Extreme porn bill gets final reading

It must be ever so vexing to pass a law that you think will make you the most popular boy in class – only to be greeted by a mass chorus of “you still stink!”. That seems to have been the case with the abolition of the 10p rate of tax, and it may yet come to pass with government legislation on extreme porn. Of course, it isn’ …

[Anonymous Coward]

Something I saw mentioned

Dirty Harry: Magnim Force (the Clint Eastwood in flares film) is now illegal to import from, say, Poland since you won't have the bbfc classified version. The film features lots of naked people, for no other reason than, well lots of naked people yum yum, and most/all of them get shot.

This is the Criminal Justice and Immigration bill we're discussing. Note the fourth word. We can't stop Poles coming into the country but we can throw them out for trying to bring their film collection with them.

[TheThing]

I still don't know...

...whether that extreme lesbian site at www.theregister.co.uk is going to be legal or not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please,

I can live with kinky picutes of leather clad super vixens, but the thought of them being replaced by a fat usless twat (sic) just make me want to puke, that's just so wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

A picture of Gordon Brown?

I don't remember consenting to his dominance over me - does that make a picture of him obscene?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm all for this law...

I'm all for this law if it means Rupert Murdoch and all his crap-spewing minions at News International will get banged up - ooer, missus - for publishing images of Max Mosely and his, ahem, downtime activities in the Screws of the World.

[Richard]

You've been hit by... You've been struck by...

...a thought criminal

Looks like we're getting ever closer to an Orwellian nightmare, people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tetragrammaton Council

I, for one, welcome the incineration of all EC-10 materials. Now, where did I leave my Prozium?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Almost) Naked Ladies

Does this mean that The Sun will have to drop it's Page 3 girls?

Will all the ladies in bikinis on the beach (or where ever) have to cover up just incase someone photographs them?

Will they have to wear Victorian style swimwear?

[Richard]

Here we go then

Oh, and according to the Beeb it's now been passed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/7389476.stm

[Smallbrainfield]

I can't imagine anything worse than browsing images on a BDSM website

and coming across a picture of Gordon Brown...

(well somebody had to make the gag. Gag... I'll get me coat.)

[Chris Wood]

ePetition

There's an ePetition on the 10 Downing Street website to remove the offending section of this bill here:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/extreme-images/

[Al]

Badly thought out legislation

This new law is a badly thought out piece of vote-grabbing legislation hanging on the coat tails of one family's tragic loss. It's unlikely to save a single life, but has the potential to create thousands upon thousands of new criminals and cost millions in enforcement.

As the (proud?) possessor of a mint copy of Madonna's masturpiece, it gladdens my heart to read that it's both illegal and worth a bit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Face it !

In a short time "The Law" will be passed.

DON'T THINK OR DO BAD THINGS

Of course they decide what "Bad Things" are....from moment to moment.

[Mike Crawshaw]

Gordon Brown Picture??

Gotta be illegal under this. I certainly consider any picture of him to be:

*"grossly offensive": check

*"disgusting": check

*"otherwise of an obscene character": double check

and seeing as these are some of the oh-so-well-defined parameters to be used, well, we can look forward to never seeing a picture of him again. Worth it just for that, surely*?

*oh, ok. "no it's not, and don't call me Shirley!"

[Stephane Mabille]

Amnesty???

Amnesty to go to the police station and give up "illegal" pictures?

How do you do that exactly? Copy all your legal files to a new hard disk, remove the current one and drop it at your nearest police station???

John Beyer is probably more used to NRA meetings.... files, contrarily to guns are easy to duplicate and to delete.... so handing a copy (or the original) of a file doesn't prove that you don't possess it any more.

I recommend to John Beyer to stick to guns and bibles distribution/collection/amnesty and keep his religion out of laws and out of my bed...

[Vortigern]

DANGER: Boob

How on earth can a picture be dangerous? .. life isn't a horror movie where you watch something and end up dead in 7 days.

Sounds like they've got it from AOL with there child "safety" adverts, as if a kid sees a nipple it will spear out of the screen and through their chest

[bbchops]

hello.jpg

So will this law make goatseing people a crime punishable by jail time? I don't think that's a world I could live in.

[Anonymous Coward]

ascci art

Does it count if I render it with aalib?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow...

"Separately, moves are under way to set up a website to be known, provisionally, as “the English Index”. This is modelled on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum which was, for several centuries, a list of books that the Catholic church considered it a sin for Catholics to read."

Everybody now - "And I'm prouuuud to be an Amerrrican, where at least I know I'm freeee..."

I mean, you just can't make stuff like that up. And the organizations which ARE on your side are only opposed to this law because it isn't CLEAR what kind of simulated images of activities between consenting adults are banned? The idea that you're being prevented by the government from even *thinking* about certain things which harm no-one isn't a little off-putting?

Absolutely gobsmacking.

[Anthony Sanford]

So who do we ask if somthing is legal?

So how are we the 'Public' meant to check if an image is legal?

Do we take it down the local nick and get arrested if it isn't legal.

This is a stupid law, I think we should all take piles of magazines down to the local police station and go over every image with them so we will know if the images are legal.

[Owen Carter]

PS:

I got my date wrong. In fact May 10th (two days away) is the correct date.

http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/bibliography/index.php?content=1933_bookburning

[Owen Carter]

Been done before..

"But there may be a need for an amnesty, during which the public are able to hand in any material that could be considered a crime to possess."

I know, why don't the authorities just organise outdoor sessions where we could burn them, say on the solstice. We could have a real "Säuberung" by fire then.

Pillock.

I've got my coat, will the last one out please turn off the lights.

