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Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 10:20 am
by Gidan
TAMPA - Pornographic materials sold over the Internet may be considered obscene in one community and perfectly acceptable in another.
A federal appeals court says communities that find the materials objectionable are within their rights to prosecute the pornography producers, even though the items were not specifically directed at those communities.
Ruling in the Tampa federal prosecution of Paul F. Little, also known as Max Hardcore, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the law doesn't recognize a national community standard for Internet-based material.
The Atlanta-based court rejected arguments by Little's attorneys that applying a local community standard to the Internet violates the First Amendment because doing so means material can be judged according to the standards of the strictest communities.
In other words, the materials might be legal where they were produced and almost everywhere else. But if they violate the standards of one community, they are illegal in that community and the producers may be convicted of a crime.
Be careful what you put on the internet, you never know when some small community across the country will be offended by it and drag you into court. I guess the, "If its offensive to you, don't look at it" doesn't count for these people.
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 10:36 am
by 10sun
I want to send Goatse postcards too everybody in that community.
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 4:50 pm
by Jay
Gidan wrote:TAMPA - Pornographic materials sold over the Internet may be considered obscene in one community and perfectly acceptable in another.
A federal appeals court says communities that find the materials objectionable are within their rights to prosecute the pornography producers, even though the items were not specifically directed at those communities.
Ruling in the Tampa federal prosecution of Paul F. Little, also known as Max Hardcore, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the law doesn't recognize a national community standard for Internet-based material.
The Atlanta-based court rejected arguments by Little's attorneys that applying a local community standard to the Internet violates the First Amendment because doing so means material can be judged according to the standards of the strictest communities.
In other words, the materials might be legal where they were produced and almost everywhere else. But if they violate the standards of one community, they are illegal in that community and the producers may be convicted of a crime.
Be careful what you put on the internet, you never know when some small community across the country will be offended by it and drag you into court. I guess the, "If its offensive to you, don't look at it" doesn't count for these people.
Doesn't state to state law apply here? It's one thing for a community to ban this stuff. That's their business but if they're gonna crack down on it they need to take the guy watching the porn to court not the guy making it legally somewhere else.
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 9:38 pm
by Gidan
I would tend to agree with you. If you don't like the content, why are you looking at it? Why is someone who is putting up content in CA being charged with obscenity by a group of people in FL who could choose not to look at the material. Worse yet, why is he now in prison for it?
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 11:52 am
by Ginzburgh
Max Hardcore is definitely offensive.
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 1:10 pm
by Jay
Ginzburgh wrote:Max Hardcore is definitely offensive.
Enough for jail time?
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:33 pm
by Ginzburgh
No not at all. He went to jail because his video's portray ultra hardcore stuff (fisting, pissing, etc) that can be found in a hundred other videos made by a dozen other production companies. The FBI just had it out for him because he was so vocal about the goverment wasting tax dollars going after him all the time.
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 7:27 pm
by brinstar
i wanna jam huge black dildos in the front lawns of all the prissy bitches that live in whatever community did this
and feel free to take that both ways
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 8:03 pm
by Harrison
brinstar wrote:i wanna jam huge black dildos in the front lawns of all the prissy bitches that live in whatever community did this
and feel free to take that both ways
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 9:54 pm
by Jay
Harrison wrote:brinstar wrote:i wanna jam huge black dildos in the front lawns of all the prissy bitches that live in whatever community did this
and feel free to take that both ways
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 11:08 pm
by Gaazy
computer smart people, I have a question
Say a community like that one bands a certain site or something. How can they ever prove what you have looked at in your own home? I mean, whats the point in banning certain offensive material if they cant ever know what you look at? Its like sites putting 18 and up only! on the front page, but like that stops a fucking 16 year old from looking at porn because theres no way to know?
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 11:47 am
by Zanchief
They could find out through your ISP, but that would be pretty much impossible. For torrents it does happen though since certain distribution companies will monitor people who are seeding some of their torrents, contact the ISP of the person doing this, and try and have them stopped / prosecuted. I know of some people even in Canada who were contacted by their ISP to stop downloading movies, but it's an empty threat since there's no legal recourse here.
Problem is there's no one monitoring what people look at (thank god), so nothing could really be done. I suppose they could get some whackos to confiscate all information from your ISP and dig through all that data to try and catch some people who have a scat fetish...sounds like fun.
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 11:51 am
by 10sun
Leave your wireless open w/ logging off.
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 5:24 pm
by Drem
I'm pretty sure Hollywood and the music industry are in a downward spiral anyway. It seems they're really struggling, and things like the RIAA are mostly laughed at by the rest of the world. And by most Americans. Especially considering most of the artists are totally okay with people downloading their stuff, because they realise that's the best word of mouth there is. The only people going after shit like this, and going after DJs for dropping uncleared samples etc, are the corporate execs that have nothing to live for other than money
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 8:12 am
by Tikker
Zanchief wrote:They could find out through your ISP, but that would be pretty much impossible. For torrents it does happen though since certain distribution companies will monitor people who are seeding some of their torrents, contact the ISP of the person doing this, and try and have them stopped / prosecuted. I know of some people even in Canada who were contacted by their ISP to stop downloading movies, but it's an empty threat since there's no legal recourse here.
it's surprisingly easy to do actually
part of my job 8ish years ago was to track this exactly at the ISP where I work
we did nothing with the info (like Zanchief said there's not a clearly defined legal recourse here), but it was more of a mental exercise and a chance to test out new IT tools, and our own internal procedures
yes it's impossible to tell if it little Johnny, or little Susie at the PC at the time, but you can 100% for sure tell that the it was downloaded at a specific modem
(another one to toss more mud on it is a wireless access point)
Re: Offending the Middle District of Florida
Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 6:28 pm
by Gidan
While certainly possible, it generally not worth the effort to track this information for this type of purpose. The issue for many of these cases is when someone in that district purchases something from that individual or corporation. If that community has deemed the item to be offensive, then when someone in that community purchases said item, the seller can then be held accountable to criminal charges for selling to that person. The people this type of president effects most are those in online retail. They will now need to take further actions to ensure what they are selling is not a violation in the community where the item is being purchased.
Regardless, this is a rediculass restriction to place on the people selling these products. If you don't want to look at it, no one if forcing you to buy it. Your moral view should not be forced upon those who live around you. Even if the vast majority in your community find something offensive, what you do in your home has no effect on them and they shouldn't have this much power over you and the people you buy from.