
Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn - pwg
http://falkvinge.net/2012/09/07/three-reasons-child-porn-must-be-re-legalized-in-the-coming-decade/
======
crazygringo
There's a lot of food for thought here, and important points. But in one area,
the author completely glosses over a crucial distinction:

> _why is it only documentation of sex crimes against minors that are being
> banned in this way? The lawmen are perfectly fine with a video documenting
> how a teenager is being stabbed with a screwdriver in both eyes, then
> murdered. ... why is the ban just related to anything sexual, and not to the
> bodily harm itself...?_

There's a very important reason only documentation of sex crimes against
minors is banned -- there isn't a big market for watching videos of murders.
Virtually no one is going to go out and film themselves murdering people in
order to satisfy a market for those videos.

But the reasoning goes that if child porn is legal, then this will actively
encourage more child rape, etc., so that it can be filmed and distributed.
Plus, even if we're really good against preventing the actual acts in the US,
we're still creating markets for it in other countries, especially third-world
ones. So children suffer.

But then there's another argument, that having child porn around is actually
_better_ than the alternative -- because potential molesters/rapists are able
to satisfy their desire with existing videos. If they don't have the videos,
then they go out and commit horrible acts. So, better to stick to the videos.

There are no easy answers.

~~~
sophacles
Shock video sites that feature murders, dismemberment and other forms of crime
on video for voyeuristic pleasure are a pretty big business. Perhaps not as
big as child pornography woud be/is, but big enough that your distinction is a
bit questionable.

Further, videos of people getting murdered raise enough of an outcry that they
get investigated/prosecuted much harder. Instances of child molestation are
hidden, so there can only be public outcry in the abstract, leading to crazy
laws that resemble witch hunts more than legal proceedings.

~~~
Falling3
I almost commented about this... but then I realize I had no evidence
whatsoever for any of those claims.

Do you?

<http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/snuff.asp>

~~~
mintplant
> All the fretting about it aside, not so much as one snuff film has been
> found.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luka_Magnotta>

~~~
noarchy
This was the first that come to mind for me, as well. Living in Canada, this
was front-page news not long ago, and for several days until his arrest in
Germany.

------
sudonim
When I lived in Houston and was buying a house I used a website to look up sex
offenders in the neighborhood.

I remember seeing one guy who was in the sex offender database because when he
was 19, he had sex with a 17 year old. It made me feel a little uncomfortable.
It struck me because I was in my mid 20s and I think we were around the same
age at the time.

Something is amiss in a system that punishes him for life and places him
alongside men in their 40s convicted for touching toddlers.

~~~
parfe
> _I remember seeing one guy who was in the sex offender database because when
> he was 19, he had sex with a 17 year old._

The age of consent in Texas is 17 with a 3 year Romeo and Juliet exception.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Interesting that Texas, arguably one of the most rigidly Christian states in
the country with evidence of moral legislation, is actually reasonable in this
regard.

Rich makes a lot of assertions about fundamental Christians, but provides
little evidence to back them up.

~~~
seanalltogether
It has more to do with old farming lifestyles and young marriages. Colorado
and I believe Kansas have the same clauses.

~~~
wheels
That's false. Statutory rape does not apply to married couples, and minors can
get married with parental consent and / or a court order.

I'd also call bullshit on this anecdote and most of the ones in this thread:
the most common age of consent in the US is 16, not 18 and specifically, in
Texas, it's 17, meaning that there are two different ways that this particular
story doesn't add up.

~~~
greyfade
I could be mistaken, but I believe the Federal rule sets the age at 18 for
defining child pornography, and I believe that rule preempts state rules.

So even if it's legal to have sex with a 16-year-old in Texas (under State
law), it's illegal to produce, possess or distribute pictures of that child
(under Federal law).

------
ot86
I used to work at the abuse department for a large web host and domain
registrar. We once received a complaint about an Egyptian forum that was
supposedly hosting child pornography. The site was not hosted with us, but we
were the domain registrar.

The complainant said that the forum had a secret board where users swapped
child porn. They sent several links that did indeed show that child
pornography was on the site and domain. However, since we only provided the
domain registration, our response to the complainant was to contact the web
host.

The complainant replied back with more links. That is when my boss became
involved. She had very little experience with dealing with abuse issues,
however, she was very vocal about the fact that our company was 'allowing'
child pornography. She had us put the domain on "Client hold", which
effectively disables the domain, removing the name servers from the registry.
Afterwards, she scolded me and my two other colleagues for not taking the
correct action (even though we were following our SOP based on our terms of
service). Even the owners of the company heard about the situation and were
glad that the site was shut down.