[Anonymous Coward]

@smallbrainfield

That was literally was it? Coming across Gordon Brown.

Still it wipes up.

Playmobile pics please, Gordon, Jacqui and the party whip?

No joke alert, it's not funny, Retching for England.

[Matt]

Viz

Wasn't it in Viz? "Extreme porn is anything over a tenner."

Will this mean that Max Mosley's entire life is ruled illegal?

[David]

Not Very Well Thought Out :(

I have to say, I can see why most people would agree that true extreme porn needs to be banned.

From reading other sources on the net the main areas covered are:

beastiality

necrophelia

torture

unconsenting sex

Now to be fair, those things really shouldn't be going on should they? Other than the dead people, at least one party from each suffers, so it would make sense to try and stop the production of such material. By making it illegal they hope that demand will be cut and so in turn will production.

However, what a load of bollocks. As with every law, it requires "ethics" of those abiding by it. Those who have "ethics" wouldn't be looking at someone doing interesting things to a corpse anyway, but might quite happily have a ham shank to a nice bit of lesbian porn and bang their partner with a big fat strap on. Those who couldn't give a damn about the law, and want to look at such images, will do so. This new law won't stop them, and so the demand will likely stay constant.

I have 2 problems with the new law. Firstly the above, the government really are brain dead if they think that this is a good thing to do. I agree that ideally something needs to be done about stopping production of such genuine material (ie non-concensual sex for at least one party), but this is not the way.

Secondly giving wooly terms such as "offensive" just cannot possibly work. We all know that what I find offensive will almost certainly be different from most of you, so it just can't work, as everyone else has already stated.

And no, I didn't vote for them.

[Graham Marsden]

Freedoms?

Liz Longhurst says that "Sometimes the freedoms of like-minded, decent people have to be curtailed because of a few others"

- Paging Pastor Martin Niemoller...

Oh and here's a good laugh - Under the Law as it now stands, it is not illegal to possess a BBFC classified film as they are "excluded images", but it is illegal to possess "a recording of an extract from a classified work, and it is of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been extracted (whether with or without other images) solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal" because that would not be an "excluded image".

But the BBFC has just given an R18 certificate to a film called "Girls With Guns" which features "sex scenes involving firearms duress" ie the woman is pointing a gun at someone (threatening someone's life) and it's clearly "for sexual arousal", however this will *NOT* be illegal because it is not "an extract from a classified work" as the whole thing is a classified work!

So having a whole *film* full of such material is ok, but taking a clip from a film that only shows a bit of such activity is illegal!

Any chance of a Reality Check here...?

In the mean time, write to your MPs via http://www.writetothem.com and tell them that you want them to support the Select Committee that Lord Hunt hinted might be set up to look again at this ludicrous piece of Thought Crime legislation.

[Ted Treen]

Damn it

When I saw the headline "Extreme porn bill for Lords" I just assumed it was another huge account us poor bloody taxpayers would have to pay....

Paris - 'Cos she says ponography's no use to her, as she doesn't even own a pornograph.

[Elmer Phud]

So, what is art then?

I'm now really confused. Would a picture of an installation by the Chapman Brothers be found to be offensive? one of those that depict some of the less savoury things in life. Would photo's of paintings various versions of hell be unlawful - some of the images of rape and mutilation can be rather disturbing, even though they were painted a long time ago.

Photography as an art form often records some things we'd rather not be reminded of, press photography even more so.

No more pics of naked Vietnamese girls with burnt skin hanging off? -- how convenient.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not Very Well Thought Out :(

But it's the verification issue, isn't it - if you're dealing with fantasy stuff then there are going to be a lot of deliberately-faked or staged images. You can't clap someone in irons for finding arousing a picture of a perfectly healthy person with some grey makeup on pretending to be dead while someone else does rude things to them. Boy, imagine the time that's going to be wasted in the courts trying to figure if some individual on a rack who appears to be undergoing torture was genuinely being abused or was actually having the time of their life. All while some perfectly innocent party with slightly pervy tastes is sitting in a cell.

The 'torture' category there is especially dodgy - define 'torture'? It's not just Gitmo Bay or slippers and pipe with nothing inbetween.

It's all worst case scenario of course but the implications are just terrifying for anyone who is into stronger stuff than Nuts. I'd think Bizarre are going to be very worried.

[Anonymous Coward]

Possession of non extreme images also a crime...

Under 62(4) it looks like you don't need to be in possession of an indecent image to be prosecuted. If you are in possession of an image which was taken from a series, the whole series (including the images you do not possess) can be assessed as extreme porn, then you can be prosecuted for the possession of the non extreme porn images.

Which means that censored versions of non UK publications are also illegal to possess, as you cannot know whether the uncensored version represents extreme material when the image is taken in it's full sequence.

"(4) Where (as found in the person’s possession) an image forms part of a series of images, the question whether the image is of such a nature as is mentioned subsection (3) is to be determined by reference to— (a) the image itself, and ... (b) (if the series of images is such as to be capable of providing a context for the image) the context in which it occurs in the series of images."

They add an example that suggests the series can *reduce* the seriousness of the image, however it cannot. No amount of clothes in one image, can make another image less naked. No *lack* of S&M in one image can make S&M in the image you possess less gory.

Hence the purpose of that clause can only be to turn images that are not of themselves extreme porn, into being classed as extreme by the addition of the content of images from the same series that you do not posses.

It also makes no difference in this law whether you've seen them or not, it does not require that you've seen the extreme images you do not possess for those images to be counted against you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Clarity .......

I remember abuses of the anti-terror legislation, the most notable of which was the ejection of an elderly heckler from the Labour Annual Conference.

Another prominant abuse was the dispersement of the demonstration outside the International Arms Conference at about the same time.

