Post by kanshu on Sept 1, 2004 8:47:09 GMT -5
Yo,
I don't know if you know about COPA.
This is a legal act established in the USA that punishes people, i.e. internet provider and websites, for distributing "harmful" material to minors. While the act is still debated in court at the moment, and "can't be enacted on", all those who have their base in the USA (like ffnet) have that damocles sword dangling over their heads.
If the COPA passes, it means that legal actions can be taken against those 'for-profit entities' who make "harmful material" available to people under 17 - in short, any web provider who hosts a site that contains adult material. Like, a fanfiction page, or a fanart page with NC-17 material.
The legal questions summarize like this:
The Child Online Protection Act of 1998, also known informally as the “Son of CDA” or as “CDA II” (referring to the Communications Decency Act of 1996, ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1997), creates a criminal and a civil offense for any for-profit (or possibly any commercial) entity of person that places harmful to minors” content on the World Wide Web without a domain-specific adult-verification mechanism to deter minors under 17 from viewing it.
“Harmful to minors” means, in rough terms, “obscene with respect to minors.” The law has been challenged as putatively unconstitutional by many web operators on several grounds including (1) the vagueness of the term “harmful to minors”, (2) vagueness in the way “community standards” could be applied on the Internet with respect to almost any definition of “harmful to minors,” (3) the technical and economic difficulty of providing adult verification for free content for sites not actually intended to sell pornography as usually understood, and (4) the chilling effect, interfering with the communication of non-obscene, constitutionally protected speech among adults (even if putatively “harmful to minors”).
Source: www.hppub.com/colpa.htm
The text of COPA is this:
SEC. 1402. CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS.
The Congress finds that--
(1) while custody, care, and nurture of the child resides
first with the parent, the widespread availability of the
Internet presents opportunities for minors to access
materials through the World Wide Web in a manner that can
frustrate parental supervision or control;
(2) the protection of the physical and psychological well-
being of minors by shielding them from materials that are
harmful to them is a compelling governmental interest;
(3) to date, while the industry has developed innovative
ways to help parents and educators restrict material that is
harmful to minors through parental control protections and
self-regulation, such efforts have not provided a national
solution to the problem of minors accessing harmful material
on the World Wide Web;
(4) a prohibition on the distribution of material harmful
to minors, combined with legitimate defenses, is currently
the most effective and least restrictive means by which to
satisfy the compelling government interest; and
(5) notwithstanding the existence of protections that limit
the distribution over the World Wide Web of material that is
harmful to minors, parents, educators, and industry must
continue efforts to find ways to protect children from being
exposed to harmful material found on the Internet.
Source: www.hppub.com/copaact.htm
And it defines:
``(5) Internet information location tool.--The term
`Internet information location tool' means a service that
refers or links users to an online location on the World Wide
Web. Such term includes directories, indices, references,
pointers, and hypertext links.
``(6) Material that is harmful to minors.--The term
`material that is harmful to minors' means any communication,
picture, image, graphic image file, article, recording,
writing, or other matter of any kind that is obscene or
that--
``(A) the average person, applying contemporary community
standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and
with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is
designed to pander to, the prurient interest;
``(B) depicts, describes, or represents, in a manner
patently offensive with respect to minors, an actual or
simulated sexual act or sexual contact, an actual or
simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd
exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breast;
and
``(C) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic,
political, or scientific value for minors.
``(7) Minor.--The term `minor' means any person under 17
years of age.''.
Source: www.hppub.com/copaact.htm
The problem with this is that a provider like ffnet, or others who offer their services "for pay" (like your webspace provider) can get affected if the host NC-17 material on their sites.
Most webspace providers explicitley forbid said material on for their pages.
On the same base, just linking to "harmful material" can get problematic, if you do it from a US-based provider (like this MB). Other countries have different laws, so COPA doesn't apply when you live in, say Sweden.
Emails and other means of internet communications are not affected by the COPA, so if you privately share the URLs, that is no problem at all.
Maybe this little trip into the world of law helps to at least dispell a bit of the anger over limitations about contents.