A week after, the complainant emailed us to thank us for taking down his
competitors forum.

------
jliechti1
The main points of the article are well-summarized at the end, TL;DR:

"It’s not illegal to film a murder. It’s not illegal to possess a film of a
murder. But it’s still illegal to murder people. And it’s illegal to initiate
a murder for the purpose of filming it. If you have taken part in a murder and
have film of it, the film may be usable as proof against you. I can’t see that
Rick suggests anything different here – i.e., I see no suggestions that it
should be OK to molest children for the purpose of filming it. That’s good."

------
droob
I find these edge cases extremely implausible, and counter to the way crimes
are investigated and prosecuted. "Possessing cocaine is illegal but IMAGINE IF
SOMEONE THREW A COCAINE BRICK AT YOU AND YOU CAUGHT IT!!!"

~~~
billswift
There have been cases where drugs were mailed to an address and the person
receiving the package, not knowing what was in it, was arrested. That is one
reason why no one who has any sense will accept a package they were not
expecting.

~~~
Falling3
Really? I think you're being a bit hyperbolic here as my chances of getting a
surprise gift are far better than the odds of me getting set up with cocaine.

~~~
barik
I worked for the Department of Homeland security as a contractor in 2009 to
develop software for exactly such a use case. The operation for such
merchandise is to ship products to basically an arbitrary address (sometimes
knowing that the actual resident is on vacation, I suppose), and then have
someone on the delivery end intercept the package. In these cases, the only
realistic option for officials is to intercept on or during delivery since the
origin address is usually completely fabricated.

Part of my role was to assist in the warehousing system to intercept (during
transfer to verify that the shipment is in fact illegal) anomalous mailings
(much in the way credit card companies try to identify anomalous purchases as
fraud). The illegal materials will be shipped in all sorts of interesting
ways. For example, we had a package that appeared to come from Kellogg, but
the merchandise was actually at the bottom of each of the (packed and closed)
cereal boxes.

Unfortunately, DHS has quite a backlog, so there are currently entire
warehouses in the US whose sole job is to secure drugs, guns, and other
materials until officials can come inspect the packages. Of course, sometimes
they are not intentional violations of the law (for instance, certain food and
animal products can't be shipped to the US). But if you ever in such a
warehouse, it is truly a sight to behold.

~~~
Falling3
I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm saying that the risk-reward ratio is way
too skewed for me to give it a second thought.

~~~
barik
Oh, absolutely. It is not something that a regular person would ever need to
worry about, since statistically the odds of this ever happening to any one
person are extremely low (and even if it did, the person may not even know it
because of procedures such as the above). But it's important enough at a
national level that security officials are interested in tackling the problem.

So yes, it's possible that drugs have been mailed to you without you knowing
it. In rare circumstances (especially if you just moved into that address, for
example), you might be arrested to figure out what's going on. But it becomes
hyperbole to suggest that you will automatically be charged and put in jail
because of a random drop shipment (though I'm sure some HN person will find a
counterexample just for the sake of doing so).

~~~
stickfigure
So I won't _automatically_ be charged and put in jail, but I _might_ be
arrested.

This is supposed to be reassuring?

~~~
barik
> This is supposed to be reassuring?

I guess I'll worry about it when and if it happens to me. But no, it's
certainly not something I think about on a day to day basis, just as I also
don't worry that someone might steal my car in the middle of the night and
commit a crime with it -- another scenario in which, yes, you may also be
arrested or at the very least questioned.

I'm inclined to believe that such arrests are quite rare, but that's just
speculation, and I'm open to evidence to the contrary.

~~~
385668
If I find myself in possession of a cocaine brick that I did not ask for, I
will indeed worry. The point that the article made (as a tangent, admittedly)
in regards to cocaine possession is that, should that situation arise, I can't
take my cocaine to the police without risking arrest myself, and that's
absurd.

------
SoftwareMaven
I don't agree with all of his assertions nor all of his reasoning, primarily
because I think he _completely_ glosses over any reasonable opinion that is
contrary to the viewpoint he wants to present (for example, the relationship
between child pornography and child molestation[1]). I think completely
glossing over these items is disingenuous and hurts his cause.

This is a difference in degree, only, though, because, even if _everything_
else he said was wrong, this part was not:

 _Child pornography is horrible and awful from every angle and in every
aspect. But it is not dangerous to the fabric of society. Censorship and
electronic book burning, however, is._

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_child_por...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_child_pornography_and_child_sexual_abuse)

------
sanxiyn
In
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coaliti...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalition)
Supreme Court wrote:

The Child Pornography Prevention Act also prohibits speech having serious
redeeming value, proscribing the visual depiction of an idea -- that of
teenagers engaging in sexual activity -- that is a fact of modern society and
has been a theme in art and literature for centuries.

~~~
krakensden
He seems to be writing primarily about Sweden.