Beware of abuses! We all know that lawyers and 'experts' will argue over the interpretation and the winner is .......... Remember all the Shaken Baby Syndrome miscarriages of justice.

PS I do know an expert witness and I wouldn't trust him with the time of day. He was my technical support on a project and he dropped me in the deep doodoo and cost the company a lot of money.

[Armitage]

Soz posted in worng topic

since it appears they passed it, just who on earth are they gonna enforce it

start raiding everyones houses on new years day and remove all their hard drives and media?

As far as im awear (please correct if im wrong) they need reasonable suspetion (hence phorm supplied evidence) to obtain a warrant and enter someone's house to seize the computer equipment. They cant just go knocking on everyone's door asking to see your porn stash

unenforceable imho on its own but something they can add to the terror charge and refusal to submit an encryption key

time to burn/encrypt ur stash

[Jemima Smith]

Legal principles go out the window?

I have always been under the impression that it was a principle of English law that the law should be objective, understandable and accessible to ordinary people. The provisions in the CJIA (as I suppose we should be calling it from tomorrow) relating to "extreme pornography" are none of these things. They are muddled, badly drafted and rely on a subjective assessment of the image in question.

Liz Longhurst's or Martin Salter's assessment of whether an image "is grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character" is probably going to be very different to mine. So how do I know whether an image I may possess will be illegal? In short, I don't and, quite frankly, a law which leaves me in that position should not be passing on to our statute books.

[Jonny F]

What if you have a photographic memory?

Might as well hand your self in now - if you're lucky enough to have seen the legal acts first hand.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another problem with the 'series' clause

There's another problem with this 'series' clause. The clause that lets them take the whole series of images into account when considering if a particular image is extreme pr)n or not.

To recap:

If you possess an image which came from a series, they can consider both the image and the rest of the series in assessing whether it represents extreme pr)n. So you may be in possession of a non extreme image, but if that came from an extreme sequence you can still be committing a crime.

Now, consider this. The ACPO asshole that wants to prosecute you has access to the complete series, but you only have one photo. If the image you possess is borderline, he can strengthen the chance of conviction by adding in the other images as evidence in the charge .. Conversely if the rest of the series *reduced* his chance of conviction, he can go with just the image you possess in his charge.

You could try to obtain the full series to determine if it will help your case. However this would be stupid, since it may turn out that some of the photos in the remainder of the series ARE extreme and in defending yourself you would be committing a crime. So you cannot seek out the remaining images to defeat the charges against you unless you are absolutely sure they will help.

[Alex McKenna]

Labour used to be a freedom kinda party

Murdoch's papers will be immune of course.

Too big. Too powerful.

The law on obscenity has always been vague. This gives the authorities plenty of scope to decide who to raid. This gives them the power they love.

I am even more dismayed with Labour, which used to fight censorship.

Now all they care about is creating office-jobs for pen-pushers. Targets. Watchdogs. League Tables. Reports on Reports. Privatised money-wasters. Endless forms and supervisors instead of investments in trains/schools/health.

The money they've spent on the paperwork for Crossrail so far could have paid for three tube lines by now. Still not one ring of tunnell put in place - in how many years?

Labour needs tearing down and starting again. "Parkinsons Law" explains how it goes wrong.

[Hate2Register]

El Reg is my toss rag.

Hehe.

[Anonymous Coward]

They can take my extreme porn

but only out of my cold, dead, hairy palmed and slightly sticky hands.

[Steve]

I think some people are missing the point

Starting with David and several other posters afterwards.

The legislation makes no reference to whether the images are staged or not.

If they 'appear' to be images of torture, necrophilia, etc... and they are produced for the purpose of sexual gratification (ie they are porn, not art and not the collective works of dante) then you are in the brown stuff.

It doesn't matter if you yourself are in the image and you can categorically prove that you were not actually dead at the time. If the makeup/cgi is good enough to be believable and it's porn, then you're doing 3 years in the big house.

@AC - a series of images means in this context a series of images that you possess.

Not a series as produced by someone, or a series like season one of muffy the vampire shagger.

@Armitage - The first prosecutions we'll see are when people have been charged with some other crime and investigated and their PC's are taken in that process. They will then be charged with this legislation even if the original investigation goes no where.

It's one of those laws that can be reliably used to get a conviction against someone who had actually done little or nothing to attract police interest.

You just have to hope that your neighbours don't have a grudge against you.

[Luther Blissett]

@The Thing

> I still don't know... ...whether that extreme lesbian site at www.theregister.co.uk is going to be legal or not.

Only if Eee Girl continues not being contexturally surrounded by lots more skimily dressed nubilia. Perhaps. No-one really knows. (Discussing her tits and ass and what she might like to do in her spare time are all fine, though).

Hieronymous Bosch? Goya? Titian? That would be "art", mate. Gilbert and George (humongous deconstructions featuring close-ups of bodily fluids)? A bit doubtful, this postmodern stuff to do with The Body. Not to mention taboos, or critiqueing the social construction of taboos.

So this nu labourious revanchist project now exposes the cynical hypocrisy in their attitude to the arts. Of course they would rather have a G&G hanging on their wall than a dart board. They may be challenged, intellectually, morally, sexually, but they know what dosh is. Rather like the average normal 8 yr old compared with the average normal adult.

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before it moves onto Audio?

I have songs by the late, great Shel Silverstein. Not to everyone's taste i know, but great nontheless.

"The Freakers Ball" : necrophiliacs looking for dead ones, master baiters baiting their masters.

And one for "i'm a tough cookie" Jacqui :see Liberated Lady

On second thoughts perhaps she "was stoned and she missed it"

RIP.

