Child Porn Charges for comedian; edited video makes it appear children were listening to dirty song

[DanielDeFig]

Superimposing, altering, photoshopping, editing videos and images can still constitute as an obscenity.

Maybe he should have done his homework before wasting his time on his little project.

"Obscenity"? As in USA's ridiculous obscenity laws? Which are no different from Pakistan's blasphemy laws?

(How do you legally identify what's obscene/blasphemous when people of different ethnic groups live in the same country, and how can you justify having harsh punishment for the braking of such obscure laws?)

Maybe this is the kind of mindset that bought on the prosecution in the first place. Hopefully (as some people have suggested), the court will be sensible and not find him guilty (or at least not put him away for 20+ years).

 

[DracoSuave]

There's two ways of looking at this. One is expressed in this thread a lot, and I agree with it.

No, he did not expose children to indecent materials. At no point should this even be considered a legal question. I absolutely agree... -that- argument is ludicrous.


What he DID do, however, is he DID use six-year old children IN indecent materials without the permission of their parents. He filmed those children himself, and used them to produce adult entertainment. (Not pornography, but certainly, nothing six year old children should be involved in.) He does not... and should not... have the right to make that decision. The children are too young to give any sort of consent to be filmed, and their parents have the right to have the informed consent necessary. The parent has every right and authority to say 'You know what, I do NOT agree to have my child in this.' Being a comedian is not an important enough job to society to remove that fundamental parental authority.

Now, had he gotten release papers from all those parents, their informed consent, and the children were never exposed to the indecent song... there'd be absolutely no problem.

 

[GiantRaven]

Twenty years..? For singing that in front of children? Why not just have him on trash duty for a year? They have to go that far plus chain him up? Holy crap.. what has humanity come to? Our court system is way out of balance. He did all this as a prank or joke, humor wise he isn't anything else. Crap, this is just awful.. and he posted it on Youtube so it's obvious he didn't take it as a big deal or illegal in any way.. *sigh*. Least they can sue him and make him pay off some cash, 20 years over this is beyond me.

EDIT: I also don't see this as child pornography.. people take things way to far or get mixed up with the real thing..

It's even worse than that, he gets twenty years for not actually singing that in front of children. No child has been even vaguely harmed by this.

What next, do we jail all the people involved in the making of Kick-Ass because of the existence of Hitgirl, which had an actual child in the role?

Fucking ridiculous.

 

[carnege4]

Really? REALLY? This is most stupid thing I have heard all year

Year started now, human stupidity got time

 

[Dogstile]

the other night i was doing a show where i made a joke about american attitudes to mexicans when someone called me racist. i countered it by saying "to be honest i was going for cutting cultural satire" which got a laugh but it became a bit of a struggle to get some people back on side

Should have called back "captain obvious is apparently in the room tonight, ladies and gentlemen".

I have serious doubts that people in a comedy club actually give a damn about racism. It seems to be a mainstay in comedy lately.

Edit:

Whoops, forgot to address the issue:

He's been charged, not prosecuted. This won't pass in court because contrary to popular belief, courts are not stupid. I say this after 5 years of my family having to appear in court for fucked up charges. They're just slow, and thorough. So he'll be fine.

Also, that police officer is an idiot. I'm surprised he's a lawman

 

[Chefodeath]

This video fills me with terror. It really does.

People constantly are faced with a choice, whether the corruption of their government is worth the pains of revolution. The French made that choice once, the Yanks made that choice once, and we may need to make it again.

 

[A Pious Cultist]

This is dumb. Even if he had, and a doubt it very much, edited the song into "I'm going to rape you all day long la la la la" it still wouldn't effect or damage these children's lives in any way at all.

To arrest this guy for "child porn" would be to forget and pervert the true reasons why paedophillia is illegal.

 

[Shuswah_Noir]

People who have actually committed crimes against children have been given a quarter of that sentence in Australia. This makes a mockery of the justice system. Charging someone for an edited video when children weren't actually exposed to anything distasteful.

I'm so angry I can't even finish my rant.

 

[Aerodyamic]

From my (admittedly non-professional) point of view, what he did was stupid, not criminal; that said, in Canada, he's be worse off:

Canada's Criminal Code prohibits child pornography, defined as follows:

b)Written material, visual representation or audio recording that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act or whose dominant characteristic is the description, for a sexual purpose, of sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act; or...
(as cribbed from www.duhaime.org)

I think this guy is basically being charged with 'distributing material harmful to minors, creating without the knowledge or consent of their (the childrens) legal guardians such material, which displays or references sexual behaviour in a way that is harmful to said children,' which is a really nebulous thing, but allows the D.A. an opportunity to pin this poor schmuck to the wall, and broaden the ability of the courts to stomp of free speech, if it in any way involves kids.