~~~
sanxiyn
I think the argument stands. I think even in Sweden, teenagers engaging in
sexual activity is a fact of modern society and has been a theme in art and
literature for centuries.

~~~
krakensden
I guess I misinterpreted you- I thought you were saying the free-speech-
favorable outcome of the case meant his concerns were moot.

------
Falling3
As sudonim pointed out, there are some really gross abuses of the whole sex
offender system. I've heard of a lot of people that are in there for terrible
reasons.

I definitely agree with the author to some extent. We do seem to be
inordinately concerned with child pornography. The term pedophile has moved
from a psychological disorder to a synonym for child molester. I am fully
against real child pornography but there is no good reason to treat the
virtual version the same way. I think a good part of it stems from the false
assumption that watching X pornography will cause the viewer to wish to engage
in X. As usual, fear and ignorance are the favorite legal foundations.

------
dsr_
He has his own counterargument in a note near the beginning:

    
    
       But possession of child pornography is a strict liability offense, like possession of cocaine, at least in the entire United States, as well as several other countries. Intent, mens rea, is irrelevant: if you have it, no matter why, you're guilty.
    

OK, so make mens rea a required element. It's a reasonable reform.

~~~
macchina
It's actually not a true strict liability offense, at least in the United
States.

For example, 18 USC § 2252A(a)(2)(A) criminalizes " _knowingly_ receiv[ing] or
distribut[ing] any child pornography." § 2252A(a)(5) requires " _knowingly_
possess[ing], or _knowingly_ access[ing] with intent to view, any book,
magazine, periodical, film, videotape, computer disk, or any other material
that contains an image of child pornography."

<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2252>
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2252A>

To be sure, "knowingly" is a lower mens rea standard than something like
"willfully" or "intentionally" which require bad intent, but it is not strict
liability.

Examples of strict liability crimes which have no mens rea requirement are
statutory rape and drunk driving.

~~~
Falkvinge
Thank you for this additional information about specifics of the United
States. The described case with accidentally recording _and realizing you
accidentally recorded_ still makes you culpable under the "knowingly", though.

Cheers, Rick

~~~
objclxt
I have a real problem with your argument here - as I suspect many lawyers
would.

I'd go so far as to call your hypothetical example completely laughable. The
idea that if I stumble across someone raping a child they would "point and
laugh" is completely ridiculous. It's somewhat ironic that given one of the
arguments _for_ strict liability laws was "won't someone think of the
children" you're basically making the same point.

I agree with many of your points - a 17 year old being sentenced for having
sex with a 15 year old, for example, and it's possible to cite many, many
cases where this sort of thing has occurred.

I doubt, however, you can cite a single case where somebody has been
prosecuted for unknowingly recording child pornography. I think this very much
weakens your argument, because you make it sound as if strict liability is a
be-all end-all, when in fact there is precedent to override it (speaking in
general terms - the exact precedent would vary from country to country).

Laws are typically not designed to cover future eventualities. It seems to me
highly likely that the situation you describe is already easily avoided
legally. After all, if a CCTV camera recorded a child rape in progress that
would _not_ be a criminal offence, since most countries provide exceptions for
recording images for the purposes of preventing crime. It would be relatively
straight forward to branch these laws out to devices like Google Goggles.

But you don't really consider these arguments, I suspect primarily because the
image of a child rapist "getting away with it" is quite powerful, and you're
designing your post to evoke heavily emotional responses. But it's very much a
"won't you think of the children" argument, and that sours it for me.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
> I'd go so far as to call your hypothetical example completely laughable.

Laughable? It's already happening. I should be able to gather child
pornography from across the Internet, match it to photos (school pictures,
Facebook, etc.), and report the hits to the police.

But it's illegal. Like all crimes of moral purity, it is not about rescuing
the victims or punishing the wicked. It is a PR stunt by and for the witch
hunters.

~~~
rmc
I suspect one reason why thats illegal is because it would be an easy way for
Aaron pedophile to use it as an excuse. More bad guys would use that excuse to
avoid justice than good guys.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
In other words, you believe that "justice" for distasteful pictures is
equivalent to preventing forcible rape of children. And since we can so easily
redirect the prevention budget to pictures ...

~~~
goggles99
Are you really stupid enough to think that this would reduce forcible rape? Do
you know what a booming industry this would become in some smaller countries?
These people do not have Facebook or yearbooks. They do not even have access
to computers.