[Anonymous Coward]

the law isnt needed

The thing that pisses me off with this stuff, and just about every other Orwellian law Neo-Labour have introduced, is that there are already laws covering it.

Its just headline grabbing from our tosspot politicians. Its already to illegal to have it away with a dead body or a donkey or rape someone, just as it was already illegal to blow up buses, trains and planes before the terror laws appeared, but rather than focusing on enforcing the laws that are already on the books by funding the police properly and advertising awareness of these old laws they instead insert a load of crap ones just to appeal to appeal to idiot tabloid journalists and their readers.

Neo-Labour must go. Now. Before we do end up in 1984. They appear to be some of the most dangerous, power hungry incompetent politicians in the world at present.

Paris Icon because I would vote for her over these twits anyday.

[David Hadley]

Still Legal?

So how long before harmless little pastimes like this:

http://littlefrigging.wordpress.com/2008/03/12/a-sub-postmistress-in-bondage/

or this:

http://littlefrigging.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/village-hall-accountancy-fetish-night/

become illegal too.

I would say that I don't know what this country is coming to, but it seems as though soon it won't be coming at all.

[Steve]

Re: Amnesty???

"Amnesty to go to the police station and give up "illegal" pictures?

How do you do that exactly? Copy all your legal files to a new hard disk, remove the current one and drop it at your nearest police station???"

No, what we do is print out every extreme pornagraphic image we can find and then post them to our MPs/Police Chiefs in clear plastic envelopes.

Thousands upon thousands of copies of tubgirl and goatse dropping onto politicians doormats with a little note saying "For your consideration," could be very amusing.

[SteveMD]

This law will fall and I hope it damages the government when it does.

Let's be clear why there is opposition to this law. Yes the vagueness of the definitions are a major concern, but it is far more than that.

No one opposing this law has argued that "anything goes" and that images of real abuse, bestiality or necrophilia should be legal to own. Though this is all the government argues on, the opposition is mainly about the fact that this law deliberately includes fictional material. Even where the defendant can prove no one was harmed in the making of it.

The government, at first, said it must include fictional material otherwise proving an actual crime took place would be an insurmountable obstacle for the prosecution. That's right you will be assumed guilty, because it may be too difficult to prove that you are.

After being challenged on this, they then changed tack and said that the law was meant to prevent harm caused by merely viewing the images. After much prodding they came up with 'evidence' that merely viewing caused harm.

How? They commissioned well established anti-pornography campaigners, who were known to already support the law, to compile a report called "The Harm of extreme pornography". Obviously they did not want to leave the slightest chance that the conclusion would not be the one they wanted.

After cherry-picking sixty years of research on this subject, in the process ignoring anything which did not support the premise of this law, the reports authors could find no evidence that those making this material are harmed, but that "some of the most sexually aggressive men may be influenced by viewing this material". some of the most aggressive men may be influenced by watching Bambi or reading the Bible or the Koran, but hey this was enough for the government.

From this extraordinarily weak conclusion they extrapolated their opinion that this "influence" could result in the committing of rape and sexual assault. This was the 'smoking gun' the government wanted to criminalise fictional material.

Now we have the situation, where a citizen of England and Wales can have their privacy invaded, be convicted on a sex offence, with all the stigma that caries, and be locked for up to three years, for looking, in private, at images of consenting adults taking part in perfectly legal activities.

Baroness Millar in the Lords debate, said that this constituted "thought crime" and she was right. This is not about what you do, it is about what the government think you are thinking of doing. And they deliberately concocted evidence to show that what they think you are thinking "may" be dangerous.

I can only hope that the anger I have heard expressed over this insane irrational law over the past few days, will be remembered when the next election comes around. Do you want a government that can persuade itself that it is right to lock people up on the grounds of taste alone?

[RW]

The Canadian Index

has been in existence for years. In Canada, formal censorship is imposed only on imports, which are held to a stricter standard than home-brew material. (The main reason for this is to stroke the homophobic attitudes of some eminence grise whose identity remains a mystery.)

I kid you not.

If you snoop around on the Canadian customs website, you will find a lovingly detailed list of the prohibited items, this book, that issue of that magazine, etc.

Indeed, I once had friends in Sodom-by-the-Bay who delighted to send me porn magazines. One was seized and I discovered to my amusement that the Canadian gubmint has a form with a tick box labelled "bestiality." (One can pose the question, but what if the sheep likes it?)

There are two serious objections to this kind of nonsensical legislation:

First, when you criminalize a very wide swath of the population (as with both the anti-porn and anti-grass moves of the Brown faction), the laws simply cannot be uniformly enforced. Mr. Plod Constable therefore enforces them selectively, and, what's worse, arbitrarily. I believe the cry "no arbitrary government" historically has been a call to the barricades in the UK in the past, no?

Second, with the porn bill you end up with the ludicrous situation that depictions of legal acts are illegal, while depictions of illegal acts (murder, high speed chases, etc in movies) are legal. Cognitive dissonance anyone?

Time to STOP this nonsense, this pandering to the bluenose contingent in the electorate. Perhaps it's time to get pictures of Comrade Brown in bra and fishnet stockings and Comradess Jacqui wielding the whip? Now *that* would be truly disgusting.

[Iain]

HRA 1998

Because I think it is a sensible precaution I've been looking over some legal possibilities for if (when?) the law is finally enacted. I think the best option is an application to the European Court of Human Rights. Under Article 8 (Right to respect for private and family life) the Court has, in the case of Laskey v United Kingdom ((1997) 24 EHRR 39) interpreted sexual activity as an intimate aspect of private life. I believe it would be sound to argue that sexual activity includes autoeroticism and the personnel use of material for autoeroticism. I think that the justification of ordinary democratic control would not stand up to scrutiny. Personally I think there are more chances of social unrest with the law than without. The argument would obviously have to go into greater detail than this, but I think it could be a winner.

