COPA ruling

[LAJ]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...rnography_dc_7

Major supreme court ruling with the Child Online protection act (COPA)

"Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority that reliance on community standards to identify material harmful to minors does not by itself render the law too broad under the First Amendment."

Same guy who joked about pubic hair on coke cans.

At any rate this case will be ongoing and one to watch.

[boneprone]

This guy also gave the movie "Long Dong Silver"
three strokes up.

[Mr.Fiction]

Doesn't anyone care? This is the law that may outlaw anything and everything interesting on the web.

Not just porn, but anything that children in Utah or Alabama find offensive.

Every free adult site operator could go to jail over this.

This thread gets no interest?

[buster]

its very interesting and it dont look good . any one want to buy my tgp lol

[Mr.Fiction]

Stevens is the only worthy Justice:

"In the context of the Internet ... community standards become a sword, rather than a shield. If a prurient appeal is offensive in a Puritan village, it may be a crime to post it on the World Wide Web," Stevens wrote.

[LAJ]

I couldn't agree with ya more Mr. Fiction.

And it's sad that the ruling was 8-1.

What's more sad is that yes... perhaps enough people don't care about what is going. Time will tell when the smoke clears.

[Ludedude]

It's not that we don't care, it's just that this decision is next to meaningless overall IMHO.

All they did was rule on an extremely narrow piece of the lower court's decision and sent it back to the lower court. It doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that the challenge to COPA will be defeated.

[TopCashQ]

Well, at least they're barred from enforcing the law, for now. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here. My hope is that other aspects of the law will render it unenforceable.

Hopefully, our lawmakers in Congress will continue to prove their inability to write a constitutional, enforceable law with respect to internet porn. Even if they do manage to come up with one that passes constitutional muster and is enforceable in the US, what are they going to do about foreign sites? The US, contrary to what Congress has evidently assumed, does not have jurisdiction over the Net....

At any rate, it will be interesting to see where this goes - if anywhere.

[UnseenWorld]

I'm not an attorney, but it seems to me the effect of this decision could be that anyone operating within the scope of US law (and the government in gambling site cases has argued that merely being an American citizen puts whatever you do, no matter where you do it, within that scope) may not put up a site where minors can see anything a local community might object to. So, something like an AVS will be developed to deal with that and all sites operated by smart webmasters will have a Warning Page. It'll be so common that it'll just become part of the Internet. No more stumbling onto a site and seeing a blow-job or assfuck first thing.

Think of the advantages, though: No more 14 year old boys with empty wallets wasting your bandwidth. Or, if they manage to get in with their father's credit card, dear old Dad is responsible for it, not you.

This is not the end of the world, believe me.

[eRock]

Originally posted by UnseenWorld
Think of the advantages, though: No more 14 year old boys with empty wallets wasting your bandwidth.

Exactly! I think there's a lot more underage surfers than we think too!

[AbeFroman]

I cant believe you are talking about some possible advantage of this. How are you even going to advertise an avs or cc site without being offensive to some community. I am constantly amazed at anyone in this business thinking censorship is good and that it will stop at the right amount.

[funkmaster]

... the end of the free stuff is near ... or will hosting in amsterdam go through the roof soon ??

[wiseoldone]

The distressing thing about this (well, one of the many distressing things) is that the court ruled that community standards are an acceptable test for determining whether material is harmful to minors. Of course, this is the current standard for obscenity, however I felt (and I know that most of you must also feel) that it is impossible to distingish the location of the surfer, so any "community standard" for the internet is absurd. It means that we would need to display materials that are not deemed "harmful to minors" or "obscene" anywhere in the world.

Since the word "fuck" is undoubtedly considered harmful to minors somewhere in the US, even the operators of this board (and anyone who posts) are now in jeopardy of a six month jail term and a $50,000 fine. OUTRAGEOUS.