I know I don't want to have that threat hanging over me to possibly get sued by someone.
I don't know if you know about COPA.
This is a legal act established in the USA that punishes people, i.e. internet provider and websites, for distributing "harmful" material to minors. While the act is still debated in court at the moment, and "can't be enacted on", all those who have their base in the USA (like ffnet) have that damocles sword dangling over their heads.
If the COPA passes, it means that legal actions can be taken against those 'for-profit entities' who make "harmful material" available to people under 17 - in short, any web provider who hosts a site that contains adult material. Like, a fanfiction page, or a fanart page with NC-17 material.
The legal questions summarize like this:
The Child Online Protection Act of 1998, also known informally as the “Son of CDA” or as “CDA II” (referring to the Communications Decency Act of 1996, ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1997), creates a criminal and a civil offense for any for-profit (or possibly any commercial) entity of person that places harmful to minors” content on the World Wide Web without a domain-specific adult-verification mechanism to deter minors under 17 from viewing it.
“Harmful to minors” means, in rough terms, “obscene with respect to minors.” The law has been challenged as putatively unconstitutional by many web operators on several grounds including (1) the vagueness of the term “harmful to minors”, (2) vagueness in the way “community standards” could be applied on the Internet with respect to almost any definition of “harmful to minors,” (3) the technical and economic difficulty of providing adult verification for free content for sites not actually intended to sell pornography as usually understood, and (4) the chilling effect, interfering with the communication of non-obscene, constitutionally protected speech among adults (even if putatively “harmful to minors”).
Source: www.hppub.com/colpa.htm
The text of COPA is this:
SEC. 1402. CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS.
The Congress finds that--
(1) while custody, care, and nurture of the child resides
first with the parent, the widespread availability of the
Internet presents opportunities for minors to access
materials through the World Wide Web in a manner that can
frustrate parental supervision or control;
(2) the protection of the physical and psychological well-
being of minors by shielding them from materials that are
harmful to them is a compelling governmental interest;
(3) to date, while the industry has developed innovative
ways to help parents and educators restrict material that is
harmful to minors through parental control protections and
self-regulation, such efforts have not provided a national
solution to the problem of minors accessing harmful material
on the World Wide Web;
(4) a prohibition on the distribution of material harmful
to minors, combined with legitimate defenses, is currently
the most effective and least restrictive means by which to
satisfy the compelling government interest; and
(5) notwithstanding the existence of protections that limit
the distribution over the World Wide Web of material that is
harmful to minors, parents, educators, and industry must
continue efforts to find ways to protect children from being
exposed to harmful material found on the Internet.
Source: www.hppub.com/copaact.htm
And it defines:
``(5) Internet information location tool.--The term
`Internet information location tool' means a service that
refers or links users to an online location on the World Wide
Web. Such term includes directories, indices, references,
pointers, and hypertext links.
``(6) Material that is harmful to minors.--The term
`material that is harmful to minors' means any communication,
picture, image, graphic image file, article, recording,
writing, or other matter of any kind that is obscene or
that--
``(A) the average person, applying contemporary community
standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and
with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is
designed to pander to, the prurient interest;
``(B) depicts, describes, or represents, in a manner
patently offensive with respect to minors, an actual or
simulated sexual act or sexual contact, an actual or
simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd
exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breast;
and
``(C) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic,
political, or scientific value for minors.
``(7) Minor.--The term `minor' means any person under 17
years of age.''.
Source: www.hppub.com/copaact.htm
The problem with this is that a provider like ffnet, or others who offer their services "for pay" (like your webspace provider) can get affected if the host NC-17 material on their sites.
Most webspace providers explicitley forbid said material on for their pages.
On the same base, just linking to "harmful material" can get problematic, if you do it from a US-based provider (like this MB). Other countries have different laws, so COPA doesn't apply when you live in, say Sweden.
Emails and other means of internet communications are not affected by the COPA, so if you privately share the URLs, that is no problem at all.
Maybe this little trip into the world of law helps to at least dispell a bit of the anger over limitations about contents.
I know I don't want to have that threat hanging over me to possibly get sued by someone.
