiddie porn schmuck got busted and it was found out that he developed his film at Wal-Mart then Wal-Mart has a huge legal mess on it’s hands. So Wal-Mart isn’t going to go there. Simple answer.
** Weirddave**,
This
doesn’t make any sense. We are not talking about the government in any way. We are talking about a policy by a company. I could understand your point if Wal-Mart reported all customers that tried to develop nude pictures to the government but that isn’t the case.
Please explain.
Slee
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by milroyj *
**GAH! If you don’t like Wal-Mart’s policies, don’t freaking shop there.
[quote]
**
Yes, but in a lot of places, Wal-Mart is the only game in town.
**
No, it’s a private company. However, the police got called, and the police is the government.
Again, in a lot of places, Wal-Mart is the only game in town. It’s not like the residents of Bumblefuck, Iowa have a professional photo lab other than Wal-Mart.
One of the reasons I haven’t taken any bathtub shots of Aaron is because I don’t own a digital camera. I’d rather not risk a visit from the child-welfare authorities asking questions about innocuous pictures that happen to involve a naked baby. I’m not a pornographer, and bathtub pix aren’t intended to titillate. However, I don’t really feel like explaining that to someone with the authority to take my kid away, okay?
My mother has a largish collection of slides taken of me from about the age of 18 months to about 2 1/2 years. Almost every one of those pictures is me, naked. I didn’t like to wear clothes, and most kids go through a stage of taking off their clothes. Back in 1972-73, Mom had no problems getting those photos developed. People took pictures of their kids naked and no one had any problems with that. Those same pictures would probably get her arrested and me put into foster care if they were taken today.
That being said, I think it’s absolutely wrong for any company to establish and enforce its own moral standards on a community, as well as to assume the worst possible scenarios. I’d think that most pornographers would have their own darkrooms so as not to have to deal with commercial photo processors.
Robin
I think it’s really sad that MsRobyn can’t even take a picture of Aaron’s first bath.
Sorry, but use common sense, Walmart!
The Ritz photo place in our mall developes nudes of women and men. We’ll see if they have a problem with nudes of babies and toddlers.
Frankly, I agree that the fact you don’t feel comfortable taking a picture of your son’s first bath is pretty sad. Not on your part, of course, but sad that our society has gotten to that point where such a thing would be questionable by anyone.
However, Wal-Mart is NOT “establishing and enforcing” its own moral standards on a community. It’s running a business, sellings goods and services, to make a profit. It is not enforcing anything.
If the community disagrees with the photo policy, and enough people stop using that service, the photo lab will close. If people are in such disagreement with Wal-Mart’s “moral standards” that they won’t shop at Wal-Mart at all, the whole store will close.
Even in Bumblefuck, IA, there are other options. Doesn’t the local drugstore also offer photo processing? Can’t you get the film developed next time you drive over to East Bumblefuck, where there is a KMart or a drugstore that will? You can get film developed by mail. They often have an insert in the Sunday newspapers.
It’s not like Wal-Mart is refusing to sell food to homeless, armless, legless orphans because of their race, religion, ethnicity, sex, whatever.
They don’t process film containing nudity. That’s it.
I worked for 6 months as the One Hour Photo Girl at the local CVS. Yes, I had coworkers who would make “extra” copies of pictures they found “interesting” (read, “dude, this chick’s nekid!”) Not only would he make copies, but he’d make sure that most of the rest of the store employees saw them too.
We also had a policy that just nudity was up to the technicians comfort level - if what was coming off the machine was something you didn’t want to see, you didn’t have to develop it. Pictures of sex acts we weren’t supposed to print, and were to let the store manager know about and deal with. Anything that was suspected of being child pornography was to be given to the manager immediately and he would follow corporate policy in contacting the authorities, etc.
This was in North Carolina, and in my experience, no one who you’d actually WANT to see naked ever brought their nudes in to be developed 
Nope. A picture of a naked toddler isn’t child porn. It’s the picture of a naked child, period. The fact that someone else than the parents took the pictures, or use it to wack off is irrelevant. There’s a legal definition of child porn, which in the US, IIRC, refers to something like children engaged in sex acts, or obscene display of the genitals. Someone will certainly know the exact definition.