How Copyright Lobbyists Are Making The Child Porn Problem Worse
from the sweeping-things-under-the-rug dept
Over the years, we've noted that the entertainment industry has gleefully tried to link "child porn" to internet filters, in an attempt to make it easier to force censorship around the globe on the woefully stupid theory that this will somehow reduce infringement. At times they're completely upfront about this, admitting that "child pornography is great!" because it gets politicians to do what they want. Rick Falkvinge has another such story of an industry exec enthusiastically embracing child porn on the belief that hyping up child porn will help get their filtering/censorship plans through. The article does a nice job highlighting similar stories around the globe.But the key point is all the way at the end of the article. All of these attempts to link filtering to child porn doesn't help stop the problem of child porn. In fact, it makes it worse. Falkvinge quotes a group that helps victims of child porn:
But more emotionally, we turn to a German group named Mogis. It is a support group for adult people who were abused as children, and is the only one of its kind. They are very outspoken and adamant on the issue of censoring child pornography.We've made this point before about those who try to censor based on child porn claims. Like most folks, I find child porn to be a horrific and dangerous issue. But the way to deal with it isn't through censorship and filters. It's to go after those who are actually responsible for the stuff. It's to track down and prosecute those who are creating and distributing the stuff. Putting up filters for censorship doesn't stop those who are creating and distributing. It just drives them further underground. If anything, it actually makes it more difficult for law enforcement to track them down and stop them.Censorship hides the problem and causes more children to be abused, they say. Don’t close your eyes, but see reality and act on it. As hard as it is to force oneself to be confronted emotionally with this statement, it is rationally understandable that a problem can’t be addressed by hiding it. One of their slogans is “Crimes should be punished and not hidden”.
This puts the copyright industry’s efforts in perspective. In this context they don’t care in the slightest about children, only about their control over distribution channels. If you ever thought you knew cynical, this takes it to a whole new level.
The conclusion is as unpleasant as it is inevitable. The copyright industry lobby is actively trying to hide egregious crimes against children, obviously not because they care about the children, but because the resulting censorship mechanism can be a benefit to their business if they manage to broaden the censorship in the next stage. All this in defense of their lucrative monopoly that starves the public of culture.
But, thanks to copyright industry efforts, that's what we're getting. And for what? So that they can get ISPs to start putting in filters in a weak and unworkable attempt to stop infringement. It's really quite sickening that some in the copyright industry would go this far, but when you see just how often copyright lobbyists bring up child porn, and advocate for filters, it's hard not to be disgusted at the lows to which they'll stoop in their quixotic battle, where the end result is actually to make life worse for the victims of child pornography.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: child porn, copyright, filters, lobbying
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Thing is, what I would like to know is how much profit do they seek to gain by destroying your rights?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Oligarchical Collectivism
" ...the High (who rule); the Middle (who work for, and yearn to supplant the High), and the Low (whose goal is quotidian survival). Cyclically, the Middle deposed the High, by enlisting the Low. Upon assuming power, however, the Middle (the new High class) recast the Low into their usual servitude. In the event, the classes perpetually repeat the cycle, when the Middle class speaks to the Low class of "justice" and of "human brotherhood" in aid of becoming the High class rulers."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Content - the internet
Pharma - immortality
energy - cheap local wind mills, solar cells, and energy storage devices
communications - Quantum Entanglement
banking - BitCoin or something similar
defense - SCRAM projectiles
food - automated hydroponic gardening
Manufacturing - 3d printing and robotics
We are headed towards a more distributed world, where not only are the content middle men removed, but so are the rest of the middlemen. The revolution you seem to expect will be the content industry repeated for other sectors. With them dying slow painful human rights removing deaths.
Rinse - Lather - repeat ....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Um...what? (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml)
"Think of the children!"
Huh? (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110711/03050815040/how-copyright-lobbyists-are-making-child-porn -problem-worse.shtml)
"We worship at the altar of cold hard cash to the detriment of anything else!"
No argument there.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
When they bring up "child porn," these are the same people who have no problems hiring men who pee on teenagers.
When they bring up "terrorism," these are the same people who have no problems hiring men who glorify gang violence.
When they bring up "safety and well-being," these are the same people who have no problems hiring men who discourage children to continue their education in favor of endless hedonism.