Alternatively, there could be an issue of the law being one of strict liability and according to Salabaiku v France (A/141-A) (1991) 13 EHRR the State must be reasonable in its presumptions of liability without considering the need to criminal mentality (mens rea) in attempting to prosecute. Especially in regards of the arguments relating to the unknowing caching of images already put forward in trials regarding sexual images of children.

News of the World would have to take down those vids of Mr Mosley...

[Ishkandar]

@Not Very Well Thought Out :(

bestiality ??

necrophilia ??

torture ??

So what you are saying is that the entire government should be locked away for "flogging a dead horse" ??

WOW !! I'm all for it !!

--nearest equivalent to the expired equine !!

[Anonymous Coward]

CGI is going to be a big problem

There are CGI sites which specialise in erotica, making available a huge range of images. While I gather that US law on child porn doesn't have the same "pseudo-photograph" element found here, the places I know really don't want the hassles of child porn accusations.

I don't have a problem with this.

But CGI allows all sorts of disturbing material to be produced. You want pictures of women being raped by demons? Well, it's there. Zombie gang-bangs, torture, and death: it's just another day for the Republican White House.

But what really matters is how a British court will interpret this law, and what happens if Operation Ore is the model for an investigation.

[Anonymous Coward]

<no title>

If this sort of nonsense drives it home to those individuals who presently insist that the law must be obey regardless, simply because it is the law, that this is an unreasonable stance to take, then it will all have been worthwhile. Society will have matured.

Laws should reflect the moral framework required by the citizens, not passed just to impose restrictions that the majority do not approve of. Take a stand, embrace civil disobedience, go out and buy your newsagent's top shelf today.

[Anonymous Coward]

@David

"Now to be fair, those things really shouldn't be going on should they? Other than the dead people, at least one party from each suffers..."

Well, from what I hear from my friends, that would apply to a good amount of conventional, consensual sex as well... :)

[Anonymous Coward]

3 years for a picture of Jesus on the cross?

According to John 19:23-24, Jesus was naked when he was crucified.

And driving nails through hands and feet is violent by anyone's standard.

Would I go to jail for posessing a depiction of our savior on the cross?

Andrew

[Daniel B.]

Re: Tetragrammaton Council

All your porn has been rated EC-10! CONDEMNED!

Surely basing some "extreme porn" system on the Catholic Church Prohibition Index sounds a lot like it, doesn't it?

Report all sense-offenders! Take your Prozium!

[Eugene Goodrich]

A Handy Guide to legality

Just follow this simple test to tell whether you're going to be leasing a new concrete and steel home with spartan interior decoration:

1. If you have not pissed off a policeman, and otherwise no investigation has come across you for some unrelated reason (e.g. your flat burned down while you were at work), the image is legal.

2. Otherwise, the image is illegal.

Simple!

I don't see why everyone is all concerned about not being able to tell whether an image is OK or not.

And I laugh at lawmakers offering soothing words. Their words, if not part of the law as actually passed, cannot be used in court.

Paris, because if I were in England then this might be the last I'd get to use her.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ not very well thought out

> I have to say, I can see why most people would agree that true extreme porn needs to be banned. From reading other sources on the net the main areas covered are:

beastiality

necrophelia

torture

unconsenting sex

at least in the states -

necro, beastiality, unconsenting sex are NOT legal I would assume the same in England. So I see no reason for new laws there -

Torture...well.... GW has different views on that.

Ignoring GW for a moment - BDSM (and related sites) are comprised of consenting (both sides) adults - some just *like it* -- to each there own.

For those where Torture is NOT consenting (again ignoring GW) - we have laws for that too - unlawful detention, assault, battery etc. So.. again... no new laws needed.

Now - maybe the reason for the new laws are that the British Gov't is planning on following our (non) illustrious leader, and making torture legal - EXCEPT if it brings pleasure.

Mines the one with the Pins and Needles : )

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they'll ban...

... the beeb for this headline

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7390109.stm

[Anonymous Coward]

Far far away...

I only have one word to say and that is:

Guatemala

[Pierre]

That's a good law

If I'm not mistaken, in a trial the prosecution can't bring evidence that was obtained by illegal means. So just rape kids, have sex with various animals, do snuff all you want, and videotape you then post the movies everywhere on the net. You can even make a stash of money out of it, no prob. All you risk is 3 years in prison (if you still have the movies at home) for extreme porn possession. As to recognise you in the footage, one would have to get it and watch it, which would be illegal, thus preventing the tapes from being used in courts. Thanks to this law, no rapist or kiddie fiddler will ever be sentenced based on images or video evidence again. Good job.

[Shabble]

Obscene publication

I despair.

The social phenomenon that is internet pr0n raises several issues; the increased objectification of women by the media, inappropriate workplace displaying of porn as sexual harassment, unrealistic expectations by men of women in the bedroom, girls thinking 'porn star' is a desirable career move, boys gaining a completely false understanding of how sex and relationships work, blokes suffering performance anxiety by comparing themselves to giant willies in porn, or being too porned out for sex, or being addicted to porn and loosing their partners or even their jobs...

How does the government respond to this complex situation? It seizes hold of a tenuous correlation between violent porn and sexually violent men and uses tabloid fear mongering to turn tens of thousands of addicts, fantasists and other harmless weirdoes into sex criminals for doing nothing more than getting turned on by some strange sex images involving consenting adults, or even cartoons. Massive oversimplification from the policy makers gives an approach no different from locking up people who watch Die Hard because of the murderous activity it inspires, or handing out ASBOs to people who read The Dice Man because the novel encourages anti-social non-conformism.

