| Serious strikethrough internet business and SERIOUS CARTOONS |
[Aug. 13th, 2007|11:53 pm] |
I haven't seen anyone really discuss this aspect of the situation except me continuing to run my mouth about it everywhere I go. So now I will do it some more.
From the lj_biz post:
Child pornography in the form of photographs, films and videos will be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a clearinghouse for law enforcement agencies that investigate and prosecute child pornography.
OK, that sounds pretty good. Then:
Our process for drawings, cartoons, animation and other non-photographic images is slightly different. An image of this type that obviously violates our policy will be treated the same as a photographic image of child pornography, but in questionable cases involving a non-photographic image we will adopt a "two strikes"process. We will first contact the user and request that the image, and any other similar images, be voluntarily deleted (or modified) within three days. If there's no response within three days, we'll proceed with suspension. In the worst case, if someone was completely incommunicado during those three days, they could go through the appeal process. If we receive a second report of child pornography involving the same user in the future, and confirm that the reported content violates our policy, then all journals of the user will be permanently suspended without another warning and the user will be blocked from creating new LiveJournal accounts in the future.
Fine. But what's the word on getting reported to the NCMEC for a fucking cartoon?
A common response to this is "Yeah, but the NCMEC would just laugh their asses off / get pissed off for wasting their time anyway."
You know what? I don't care if the report gets closed or marked as bogus five minutes later. It will always exist, archived, somewhere. Filing it is wrong, and wastes important resources.
Context: I draw cartoons. I post them on the internet. They are sometimes irreverent. They are sometimes raunchy. They sometimes show weiners and/or boobs.
I know many cultures have long, rich and varied histories of this kind of thing as well (many of which are circulated in the United States). I'm going to focus on American work in particular, since that's where LJ/SixApart is, and just mention a couple of cartoonists. Links below are not necessarily safe for work, though they certainly have all been treated as legal in the United States for quite some time.
Robert Crumb is an influential cartoonist who started in the 1960s. In my family, his collections are considered coffee table books. In 1972, Fritz the Cat, a 1972 X-rated animated film about cats, was created based on his characters.
There's also Bobby London's Dirty Duck, which has run in Playboy since 1976 and before that ran in National Lampoon since 1971. I can't find any good links of it right now, unfortunately. Basically he's a pervy old duck that chases around barely legal girls. And, he's a fucking duck.
I've seen a pornographic animated cartoon which I believe was done in the 1920s. I saw it in a museum in New York City. I can't find what it was called or the artist, though.
Today, there are entire publishing labels devoted to erotic and/or smutty comics.
I know what you're going to say, comic geeks are somewhere between HP geeks and furries on the food chain anyway. Is rock and roll [edit: fixed link] still normal?
Reporting cartoons: stupid since the 1920s.
Edited to fix stupid cut/paste errors. Arrgh Semagic. |
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| Comments: |
From: (Anonymous)
2007-08-19 06:39 am (UTC)
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I don't understand.
Our process for drawings, cartoons, animation and other non-photographic images is slightly different.
Ok...
An image of this type that obviously violates our policy will be treated the same as a photographic image of child pornography, but in questionable cases involving a non-photographic image we will adopt a "two strikes"process.
What type? non-photo? So their policy for a non-photo is to treat is as a photp (report=defamation) unless it is "questionable" (what is questionable? maybe a photo, maybe a non-photo?) in which case you get a more lenient policy? So they are kinder to people who draw kiddie porn so life-like that they can't tell if it is a photo or not? I think that is wrong, but I don't see another interpretation. They haven't defined what violates their "policy." I think "questionable" refers to that policy...but they haven't said what it is, so I am confused.
In contract law, any ambiguities are construed against the one who wrote the contract. It is the writer's fault that the other party was confused. It took me too long to understand their post.
Anyway, I agree. Reporting cartoons is a waste of resources, defames the cartoonist, and misses the point of the law. The point of the law is not to prevent people from seeing drawn images, but to protect actual children from being hurt.
-Limbomonkey/Emily
They seem to have admitted lately that they're not reporting artists. Not that I believe anything they say, any more.
Also, the contract law is a very interesting point. All of their documentation up until a couple of days ago stated clearly that paid users would never see ads. Then they unfurled the Diet Pepsi thing. Actually, most of their documentation still states clearly that paid users will never see ads. And yet we do. | |
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