Yes, the question us about downloading what is deemed to be unseemly by the politicos.

To the person who called me a moron; if you had any medical insight into the effects of the sort of treatment of a child that age for such a long duration you would know that it would be in intensive care being treated for brain damage and rotator cuff and limb damage.

That's the problem with the web, incredible BS such as this is put out there and people such as PP believe it is real. Get real.

So perhaps we should have big brother watching if you believe this crap. And there are morons out there who will try it you fool

I was making fun of what you said more than calling you personally a moron RB but now I have heard more from you, yes your assumption was correct. But then you’re full of assumptions like the baby didn’t go to hospital, the baby wasn’t hurt, the baby wasn’t real… medical knowledge. Pfft.

You should check out the Indian Infant Throwing Ritual in the below link.

Sorry Sylvia. I don’t understand what your purpose was. Why did you do the submission thing?

http://groups.google.com/group/aus.legal/msg/6da6511aab603f0d?pli=1

Dave, hang in there. Haha – get it?

Pied Piper,

After the magistrate failed to throw out the charges, it seemed to me that we must be heading down a path in which we regard anything hazardous to children as being child abuse material if filmed. As such, one could expect links to such material to be banned by the ACMA, and, if the proposed Internet filter were introduced, such links would be blocked.

My purpose was to demonstrate how absurd this situation was by getting the ACMA to add various links to the register of prohibited sites, and possibly issue some take down notices in respect of content hosted in Australia. Some of the stuff that would have been taken down would have been footage used in news articles.

I didn't anticipate the actual outcome, so it's not strictly true that I'd achieved what I'd set out to achieve. But after I got a classification for the baby swinging video, it was clear which way the ACMA was going to go on videos of this sort. I had got a result I was happy with; one that was perhaps surprising. So if I construe my original goal as being to find out whether such material would be prohibited, then I think I can say that I achieved that.

But the consequences for Chris Illingworth were purely fortuitous. I hadn't originally planned to sent the baby swinging URL, and certainly did not anticipate that what I was doing would lead to the charges being dropped.

BTW, anyone see some irony in the fact that the Government censor is acting as a protector of liberty?

Hey Sylvia, I have never thought about the problem before. You found out the video wouldn’t be prohibited. Who decided? Did you get any link prohibited?

Could they classify the video at all without the context - how or why it was filmed?

I’m concerned about intent… a fake baby or fake drugs. The police don’t call in a botanist or a chemist or anyone else when charging someone. If you thought it was real then it appears that is all the information the police require, from what I can gather.

Pied Piper,

Not one of the URLs I submitted (a handful) was prohibited. Intially the ACMA were submitting the content for classification by the Classification Board. Given the rules regarding classification, I imagine they downloaded it onto CD or DVD, and submitted that, alongside a written description of the content. But later on the ACMA stopped bothering. Both they, and now we, know how the Classification Board regards videos that don't show someone deliberately hurting a child for the benefit of the camera. They didn't even submit this one for classification (The Indian Baby Dropping Ritual).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rndVUQZhA3Q

None of those that got classified achieved higher than MA15+. Not even R!.

Legally I think the context in which something was filmed has little relevance. The law talks about "in all the circumstances", which one might feel includes the context of the filming, but I think it has to be construed as meaning the circumstances as perceived by the reasonable person viewing the video.

Yes, whether or not it was real doesn't matter. The law expressly provides that the appearance matters. Thus, a video of child torture that's actually produced using a child actor and special effects (or even entirely CGI) would still be caught by the legislation. I think the rationale is that even though such material doesn't involve harm to a child, it tends to create a demand for material that does. I leave the question of whether that rationale stands up to you.

Morning Sylvia, R is Restricted? None were Prohibited; so if someone was torturing a kid and filming it then it would be okay? If the torturing was being done just so they could film a video it still would remain less than an R? Content (appearance) being the key and not the context?

I found some last night on youtube that were acts of violence towards unsuspecting people just for “efame” (I found this word mentioned a few times). My son offered to go find me some of people being killed but I passed on that one.

This is proving harder for me to understand than I imagined. So if a child is hurt through stupidity rather than intention on film then the classification board is still okay with that… child protection units would not be so it is in direct conflict with the Care and Protection Act isn’t it?

Sorry Sylvia, I’m probably going to drive you nuts as I try and understand this stuff.