Please explain to me how legalizing kidde porn would reduce the amount of
kidde porn?

~~~
Daniel_Newby
_If_ that became a problem, the U.S. could simply eliminate copyright
protection for child pornography. Thai producers could not turn a profit when
faced with Mountain View pirates.

~~~
rmc
Im pretty sure possession of child porn is illegal. You don't need to mess
with copyright protection at all. And widespread piracy doesn't stop the
commercial enterprises, after all, Hollywood is the most pirated and massively
profitable

~~~
Daniel_Newby
There is virtually no piracy of Hollywood movies, at least in the U.S., thanks
to their strenuous enforcement of copyright. If piracy were rampant, you could
buy the latest blockbuster for $0.50 at Wal-Mart on opening day. (Hint: the
actual price is jacked up one or two _orders of magnitude_ by the MPAA's jack
booted thugs.)

------
Cushman
Presented as a reductio at the end of the article:

    
    
      It’s not illegal to film a murder.
      It’s not illegal to possess a film of a murder.
    

But one has to wonder: What if it were? What if YouTube had a button for
"Report Illegal" that forwarded the video to law enforcement, hid it, and
cleared it from your cache? What if people who watched video evidence of a
crime and didn't report it to the authorities were treated as just a little
bit complicit? What if the media were prevented from broadcasting potentially
titillating evidence of crime to the public, but had to leave its analysis up
to the professionals?

Can we say categorically that that would be bad for our society?

~~~
prunebeads
> But one has to wonder: What if it were? What if YouTube had a button for
> "Report Illegal" that forwarded the video to law enforcement, hid it, and
> cleared it from your cache?

Then you'd probably get police forces overwhelmed with bogus complaints.

~~~
Cushman
Maybe. They seem to handle copyrighted content pretty well.

~~~
dllthomas
Right. It's insanely hard to find copyrighted material posted without the
author's consent on any of those sites, and I never hear stories about
legitimate content being removed due to fraudulent complaints.

------
stratosvoukel
The article raises a lot of valid points. Not all imagery of non-adults having
sex are made under non-consensual circumstances, or consumed as means of
sexual pleasure. The law doesnt take this under account.

Big tech and media organisations (eg Google or any image or video hosting
service provider), process and filter a huge amount of illegal child porn
everyday. They even have employees doing this, watching and censoring child
porn that is. Isnt watching it, even in order to censor it, according to such
laws, illegal? Also while the material remains in the servers, isnt the
company liable for possession ?

In Greece for example, the law is rather simple and doesnt cover such cases.

------
erikpukinskis
This essay is a great example of sapping an argument of its power through
dilution. At various points he argues all of the following:

1) the law is too broad (innocent teenagers)

2) the law is not broad enough (should cover murder too)

3) the wrong judicial standard is applied (strict liability)

4) abridging free speech is fundamentally destructive

These are four _totally distinct_ elements of our legal structure, each with
vastly different potential solutions. They are bound only by the fact that
they are critiques of the current legal system.

To try and take in all four at once leads to a combinatorial explosion of
possible solutions.

If he believes no. 4 then nos. 1-3 are immaterial. And even if he sells you on
1-3, none of those are good arguments for abolishing the law. In the end, the
essay loses its power because he is not presenting a coherent critique.

~~~
MartinCron
And, if one of the arguments is weak or preposterous, your opponent can tear
that one apart and ignore the merits of the position. It is a persuasive pet
peeve of mine.

------
Monotoko
There are also various countries who have different laws on this kind of
thing. It reminds me of an album cover by the Scorpians back in 1976, the
original cover is on the Wikipedia page:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer> (great album btw) but it was
banned in the USA.

In other words, anyone from the USA who clicks that wikipedia page may be
committing a federal offence of possessing child porn on their computers
(because media is downloaded into the cache from the site.) - crazy right?

------
toddmorey
I don't agree that the only way to address these edge cases is to entirely
repeal the laws rather than reform them. Technology changes, society changes,
and the law adjusts. Sure I can imagine myself as an activist working against
imprisonment of consensual (but teenage) couples as he describes, but never
for outright acceptance of all child porn content.

~~~
bediger4000
> the law adjusts

Not according to at least two of the US Supreme Court Justices. The US
Constitution is not a "living document" to them, not interpretable according
to the norms of the time.

~~~
erichocean
I'm may be going out on a limb here, but the last time I read the US
Constitution, I don't recall it saying anything for or against child
pornography, so I don't think it'll be necessary to re-interpret the
Constitution to update child porn laws.

~~~
bediger4000
I'm just mentioning that notable Legal Minds don't believe in adjusting laws.
To some folks, a law is an immutable law, and you must follow it, whether you
know that law exists or not.

