Uhh... Is anyone as completely baffled as I am? Setting aside the corresponding law's subjectivity and clear violation of freedom of speech, do people still lack a basic understanding of simple logic? The statement "if P then likely Q" does NOT mean the converse "if Q then likely P" is automatically true.
Example 1:
P = Person has real life violent tendencies.
Q = Person plays violent video games.
Example 2:
P = Person has real life tendencies of child sexual abuse.
Q = Person owns lolicon manga.
Does anyone else think this case is a grave injustice and the law subjectively silly? Think about it: One can violate this law at any time in the privacy of one's home with nothing other than a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and some artistic talent. I was quite literally fuming with rage as I wrote this post and had to press backspace many times to delete non-constructive words so as to avoid it sounding like an angry outburst. For more details on this unfortunate turn of events, check out the AnimeNewsNetwork and the OtakuReview. What are your thoughts on this matter?
Hmmm... I wonder if anyone will flag this specific scene from Evangelion 1.0 as not containing any "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" prior to the March 9th U.S. Blu-ray release. If so, will owners of this movie be rounded up en masse and sent to the slammer?
7 comments:
The good news is that Handley accepted a plea bargain and plead guilty... so this doesn't set as bad of a precedent as if he had been convicted by a jury. But it is dangerous, as there is no real defining line between "obscene animated pornograpy involving a child" and the "non-obsecene" equivalent.
That said, I don't blame Handley for taking the plea bargain. He was facing up to 15 years in jail and up to a $250,000 fine. Spending six months in jail seems like quite a small sentence at that point.
I think the prosecutors were willing to cut any deal that didn't involve them having to take this case to the Supreme Court, where such cases have typically lost. Handley would have probably had to have sat in jail for up to five years without any guarantee of even a hearing at the Supreme Court, so again, this issue is going to remain in the gray area for a long time I'm afraid.
If you have hentai, I would be encrypting it regardless at this point, and clearing your browser cache when you're done surfing. It just isn't worth the risk to do otherwise now.
I have no words, seriously.
America, I'm disappointed. ):
It really is depressing that, in a world where a person can get away with negligent driving that kills two innocent children, because she's friends with a local judge (this happened where I live not too long ago), people can still be labeled as freaks for reading certain kinds of books. The worst part is that even if Handley gets out of jail, and even if he passes his psychological examinations with flying colors, he will be branded a child predator by public opinion for the rest of his life...and anyone who watches anime or reads manga will be lumped in with him.
I liked to think that we as a nation had outgrown such immature, knee-jerk thinking. Now I know better. It simply doesn't pay to be a nerd. So, we're screwed: we can't watch Moonlight Lady, even though it's got some of the best atmosphere you'll ever find, because people are having sex. We can't read Negima, despite it being hilarious, because everyone gets their clothes shredded at the drop of a hat. We can't play Pokemon, because it's satanic.
Home of the Free, indeed.
Everywhere it happens... some time ago, in year 2000, here on Spain, a murderer known as José Rabadán "the katana murderer" put all the sights on the videogame players: initially, all the media said Final Fantasy VIII caused that boy killed her parents and sister with a katana because he played videogames all day (principally that game, they said).
The media charged against videogames only because "appear so", sensationalism tainted all the information and, during some time, the videogames (and videogame players) had bad fame...
Sorry for my broken english. I only wanted to say this happens all around the world, no matter wich your nationality is.
Handley was forced to take a plea bargain because he could not financially afford to take the case further along. In USA courts, if you cannot pay to defend yourself, then you have to stop right there and take whatever you can at that stage. In a few RARE cases, the judge will order that the defendant's lawyer cannot quit the defendant, so in that situation, the defense would continue.
Handley not only had to pay a lot more for his current court case which would have dragged on until a guilty verdict where he would then appeal to the next higher Circuit Court. There is no guarantee the next court would accept the appeal. After paying the huge lawyer fees for that, he then proceeds with an appeal to the Supreme Court plus getting a lawyer that is qualified to represent in the Supreme Court. If he didn't have money, then the lawyer would not work for him.
Basically, if you cannot afford to defend yourself, you will end up with a guilty status.
The upcoming ACTA Treaty will make it even easier to get rid of controversial manga. That is because the material is clearly copyrighted (owner need not be known at that point) and can be reported to the IP enforcer. If you cannot produce express permission, then it remains offline and criminal penalties ensue. It would be easy for anti-hentai fans (of which there are many) to report hentai scanlators for prosecution. The chilling effect will then cause everything to dry up, so it doesn't matter that anime/manga fans (who did not risk anything) will simply say that sources outside the treaty nations will continue. That will fail due to the internet2 packet blocks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACTA_treaty
Did anyone ever find out which manga they were talking about?
anxietydecending: This article on the Anime News Network summarizes all of the books that were deemed 'obscene'.
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