It's absolutely stupid, and while it's more properly an obscene act, he's probably going to get screwed for having a dumb idea, and not thinking it through before posting it to a globally accessible media platform.

Here's a scary thought: youtube may have to pull or remove everything that has a childrens show character in it that has been edited to include foul language or sexual themes if the D.A. wins this case, or a lot of people as going to be getting hit with these kinds of charge.

 

[tmnnerd]

one question no one seems to be asking here is did he get the permission of the parents to use the footage from the first video (which he would have needed their permission to record) in the second video? i dont really know how the law works on that issue in the us, but as far as i know, here in britain, you need permission from parents to record their children for any purpose, even when filming your own child such as at a school play (stupid but true) and you would certainly need permission to re-edit the footage. everyone is bringing up tv shows in the defence of this guy but they certainly have the permission of the children's parents and the kids are more than likely actors who are being paid anyway.

the problem these days is you have to be very careful with what you say and do. i perform part time as a stand up comic and the other night i was doing a show where i made a joke about american attitudes to mexicans when someone called me racist. i countered it by saying "to be honest i was going for cutting cultural satire" which got a laugh but it became a bit of a struggle to get some people back on side and i only had them all 15 mins later at the end of the set.

the lesson really is that you have to analyse everything from all angles to see what you might be accused of because no matter what someone will take offense. i dont think this guy deserves 20 years in jail or the stigma of a child porn charge and/or conviction but he does need to think in future about the legal implications of what he's doing.

I'm pretty sure that British law says that you need permission to film children if they are the purpose of what is being filmed (there is no clear rule). You can legally show a classroom of students on TV without any individual's permission in particular, but it there is emphasis on one specific pupil, you need permission from their legal guardian. There are also laws on fair use which apply to copyrighted material and the rules for showing children are similar. Of course, it is completely legal to film and show live a busy street filled with pedestrians even if there are children. They do this on news channels all the time.

If this song was filmed in a British school it would probably be legal.

i would agree with street footage, it would be impossible to get the permission of everyone caught on camera to use their image but when it comes to schools i would be very surprised if the parents weren't informed that a film crew was going to be there, at which point they would be asked if they had any objections to their child participating. of course if i'm wrong on that one i stand corrected : )

 

[x EvilErmine x]

WTF? Is this real? What court in there right mind made that ruling...were they all high or something? That's just ridiculous.

 

[Negatempest]

Jeez, that is as stupid as if a comedian said the "N" word at a club and got everyone angry....ow wait...

 

[Penguin Fairy]

Wait a second. The 16 year old that murdered his mom because she took his playstation away will only get 11-22 years in jail, but this guy gets 25 years in jail because of a joke?!

Have any of you seen his video?

If it's considered child porn then I don't think it's on youtube anymore.

 

[Caliostro]

Freedom of speech is dead. Long live freedom of speech.

It's a good thing he didn't rob a bank for $100 while he was at it, or he would probably be facing life in prison now.

Robbing a gas station and beating the owner would actually get him less time than this

MURDER would actually get him less time.

This is beyond the plausible levels of retardation... I'm actually baffled... I expect people to continuously outdo their own levels of absurdity and idiocy, but this has gone off some completely unthinkable boundary.

I do wonder if these judges, people who should extensively know the law, are at all aware that the point in criminalizing child pornography is not that of social acceptance, but because children have to be hurt (since you can't ascertain conscious and educated consent from children at that age) for it to exist. There are clear victims then: the children. Who are the victims in this fucking event though? Nobody was hurt in the making of this video. Nobody.

... Well, nobody except the guy that made it. So, I suppose we should be arresting the entire justice department.

 

[Okysho]

well ok since the actual video has been removed from the net, I went and looked up some of his other stuff. He's really not that bad of a singer/rapper. He's pretty damn funny too. If he gets arrested and given 20 for this kinda stuff? ... I dunno...

yeah, I mean he shouldn't have posted the kid's faces without permission, but that's... mmaybe what? a small fine? a few months?

Stupid... I don't wanna sound hyppocritical because this stuff happens everywhere, so if this ever happens in Canada, I'm gonna start a fuckin' rally.

 

[ANImaniac89]

Alright the only thing this guy is guilty of is idiocy.
By not letting the parents know what he intended on do with the footage of there children he left himself open to this.
If he had just been clear about his intent this wouldn't be happening.
Also I'm sure that he would have no trouble finding kids to be extras in this project.