------
birdcircle
"So imagine a scenario ten years down the road, as you’re taking a stroll in
the park." .... "WHAM. You are now a criminal, guilty of recording,
distributing, and possessing child pornography."

I find this highly implausible. Hypotheticals like this damage the argument.
Crimes are caught on camera everyday. Seems to me the crime here (aside form
the rape) is to knowingly destroy evidence of the crime, which the innocent
strollers in this scenario are supposedly encouraged to do out fear for
themselves. I have not thought about this enough to have a strong opinion
other than simple gut reaction, but it seems more evidence to support this
idea in particular is needed.

~~~
drcube
In this case both destroying the evidence and possessing the evidence are
crimes. What are you supposed to do?

~~~
birdcircle
I challenge anyone to find actual foundation for the claim that unwittingly
recording a child rape in the park is a crime even if the witness reports it
and provides the video evidence. Seems to me that this is the "slippery slope"
argument taken to unreasonable extremes.

~~~
stickfigure
Twenty years ago I would have challenged someone to find a case of a 17 year
old being prosecuted for child pornography for taking a picture of themselves.
Or a 19 year old being forced to register as a sex offender because of a 17
year old partner.

These laws have _already_ been pushed to unreasonable extremes.

~~~
birdcircle
Like I said I haven't thought about or researched this enough to have a strong
opinion so I'm relying on really basic assumptions.

"a case of a 17 year old being prosecuted for child pornography for taking a
picture of themselves."

Has this happened? Hypotheticals don't help any. We need facts in order to
move forward with the conversation.

EDIT: it has, in fact, happened. The facts are indeed in Google.

------
jrockway
I also think you should be able to yell "Fire" in a crowed theater. Not being
able to do so might cause someone observing a fire in a crowded theater to
keep that information to himself rather than informing others, for fear of
prosecution.

(I'm not even sure if I'm being sarcastic or not.)

------
SageRaven
One of the big arguments for banning child porn is that having the material
"out there" causes continual anguish to the victim. In fact, victims have been
awarded financial damages from those convicted of possession. (Can't find the
source now, but I recall reading about the case in the "cybercrime blog").

In my opinion, this whole argument is specious at best. One could argue that
making the "Star Wars Kid" viral video (among so many others) illegal would
have saved that poor dude some major suffering. Why are things of a sexual
nature so special?

One argument for decriminalizing simple possession is the fact that crowd-
analyzed investigation at the citizen level is severely hampered. I recall
reading an amazing account of the investigation and rescue of the then-8-year-
old girl in the "Tara series". A relatively small group of people analyzed the
photos, identified paintings and drapes in a motel, which allowed law
enforcement to home in on the victim and her captor.

Can you imagine the scope of such investigations if these pics were allowed to
be viewed and discussed in a public forum? The power of anon and /b/ could be
used for so much greater good than hunting down kids who torture cats.

------
sidcool
I saw Sergey Brin's pic in that article and flipped. Then upon reading the
image description felt relieved.

------
hcarvalhoalves

        So, on your lovely stroll in the park, you turn a corner, and to your shock, see a 12-year-old being brutally raped right in front of you.
        WHAM. You are now a criminal, guilty of recording, distributing, and possessing child pornography.
    

That makes no sense whatsoever. The author is completely stretching it to make
his point valid. It's unlikely you would be charged by handling proofs to
authorities in the first place; and if you do for any reason, a judge can
obviously distinguish between possession of pornography and the proof of a
crime.

------
xwowsersx
Some reasonable points here, but I think there is one very solid argument in
favor of making possesion of child porn illegal (and also explains the sense
of applying strict liability here): if mere possession is illegal then demand
is reduced. Effectively, the legislation aims to destroy the market for child
porn thereby preventing abuse/exploitation of children.

