Oh [censored]

[kengr]

If you've got a website with photos of "sexually explicit conduct" you *need* to read this. And get ready to purge like mad.

http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/news_events_1.htm

The article gives the legal definition of "sexually explicit" and it's a lot broader than you may think.

This is gonna *kill* a lot of LJ communities...

Comments

Re: Man, I'm innocent.

[kengr]

t would never have occurred to me that any LJ communities would have people posting images of Real People having Sex. I mean, these things are public access. That's insane in this society.

LJ requires "adult" communities to restrict membership to over 18 usres, and the communities require pics that aren't "worksafe" to be behind <lj-cut> tags. And that they be "friends only" (ie members only). Most have "friends only set as the default for posts.

The definition in that article was actually a lot LOOSER than I would have expected. ONLY real people, and ONLY real acts -- not simulation -- and not including cartoons, etc. I'm amazed they managed to keep it that limited.

That's because the laws is that so-called "child protection act". It's sole justification is stopping "kiddie porn" Since the other stuff doesn't involve actual children, the courts handed them their heads already.

The killer here is two things. First, that definition:

"sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; bestiality; masturbation; sadistic or masochistic abuse; or lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person"

"lascivious exhibition" has been used to go after parents for what used to be considered "cute" nude pics of their kids.

Second and worse is the record keeping requirements. In essence you have to know *who* an image is of and have record in a specific format and stored and made available in a specific manner to prove (in a defined way) who the person is and how old they were at the time.

There are exceptions for images from before a certain date. But how do you *prove* the image is that old?

Heck a couple communities I belong to (retro_sex & vintage_sex) are *supposed to be for pinup and other "adult" images that are more than old enough to be safe. But modern images in old fashioned style have slipped in a time or two.

Then you get to communities where people are posting images of themselves... The law makes no provision forf that. Yeah, it'd *probably* get thrown out at trial, but...