I could go on forever.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
But it takes quite a leap to get to the conclusion that copyright industry lobbyists accept this debatable proposition, and lobby for censoring/filtering technology despite believing it would increase the amount of or damage from child pornography.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"You're not doing anything about a solution, so you must be part of the problem!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Trying to somehow imply that copyright enforcement makes child pornography worse?
Wow, just wow.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
There - fixed it for you, AC.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
But no srsly, there's truth in your statement because the copyright morons are using CP to promote censoring tools they could use later and this has the side effect of hiding the problem (CP) instead of solving it. And he's also pointing out how low and underhand is this tactic MAFIAA is using.
So uh... If he's creepy for pointing this absurd out then make me a creep too. And yes, we might be desperated by how low MAFIAA is getting and how many innocents are being hurt in the path MAFIAA chose to walk.
Oh, before I forget. TROLL.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
If you are going to make ludicrous claims such as that, please sign up for an account so we can hold you responsible for your views or leave. Saying such things adds nothing to the subject matter and only shows your ineptitude at understanding how the internet really works.
Mike and the group have it dead on right. Whether you seize a domain, censor the results, or destroy the server, if you do not go after the person(or people) who manufactured the content, you have done nothing to solve them problem. You have simply pushed it out of sight and out of mind. Since your are doing nothing to solve the problem, you are only helping the problem a long.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Honestly? The best way to get good ideas to go to the surface would be the very thing that senior politicians would oppose.
Term limits.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Problem is that both of those hit them old shriveled up politicians where it hurts the most, the wallet.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
*WARNING POLITICAL INTRIGUE AHEAD*
I know that the US is set up with a two party system. The problem is, both parties are so far apart from their ideals, that they'll do anything to remain in power, society be damned. Yes, Repubs believe in a sort of smaller government. But Dems believe in using the government as a weapon in general.
Both parties get to pick the parts of the other two branches, however indirectly.
The executive is made from the buddies of Obama or Bush respectively. The parts don't matter. They stay after he's gone other than the heads of certain branches. With regards to the judicial branch, the Senate gets to pick those favorable to their interests.
So you have a system that's inherent to the two parties, screwing over others. The most important thing is to keep the system flowing, much to the chagrin of those that want to change it.
Just something to think about...
Does unlimited spending mean a victory?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
So much for free speech, I guess.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You want to solve Child Porn? Here's how
"Good day. The other people testifying have made a lot of noise about stopping child pornography. Their solution will do nothing to stop it. I have a fair better solution and it will work.
It won't be easy of course. The execution of this solution will require actual effort.
If you want to end Child pornography, simply track down the makers of child pornography and shoot them in the head. No fuss, No muss, (other than brains on a wall), and it will stop that child molester dead in his tracks...literally.
After you have liquidated a few of these scum, you will see the manufacture of child pornography come to a virtual end.
Thank you."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: You want to solve Child Porn? Here's how
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: You want to solve Child Porn? Here's how
All child pornography that is not underground today, are honeypots set up by police or deputized civilians Chris-Hansen-style. In order to catch underground producers and users, police have to infiltrate moles in the sharing communities hoping someone to identify themselves as Dave from Missouri, and look for clues in the materials such as landmarks, weather, speech accents, and things of that sort. It works, but at a much lower rate and a much higher cost than detecting copyright breakers who are for the most part still above ground.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Doublethink
1. We have to prevent the filesharing of movies, because otherwise people will have zero incentive to make more.
2. We have to prevent the filesharing of child pornography, otherwise people will have a massive incentive to make more.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Doublethink
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
That's a bit of a simplification, but still.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
That is the ultra-short story, omitting a few interesting things that happened after the event.
This event was in the week-end. On the following Monday The Pirate Bay (TPB) got a new member. He was quite active uploading torrents for the next few weeks. What he was uploading was not illegal, but quite disturbing. It was a mix of "barely legal" (but legal) porn, mixed with non-pornographic pictures of often nude children (again legal). Quite unusual for uploaders at TPB he was mostly active at weekdays from 8 am until 16 pm. This new member suddenly stopped uploading after about four weeks.
A few days after this new member stopped uploading these disturbing but legal torrents to TBP, it was leaked to the Swedish press that the Swedish police was going to put TPB on the Swedish child porn censor list.