There's definitely room to debate whether illegalizing possession will
actually curb demand, but assuming that it does, it seems to me to be a pretty
strong argument.

~~~
henrikschroder
> if mere possession is illegal then demand is reduced.

Except that's not true. Previously in Sweden, production and distribution of
child porn was illegal, while possession was legal. But ten years ago or so,
through lobbying and some shrill "think of the children!" campaigns, our
politicians decided to change it and make possession illegal. This actually
required constitutional change, since the basic freedom of the press had to be
changed.

And the change was made, even though a lot of professionals objected to it.
Lawyers were upset, because they generally thought you shouldn't tamper with
the constitution unless you had _really_ good reasons to. The police were
negative, because they couldn't see how it would help them catch more actual
criminals. The prosecutors were negative since distribution and production are
enough to catch the criminals you want to catch. And the journalists were
against it for the reasons linked to in the article. But think of the
children! And so the law was changed.

Now, 10 years afterwards, the result of the change is exactly as the
professionals predicted: The law change hasn't done anything. There's no great
reduction is child porn cases. The people they do catch are all guilty of
distribution or production, possession is irrelevant. Journalists are pissed
and more cautious of the subject. And there's been a few idiotic cases where
people have been convicted even though its obvious they shouldn't have been.
Like a manga critic who was reported by his pissed ex-wife, and when the
police searched his place they could kinda see how two books (out of a huge
collection) maybe depicted underage people, so they had to arrest him. I think
he got acquitted after appealing though, it seems higher courts have a more
sane view of the matter.

And then you have more common worries, for example what about digitizing old
photo albums? I have photos of myself, one year old, bathing, naked. Maybe I
should just burn that photo to be sure? What about taking digital pictures or
movies of your own children, and they happen to be naked somewhere. Post to
Facebook? Or oh shit, delete as fast as you can?

So, making possession illegal did not in any way change the situation for
actual pedophiles distributing actual child porn. They're still as guilty as
before, and still breaking the law as before, but regular people are affected
by it, journalists are affected by it, and the copyright maximalists are using
it to push their agenda. And that's a pretty strong argument for making
possession legal again.

------
ricardobeat
> two seventeen-year-olds who have eyes for nothing in the world but each
> other making consensual passionate love [...] trying to see it makes your
> eyes well up with tears from joy

That's way more creepy than I expected. I don't think I want to hear this guy
defending CP any longer...

Also, comparing "rape and CP" to "murder and jaywalking" is inane. He is
implying that CP is a petty crime.

~~~
lmm
Some things that fall under current child porn laws (e.g. the aforementioned
teenagers sending pictures to each other) really _are_ petty crimes.

------
sunnysunday
Some time ago, thanks to a tip on HN, I was listening to a interview with
Stanley Kubrick recorded in the 1960's in New York. He's a genius in the
opinion of many, myself included, so I was happy for the tip. This is what
makes HN worth reading.

In the interview, one of the films that was mentioned a few times was Lolita
(1962). This is one Kubrick film I have never seen. So I did a little research
on it.

It's based on a novel from 1955 by Vladmir Nabokov. It just so happens this is
one of best-selling novels of all-time, in the "50-100 million copies sold"
bracket, according to Wikipedia.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books.html>

It's also listed as one of the best novels of all-time on the Random House web
site. Top 5 I think. I believe it was also selected as on of the best books of
all-time in a survey of a book club in Norway, if my memory is correct. But
don't take my word as fact. Check these sources yourself; they are linked from
Wikipedia.

<http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html>

What is the subject of the book? That's left for the curious reader to
discover. You might be surprised. I certainly was.

Remember, this book was published in 1955.

Also, though I might not thnk highly of the "messenger", the message in this
thread about the "market" for videos of murder was thought-provoking. There
was a terrible film about five years ago about this subject, starring Diane
Lane. The film is centered around the Hollywood's version of the internet, so
it's a little painful to watch. But the whole premise of the film was the most
disturbing. Why was this film even made? And why the heck does Diane Lane want
to star in it?

Then there's the recent story of a young person who worked as an independent
contractor reviewing uploaded content for Google (Picasa, YouTube, etc.). From
the sort of things he was exposed to, he ended up needing psychological
treatment.

No one should have to watch this stuff. But even more important, no one should
_want_ to watch this stuff. The question is: Why do people want to watch
violence and murder?

Maybe we should as Arnold whatever his name is, the Terminator.

Hypocrisy abounds.

~~~
aes256
_> No one should have to watch this stuff. But even more important, no one
should _want_ to watch this stuff. The question is: Why do people want to
watch violence and murder?_

People are morbid. People are curious. People want to see things that push the
boundaries, that are rare, that few others have seen.

I think there's a really important analogy to be drawn between videos of this
nature and child pornography. It shows that having the urge to _watch_ an act
occurring, and an urge to perform such an act in real life, are two wholly
separate things.

It's not as though we consider everyone who has ever seen a depiction of
someone being murdered — almost every single member of Western civilization if
we include Hollywood depictions — as someone likely to murder people.

~~~
sunnysunday
I think you are making an assumption that I am suggesting there's a link
between what people watch and what they do. I would expect that such
assumptions would be made. It is an issue that is debated ad nauseum. No
surprise you brought it up.