A recent documentary on Blair's time in power made it clear that Blair had great vision, but a poor grasp for the details. This 'extreme porn' thing is New Labour all over - they know something significant and often bad is happening as a result of internet porn, but they lack the sophistication to figure out the nature of the problem and find a practical way of doing something about it. Blair / Brown and their respective 'inner circles' can tell when something should be given attention, but their ham-fisted reaction is necessarily black-and-white and uncomprehending.

What we have now is a government run by members of University Debating Societies. Our politicians are arrogant, socially isolated, unwilling to sacrifice ego for expertise in areas they can't understand and are a lot less intelligent than they like to think they are. The problem is that when we do get rid of New Labour, we'll be replacing them with the identically vacuous and idiotic New Conservative party. For the voters it’s a lose-lose situation.

[moralpanix]

Martin Salter

The contemptible Martin Salter - the MP whose imaginative suggestions of Guatemalan snuff films helped push this disgusting law through, has just said that 'There was very little opposition to the proposals'. More imagination on the outgoing member for Reading's part. Comment pages like this have all been pretty much unanimous in condemnation of the whole shameful business, even the ones on articles that innocently imagined this law would do good and not harm.

It will do its part in bringing an end to this bigoted government that holds its electorate, parliamentary procedure and legal and moral principle in equal contempt.

[Mark]

Re: Not Very Well Thought Out :(

@David

I agree with your points about why the law is bad, but the big problem is that it doesn't just cover images of actual non-consensual acts, it covers acts between consenting adults, even if they're staged (e.g., sadomasochists could end up being criminalised with certain acts that come under the law, even if it's just role-play).

The Government has been quite clear that consent is not an issue, and whether the acts happened for real or not is not an issue. But they still like to conflate it with the idea of non-consensual material, to get support.

It's not like porn involving non-consenting adults has ever been found anyway - much like snuff films, it's a myth.

[Mark]

Re: Soz posted in worng topic

@Armitage

"since it appears they passed it, just who on earth are they gonna enforce it"

I don't know, but I guess that the methods used for child porn will now apply to "extreme" adult porn. So they'll go after people who visit certain websites (even if they're entirely legal in places like the US) - presumably paid users or places needing registration would be most at risk, but I'd be worried about visiting a site at all.

Also if the police have any reason to search your computer (perhaps you're arrested for looking suspicious on the tube?), or if you hand your computer in for repair and it gets reported.

Let's hope they don't follow the model of the infamous Operation Ore.

Reading the consultation responses from the police chiefs for this law is worrying - it seems they can't wait for this to become law, to prosecute people who have such images, but they can't prosecute for any other crime.

[heystoopid]

So

So does this mean the Customs waste paper recycle bin at all points of entry will have the choicest and best collection of soft porn magazines in the country and all the poor unfortunate children delivering newspapers will not be able to nick or browse the same magazines from the corner news paper shop and the airport shop will have to bring daily local approved replacements by the truck load !

Oh no , stand by for a epic rise in the sub teen baby boom at your nearest hospital as they all switch from lusting at pictures and try for the real thing instead , now ain't that the truth !

Say didn't the Oliver Cromwell crony mob have a stab at this style of Puritanism and had an epic fail too , as they were forced to flee to the west as the angry irritated mobs started throwing many an empty bottle at these wowsers self wanking themselves just a few short years on and a few centuries later their offspring went on to create the long dry spell which didn't last all that long either as the empty bottle throwing mob returned thus !

Those that fail to learn the lessons in history are doomed to repeat the same mistakes for eternity or until sanity comes back at least , perhaps by the 31st century maybe ?

[Michael]

@ moralpanix

You have to remember that we're currently in a situation where party chiefs can consider a million people who actively oppose something to be the ONLY people who oppose it, while the few thousand people who champion something are representative of the majority of the population. And this is taken as unquestionable fact by their underlings.

It doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to follow the advice they've been given by experts or the results of large scale surveys. If it's what they think will win them a few more seats from the single issue voters then it's OBVIOUSLY the correct course of action.

And don't in any way think that it's limited to the current government.

[Anonymous Coward]

Irony

Hahahahahah Hahahahah Hahahahaha Hahahahah.... Keep talking shite ya bastards. I may be fu*cked for being an American, no health insurance, crappy public schools, the chance to be shot by anyone at anytime (heh... seems a lot of the world is like this, not just my dirty corner). At least I will have freedom of expression (until they take the guns away) and a sore wrist. Keep talking smack you hive minded, thought police sporting Britons. Your shiny minded island is wallowing in its own fecal matter. You talk about US oppression, look to your damn parliament and shut the f up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hard Up hmmm!!

Bloody hell I knew ya poms where hard up , but gee's not even aloud too look at porn too empty ya rock . I think there going too be quite a few blues balls around soon !!!

[Andy Worth]

Reminds me of a film....a book....or several..

Many people will have seen "V for Vendetta", where it has become illegal to own many things (such as a copy of the Koran for example) or certain paintings which promote "the wrong image". Likewise I am sure that many will have seen Equilibrium, where it has become illegal to own any sort of art or music. This is just the first step on the road towards this, with the whole bill using such woolly and undefined terms to describe what it covers, that it could be used to persecute people for owning more or less anything that another person could class as offensive.

Pardon me, but I don't think it's any of the governments concern what I choose to look at (or not) in my own home and my own time. Sure, if I was plastering 50ft high pornographic images on the side of the Houses of Parliament (hmm now that's an idea....) then they might have a right to object.