There was a lot of writing about this in Swedish press, and many were wondering, because they could find no child porn via TPB. The Swedish police, however, maintained that they had evidence that child porn could be found via TPB.
In the end TPB was never placed on the child porn censor list. The main reason was probably that nobody could find any evidence, and that some ISPs were threatening to stop using the child porn censor list because of it, because nobody could find any child porn. Although the Swedish police still maintains the claim they have evidence, nobody have been charged with any crime because of this.
IMHO this was probably just some anti-pirates who got inspired by Johan Schlüter's speech about child porn being useful to stop file sharing.
So why did Johan Schlüter say what he did at this event?
He said so because he was right about child porn being useful for anti-pirates. He had run a case against an ISP trying to get a court injunction against the ISP to block access to allofmp3.com, and he won the case. The court reasoned that, because the ISP already had the infrastructure in place for censoring child porn, it would incur no extra cost for the ISP to also censor allofmp3.com. Soon almost all ISPs in Denmark started censoring allofmp3.com, as they did not want to have court costs trying to keep their net open.
How could he get an injunction like that? Because local Danish law does not correctly implement the Infosoc directive (a piece of EU legislation, which Denmark has to correctly implement in local law). The main legal argument in the case is based on this faulty implementation of Infosoc.
The top civil servant responsible for a correct implementation of the Infosoc directive at that time, Peter Schønning, did not do his work properly. He is no longer a civil servant. He later left to become a partner at the Johan Schlüter law firm. Today he is specializing in heading court cases abusing this faulty implementation of Infosoc, and he managed to uphold the censoring of The Pirate Bay on appeal.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It looks like he is trying to imply that Falkvinge is lying.
Having followed this case from the start, and having investigated every possible angle of it, I think I can give a meaningful answer to that.
We do not have a video or audio recording as proof of what Johan Schlüter, the Danish anti-pirate lawyer speaking at the event, said. The only audio recording of this event seems to be one that the US Chamber of Commerce made, and they are not willing to share it. But I am sure that if this audio could clear the main speaker invited to this event by the US Chamber of Commerce of having said that child porn is good at the event, it would have been released.
What we do have are three witnesses.
They all said the same thing after the event. A short while after the event I was in personal contact with both Falkvinge and Engström (now a member of the EU-Parliament), and they both told me the same story as Falkvinge is now telling. The third witness, Oscar Swartz, I do not know personally, and had no contact with. But at that time he was writing for ComputerWorld in Sweden, and he got an article published which told the exact same story.
What tells most about this, however, is the lack of response from the anti-pirate accused of saying that child porn is good, Johan Schlüter. He has known about these accusations for years, and he has never even tried to refute them.
Schlüter's problem is that if he calls the witnesses liars, he risks being sued for libel. Suing the witnesses for libel would be just as problematic. In both cases there is a major risk that the court would subpoena the US Chamber of Commerce for the sound recording from the event, and this recording would then make the court determine - publicly - that the accusations are true.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
in order to help stop child porn, stop blocking illegal file trading.
Think of the children!
It's amazing to watch Techdirt stoop this low, and not seem to notice how two-faced it is.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Yeah, I've got to agree here. "Think of the children" grandstanding doesn't get any better when played in reverse.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Have you seen culture lately? It is fairly bad.
I dare say let them have their "culture" and I'll just opt out.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Umm, don't you think that CP caught in filter represents a slowing in distribution? It's impossible to completely eradicate but I find any effort to slow its distribution to be worthwhile. As we have seen, the more accessible and numerous the channels of distribution, the greater the volume of content. Look at the explosion in the volume of conventional porn with the rise of the internet.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"As we have seen, the more accessible and numerous the channels of distribution, the greater the volume of content."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
How did you miss
Then you go on to say, "Like most folks, I find child porn to be a horrific and dangerous issue. But the way to deal with it isn't through censorship and filters. It's to go after those who are actually responsible for the stuff. It's to track down and prosecute those who are creating and distributing the stuff."
Couldn't resist going 'fuck you' to all of us that are victims of sexual child abuse.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Child porn and copyright
The entertainment industry offers big bucks to politicians ("campaign" funds, unlimited by a recent Supreme Court decision).
Some politicians say "Fine, but how to I explain this to my idiots (excuse me, "constituents").
The EI then says, easy, "child porn"!
SP then says, "where's the money, I am sold".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]