But I am not suggesting that, nor am I contemplating that issue. I am merely
suggesting there indeed appears to be strong "market" for watching violence
and murder, whether it is Hollywood or whether it is for real. And I might
hope that the reader would question why that market exists. Issues of whether
or how it should be "regulated" are besides the point. The question I'm asking
is: Why do people want to watch such things to begin with?

And maybe this leads to thinking about the idea of "Hollywood" versus real
life. What is "reality TV"? Why would "reality TV" be marketable?

~~~
aes256
_> I am merely suggesting there indeed appears to be strong "market" for
watching violence and murder, whether it is Hollywood or whether it is for
real. And I might hope that the reader would question why that market exists.
Issues of whether or how it should be "regulated" are besides the point. The
question I'm asking is: Why do people want to watch such things to begin
with?_

Why do people want to watch gore videos? For the reasons I just listed.
Morbidity, curiosity, etc. I'm sure there are a few other reasons besides
these.

All valid reasons why a reasonable, sane person might want to view such
videos. I suppose you could say this creates a "market". In the case of gore
videos, I would contend this market extends only so far as some (not all)
people in possession of existing gore videos deciding to make them public on
the Internet.

In other words, the market fuels the propagation of existing material, but not
necessarily the creation of new material.

------
yason
I bumped into this a while ago and it was an interesting read:

    
    
      http://wikileaks.org/wiki/An_insight_into_child_porn
    

Everyone take it with a grain of salt according to your personal taste, but
IMHO it does more than adequately illustrate the point that the concept of
child porn, starting from its definition is anything but black-and-white.

------
Derbasti
One: This stuff should be called "documented abuse of children" and nothing
else.

Two: Documented abuse of children is a MacGuffin, not an end.

------
maked00
Sorry but the pro arguments are rather silly and far fetched. The last time I
checked witnessing a crime is not a crime. Child Porn is just wrong. There is
no legitimate reason for it to exist. It is taboo for a number of reasons, not
the least of which is is perpetrated against defenseless children.

------
roguecoder
If this is the case, maybe the problem is free speech. Perhaps we should stop
valuing free speech over individual safety.

------
goggles99
This makes me sick. It has been conclusively proven that pornography can be
harmful to families and relationships. Would child port be better somehow.
This is only the first part of why this is so sick. The second being that
there would be a legal market for kidde porn? How could this help kids in any
way?

~~~
lmm
>It has been conclusively proven that pornography can be harmful to families
and relationships.

Citation needed. I've seen studies which suggest that specific kinds of
pornography (e.g. rape fantasy) can be damaging, but nothing to support a
general statement with that kind of certainty.

>The second being that there would be a legal market for kidde porn? How could
this help kids in any way?

How about if it lead to fewer kids being, you know, actually abused. Both by
discouraging the production of new kiddie porn (because the market would
already be flooded), and by giving those with unfortunate urges a safe outlet.

------
goggles99
Please explain to me how legalizing kidde porn would reduce the amount of
kidde porn?

Using this same (genius) logic. We should allow the willful purchase, transfer
and use of counterfeit bills, but keep the actual counterfeiting illegal. THAT
should fix the problem right???

How could any government implement a law to not allow creation of something,
but allow it's sale, possession and use? This is not logical.

Anyone who supports this article is too self diluted by a twisted ideology to
see the plain logic of why this whole argument is ridiculous.

------
goggles99
Please delete this garbage troll article from HackerNews. My children use more
logic and intelligence when trying to convince me of something. This is the
weakest bunch of BS I have ever read. I think that my 8 year old could poke
holes in every single one of the arguments presented. Do intelligent humans
really buy a single word of his three reasons why child porn should be
legalized. He is clearly into child porn himself. _let me say that I started
watching porn at age ten, as did most of my friends, and I enjoyed it. I
actively sought it out and kept seeking it out (as I still do)._

Let me sum up (for those of you who could not stay awake through all the waste
of bandwidth you just spent pulling up that article).

Here are his reasons.

 _1\. The ban prevents catching/jailing child molesters._ He claims that
everyone will be wearing Google glass type devices in the future and recording
everything so if they see a kid being raped in the park that the rapist will
just laugh knowing that they cannot go to the cops because they now posses
child porn.

Is he really serious? Yeah cause this happens all the time. I can see my
grandma brought before a jury and convicted on possession of kidde porn cause
she had her Google glass on during her stroll in the park.

Discretion is used by any DA or investigator. I could never see this happening
in a modern society. Even if the prosecutor was a complete buffoon and
arrested my grandma for this, no jury would ever convict her and that
prosecutor would soon be out of work after the media got a hold of the story.
I am sure that (worse case) this would take about one time and the law would
be changed slightly to protect my grandma (similar to the now infamous "stand
your ground" law). Funny that the author wants to make kidde porn legal and
not change the law to be more discretionary (quite an insight into his
morives).