It's not that I particularly want to have pictures of what most people would class as "Extreme Porn", but as people have noted, what is normal to one person might be considered extreme by another. The lack of definition in the law simply provides another way to lock people up who do anything that "offends the government".

Then again, we should hardly be surprised considering the influence that the Fabian Socialists have upon the Labour party and their policies. It seems that we grow ever closer to the type of society that Orwell feared that we would one day turn into. Just wait, they've already used anti-terror legislation to suit their needs and it won't be long before this gets misused as well.

[Anonymous Coward]

We should fund mental health services properly...

... rather than spend those same resources trying to implement an un-implementable law which will not stop a few really ill people doing something bad which had as its trigger, not some graphic novels and website, but the poor mental health of the person(s) in question.

The greater danger, psychologists might say, is things like GTA, which casualise and make ordinary, acts of extreme violence. There was even a stabbing at the queue in Croydon to buy the f****ng game, recently, and we don't blink!!

[Andy Worth]

Re:We should fund mental health services properly...

Sorry AC, but acts of extreme violence have been commonplace in society as far back as history can record, however they simply get a lot more media coverage so these days you hear about more of them. The stabbing in the GTA queue was a matter completely unrelated to the game, so blaming the game for it is simply incorrect.

I agree that mental health is the issue rather than the content itself. The problem is when people cannot clearly distinguish between fantasy and reality, but then exactly the same applies to games, films, images and everything else. As I've said before though, until they introduce compulsory mental screening to determine who can buy certain games, films, books etc, there is no answer.

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

A rant...

RE: "he social phenomenon that is internet pr0n raises several issues; the increased objectification of women by the media, inappropriate workplace displaying of porn as sexual harassment, unrealistic expectations by men of women in the bedroom, girls thinking 'porn star' is a desirable career move, boys gaining a completely false understanding of how sex and relationships work, blokes suffering performance anxiety by comparing themselves to giant willies in porn, or being too porned out for sex, or being addicted to porn and loosing their partners or even their jobs..."

Oh, some people should just relax and watch some pr0n... for it does none of these things by itself. No more than a Hollywood film with Arnold Schwarzenegger stimulates unreallistic expectations about, performance anxiety etc etc etc.

If you are a moron - a Boy Scout guide will cause you all these ills and your place is in a mental institution. If you have a bit of common sense you can watch movies and photographs (not only porn, by the way), read books and still remain a normal human being.

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus

Wouldn't a picture of Jesus on the cross come under this law as illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well....

If you canät beat them, join them....

EVERYTIME there is something that MIGHT (in someone's opinion, and be a good citizen here and report everything that MIGHT offend someone), report it.

The Sun page 3, Top of the Pops (or whatever its called these days),

Max Mosley news reports etc etc etc

ANYTHING that might offend someone. Eventually when enough so called "good citizens" are caught - you know these people, they go around saying "if you have nothing to hide..." - things might change. Even better when the next time you speak to your local Labour MP/MEP/counsellor and he/she shows you a picture of his latest offspring...call the police, get him reported for showing pictures that are distasteful with paedophile content in public...

[Bob Hoskins]

@Irony

Touche.

You'll find very few Brits here who disagree that our "shiny little island" is well and truly down the sh1tter.

[Andy Turner]

I had an extreme porn bill

I had to remortgage the house to pay it off.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a shocker of a law...

Plain wrong. There's no godly reason why the state needs to intervene to stop consenting adults from simulating whatever the fuck they want. If all these things are so fucked up, why is there such a demand for it?

How can it be legal to watch a video of someone actually having their head cut off by the Taleban and yet illegal to watch people pretending to do much less? The answer, apparently, is that when the context is sexual, it leads people to act out their fantasies in real life. A claim for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

Am I missing something?

[Jimmy]

@ Shabble who is in despair.

Your post is a disgrace. We simply can't have people like you on El Reg, writing an incisive clear-headed analysis of what is wrong with our country today. This is the antithesis of every thing we stand for. Please stop it immediately.

[David Adams]

With apologies to Pastor Niemöller...

When they outlawed protests outside Parliament,

I remained silent;

I was not a Protester.

When they removed the automatic right to a trial by Jury,

I remained silent;

I was not a suspect.

When they tried to increase detention without trial,

I did not speak out;

I was not a Muslim.

When they started watching every aspect of society through CCTV,

I remained silent;

I thought I had nothing to hide.

When they came for me,

there was no one left to speak out.

It turns out that thinking was itself a crime.

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCPM

Not from the king anymore?!?

So would Manga be included in this bill?

Mega City 1 here we come.

[David]

@ Bob Hoskins

"You'll find very few Brits here who disagree that our "shiny little island" is well and truly down the sh1tter"

Only some parts of our island - there aren't any plans to introduce similar laws in Scotland, where we can watch our sheep-sh@gging DVDs to our heart's content.

[Anonymous Coward]

not yet

Not yet - they have another piece of law floating around with the intention of making hentai/eroge illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

UC

Only images that look real are included.

However there will be unknown consequences.. and it will be used in ways in which it was not intended.

Who knows..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just one petition problem...

Just one problem with the petition ... the same problem that has always faced people who are on the wrong side of these issues ... how many will actually put forward their name and address ... eh? This could be the start of the list given to constable Nobby to go round to their premises and say a hearty, evenin' all to the occupants courtesy of a trunceon.

...s o the petition will never get the real support it deserves.

I know one thing ... my signature is on it (at least when I get home to click on the confirmation mail!) but then, I've been a minor thorn in the side of the MoJ on this issue anyway; whatever happens they'll get me for perverting the course of injustice. Or should that be justice in the course of perversion ... or ...