The broader problem is not what this means for harmful matter, which is something that an AVS could solve (in theory, although it would still create all kinds of marketing problems). The broader problem is that any material which is considered obscene - regardless of whether children can view it, since obscenity has nothing to do with the age of the viewer- is still considered to be something that the community standard will govern. That means that we are dealing with the lowest standard in the US as being what determines what we can post on AGE PROTECTED WEB SITES.

Small comfort is that the court said the ruling was "limited in scope" and enforcement is still barred until the lower court decides whether the COPA law is unconstitutional for a reason other than the "Community Standards" issue which was the basis for it's first (and imho correct) decision that COPPA was not constitutional.

[Mr.Fiction]

Originally posted by funkmaster
... the end of the free stuff is near ... or will hosting in amsterdam go through the roof soon ??

If this holds up, they'll pass a law requiring ISP's to block all illegally offensive content. They already have a law in some states requiring ISP's to block child porn, once the government notifies them of it. The next logical step is adding other illegal sites to that list and expanding the law to a national level. Once AOL blocks free porn sites to all U.S. surfers, that pretty much kills them for the U.S. market, no matter where they are hosted.

[Mr.Fiction]

Originally posted by wiseoldone


The broader problem is that any material which is considered obscene - regardless of whether children can view it, since obscenity has nothing to do with the age of the viewer- is still considered to be something that the community standard will govern. That means that we are dealing with the lowest standard in the US as being what determines what we can post on AGE PROTECTED WEB SITES.

The court had a chance to rewrite obscenity laws for the future, instead they stuck with an old, pre-internet, view of the world.

[UnseenWorld]

Originally posted by AbeFroman
I cant believe you are talking about some possible advantage of this. How are you even going to advertise an avs or cc site without being offensive to some community. I am constantly amazed at anyone in this business thinking censorship is good and that it will stop at the right amount.

Your complaint will not be moot until the whole "community standards" doctrine is reversed, and that doesn't appear to be in the cards anytime soon. Going to an AVS type thing will at least give you a defense, man. And certainly you can find a way to ADVERTISE something which is not going to be offensive most places.

It seems you think there is some way to have a perfectly safe operation with no chance of being prosecuted. Never happen.

[Spunkyed]

I think it would rock if it passed. Get rid of the damn TGP's and free sites, so us serious guys can go on making more money. People will get porn no matter what, and if you take out the free shit, they will just buy it. And thats way better in the long run then thousands of tgp's giving the porn away.

[funkmaster]

... well spunky, let me ask you one simple question, if it passes ... where will your traffic be coming from ?? spammail, searchengines ?? where else ??

[Mr.Fiction]

Originally posted by Spunky
I think it would rock if it passed. Get rid of the damn TGP's and free sites, so us serious guys can go on making more money. People will get porn no matter what, and if you take out the free shit, they will just buy it. And thats way better in the long run then thousands of tgp's giving the porn away.

This is not just about the adult business, this about free speech and freedom in general.

Wouldn't it rock if they declared martial law? Then you could leave your purse on the seat of your car without worrying about it getting stolen.

Think beyond the money. Free speech is more important than a few extra dollars in your pocket. Why do you think so many people have died fighting for your freedoms?

[Lensman]

So the minimum standard in the most bible-toting community in the US sets the standard for the rest?

It's surprising they would agree.

[jimmyf]

Originally posted by Lensman
So the minimum standard in the most bible-toting community in the US sets the standard for the rest?

It's surprising they would agree.

Nope I don't think so....

But a few years ago.... A town in TN.

took some people to court in TN. ( if I remember right )
and they were from Milpitas.... had some kind of Porn site.
man and woman... I think...

So I guess if they want to pay to ship your white ass to say
New York...... Yip.... you'll be standing before some bible-toting muther fucking judge...

I really don't think they would start with you Lensman... your to big..... Most likely they'll get someone like AaronM... or that Boney Guy..

Maybe that Sleazy guy he's always fucking with people...