 _2\. The laws brand a whole generation as sex offenders._ His argument is
that teenagers who have consensual sex sometimes record it and they will be
arrested as sex offenders and prosecuted. If this is the case they why has
there not ever been a single case of this happening? He is again trying to
invent an imaginary problem as an argument for legalizing kidde porn.

 _3\. The free speech war is won/lost at the battle of child porn._ Another
joke of an invented reason. Abe Lincoln once said "Your Liberty To Swing Your
Fist Ends Just Where My Nose Begins". This is true for the freedom of speech
also. Our freedom of speech ends where someone else is violated or their
rights infringed on. This has been the pattern throughout the history of our
country. This is nothing new. He tries to make a point that we are losing our
rights and if we don't make kidde porn legal, we will lose more and more
rights.

Clearly a logical and convincing argument by the upright and honorable MR.
Rick Falkvinge... hahaha

I actually am really disappointing to find such tripe floating around here, I
really am.

------
ThePherocity
I hope he gets hit by a truck today. I really do. There isn't, nor will there
ever be an argument where the enablement of child molestation and rape is
acceptable. And if there is collateral damage, then so be it. I'd rather 100
go to jail wrongfully accused than to enable 1 child to be rape. This guy make
me sick. Seriously Rick, please kill yourself.

~~~
Falkvinge
Thank you for addressing me personally and wishing my premature death.
However, I have no intention of obliging you in this particular matter.

Cheers and enjoy the Sunday night, Rick

~~~
ThePherocity
Okay, fine, I'm being an asshole.

~~~
godDLL
I don't think that's an accurate assessment of your behaviour. You're doing
the asshole thing on the Internet, which makes you a globally accessible
asshole.

------
guard-of-terra
The real problem is not the child porn.

The real problem is "morals", "christianity" and "religion". Only by slaying
these you can fix the problem in the long run. So:

\- If you happen to be religious, quit it right now please.

\- Press everybody to do that.

\- If you find yourself pressing your "moral values" on somebody over, quit.

\- Press everybody to do that.

It's pointless anyway since gods aren't real. And your moral values likely
aren't very moral in the end.

(The main problem - most of people who is affected by this issue aren't on HN;
most of people on HN aren't affected)

~~~
objclxt
This is a really terrible argument. You say "if you find yourself pressing
your "moral values" on somebody over, quit", but then impose your own moral
values upon everyone else.

I'm an atheist, but I also accept that religion isn't necessarily the _cause_
of all moral problems, but merely a conduit through which they flow. Find me a
Catholic who's against abortion and I'll find you an atheist who feels the
same way.

A wholly atheistic society would still have many of the moral and ethical
problems we face today - the arguments for and against them would merely
manifest themselves differently.

~~~
guard-of-terra
The problem with Catholics lies not in the fact that they are against
abortion, but in the fact that they are against somebody else's abortion.

They somehow got the idea that instead of helping poor raise their children,
talking to pregnant girls, all the good stuff - they can just take a big stick
and make things illegal. As if it helps anybody.

This is where we have a problem, as you can see. Mentoring people to not have
sex because Jesus didn't is one thing. Throwing people in jails is a kind of
mortal sin, but for religion. They did it so now they aren't saved.

~~~
MartinCron
I am neither Catholic nor pro-life, but if you see abortion as murder (as many
do) it makes sense to be morally outraged by anyone's murder, not just their
own.

I don't even know you, but I am against the idea of anyone murdering you. See
how that works?

~~~
guard-of-terra
Okay, but if you, specifically outlaw murdering me, this will surely draw
attention at my person and might harm me.

You might be outraged, but you should only be confined to measures that 1) are
proven to work, and 2) can be enforced consistently.

It looks like a law against abortion does not usually work: abortion is
illegal in africa but they do much more abortions per one person than in
europe where it is generally okay. So if you really care you should take good
parts from what europe is doing and work on that. But if you are religious,
you take pride in acting irrationally but faithfully, and you will jail people
up, spread unsafe illegal abortions and hurt the bottom line (no of abortions
per person in your country). You know, Jesus died so you can do all of that
and still feel saved.

~~~
MartinCron
Those positions aren't mutually exclusive. There are plenty of pro-life people
who work on the demand side of the abortion scenario, it's not all clinic
bombers, even though they are the most newsworthy.

~~~
guard-of-terra
I have nothing against people who oppose abortion by helping people.

I have everything against people who oppose abortion by trying to send people
to prison, as if it helped.

Organized religions fall in the latter bucket.