[Andrew Parsons]

Brasseye Paedo Special

Pre-empting this very event.

"is this image of a dog with a man's cock obscene?"

"is it now we put the child's head on it?!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Context

The whole issue of the context of an image and the purpose for which it is used is not new in the law. There are in existence BBFC-classified films that contain scenes that, if someone were to extract frames as stand-alone images, these would quite possibly be deemed indecent images of children. Similarly, there have been convictions both here and in the US for posession of material such as videos of school sports days and gym displays not because the images they contained were indecent as such, but because they were being used for sexual stimulation. Questions about the legality of an image of Jesus on the cross are simply answered under the new Act - it's only illegal if you fap to it. As for anime/manga, there was a "consultation process" that predictably ended up overwhelmingly in favour of new legislation, but nothing's been heard of it since.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bestiality and church paintings

I am not a british citizen, so I cannot say if this is the case, but in my home country of Denmark, several churches have murals showing in detail what Hell is like.

These images certainly include beastiality since the damned souls are being raped by devils, that look very much like animals (hoowes and horns you know).

My guess is that similar churches and murals exist in England.

How many churches would be closed due to this law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hang on, I've figured it out!!

This law is solely to protect MPs, Judges, Top Coppers and other Civil Servants from being blackmailed!!!

Think about it.....

none of the pictures that their Philippino house boy / Dominatrix / Foreign Agent Lover has of them, be it in a nappy, crawling around being a human footstool, doing unspeakable things to a hamster or being hung from the Rafters by the nutsac can ever be seen again.

You can't publish them in a Paper or on the Internet and even if you do, anyone who reads said paper will get locked up straight away.

It's almost too easy.........

/The one with the whisk in the pocket please.

[fon]

enforce-ability....

conspiracy nutters are having a feild day.... but just think, what *else* is 'totally illegal' ???

copying cassette tape - there are even players that will let you do this at up to 4X speed, they proudly claim...

piracy of almost anything, films, programs, you name it....

drugs freely and easily available in N london - and the police cannot seem to do much about it... 'secret camera' filming of all this going on, on a TV Doc..

human slavery in this country... there was recent report on this!!

even more shocking stuff,, in the papers everyday....

- and where are the police??? when they are not attacking & locking up *innocent* people, due to wrong intelligence... and releasing them 5 yrs later....:(:(

certainly not on the street, I dont see that many, and I live only 50 yards away from a plolice station!!!

so no, this will all carry on, in a basement near you... with the police only worrying about their paperwork, etc...

[Damian Gabriel Moran]

to (kind of) quote Bill Hicks

"Here is my final point. About drugs, about alcohol, about pornography and smoking and everything else. What business is it of yours (the governments) what I do, read, buy, see, say, think, who I f***, what I take into my body - as long as I do not (without their consent) harm another human being on this planet!

And for those of you out there who are having a little moral dilemma in your head about this, I'll answer it for you. It's none of your f****** business!"

[Stuart Finlayson]

Human Rights Act

Sadly the HRA and European Convention on Human Rights are not a great deal of use. Article 10 (about freedom of expression) allows the government to limit freedom of expression in order to protect "morals" which is a fairly meaningless phrase with wide application; as long as some people believe BDSM is morally wrong the Government has the right to legislate. Article 8, about privacy, has a similar restriction on your freedom.

[SteveMD]

Thought crime

I would love for the government to explain exactly what they mean by the term "public morals".

If it does not mean attitudes which will lead to the causing of actual harm, then it is merely about what people think. Or to be more precise, what the government think people are thinking; thought crime.

Unless the government can show that viewing this fictional material causes the viewer to harm another, then they have no right to interfere. And I believe that would be a relevant argument in a court under the HRA.

Further difficulties, I think under article nine, are that no one knows what is and is not illegal. The HRA says this must be clear or the law does not comply with human rights law.

[Graham Marsden]

@Irony

Before you get too complacent about your Freedom of Expression in the Good Ol' US of A, might I remind you of this story:

* * * * *

The FBI is joining the Bush administration's War on Porn. And it's looking for a few good agents.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901570.html

* * * * *

Several US suppliers who were making legal, consensual porn, were forced to quit and sell up to European suppliers because, as one said, "the staff is unwilling to fight a lengthy and expensive court battle only to emerge victorious but bankrupt"

[Anonymous Coward]

Overheard whilst buying a lettuce

I was speaking to a Mr Al Fayed, who runs our local shop and allegedly has the ear of the Royal family, he reckons that there will be more laws passed by Feurer Brown to criminalise the great British Public. The plot is to Gaol the indigenous population and fill the country with his supporters bussed in from Europe. The project is expected to last for two years.

Paris 'cause when the law is passed we're both done for. (In my dreams at least).,

[fon]

Graham Marsden:

never has been any problem in USA - you just drive over the border & get your stuff...

The USA is far too big, for a tiny place like washington to matter... and when the elections are over, I'll bet the FBI will have a new contract....

and 'Coward' .... yes, its nice in 'second life'.... see my last comment.. <yawn>

[Dick Emery]

All this does is...

...drive more and more people into using encryption and obfuscating techniques. They dig their own holes.

Can we have an icon of Brown with a dumb hat on?

[Ishkandar]

So who's reading the extreme porn...

...and why is he getting the bill for it ??

[Nigel Robinson]

An old trick

Banning porn is an old trick for getting votes. Everyone has their own idea on what they think is "extreme" and that anything beyond that should rightly be stopped. Because the law fails to define exactly what it means by the term, people are agreeing with banning what they personally consider unacceptable, whether that's an M&S underwear advert or an S&M one.