and in related news:
manga “nerd”/translator simon lundstrom (last mentioned here) has been acquitted of child pornography charges in a swedish supreme court ruling
This is an important victory for free expression and for manga. The Swedish Supreme Court has correctly drawn the boundary that governments have a compelling interest in prosecuting criminal behavior, not ideas or expression. Child pornography is an abhorrent crime because real people are harmed, and the creation, distribution and possession of that content are criminal behaviors that contribute to creating victims. Today’s ruling that drawings of an imaginative nature where no victim is created cannot be child pornography is clear-minded and will hopefully provide guidance here in the United States and around the world when similar cases arise in the future.
>Child pornography is an abhorrent crime because real people are harmed
Funny that a lot of child “porn” actually gets produced by the “victims” themselves – lol
might i add…
technically your tattoo is also copyright infringement : P
I remember when he first got arrested fakkin crazy, I am just glad the supreme court had some kind of sence. Tho I think he should pursue this further to the European supreme court because then whatever they decide become a rule in all of Europe and not just Sweden.
Funny tho that he wins his case on the same day the last uppcon was ( Swedens largest manga/anime/cosplay/japanese culture convention.
Being a swede myself I’ve followed the case of Simon Lundström with great interest. Now, the ruling as I understand it is this.
“Fantasy”-characters with prepubescent bodies are ok. Realistic characters (stu mead anyone?) on the other hand are not. The idea being that it MIGHT be a photograph of a real child that has been altered into a drawing….
Out of 39 pictures 1 was deemed to be childpornography but since Simon does what he does he’s excused.. Simon himself being interviewed by swedish radio thought that it was wrong on so many levels. If I’m not mistaken he said “So it’s ok for me to have it being a manga-translator, but had I been a truckdriver it wouldn’t have been?
so in fact nothing has changed, it is not the heralded victory for free expression at all
Not really no. The legal expert interviewed on swedish radio admitted that the ruling creates more questions than answers and made some pointers about the law needing to be reviewed.
ECPAT were outraged that even the 38 images were deemed safe by the court and made some argument about children as a group takes harm from hentai/lolicon (even though they don’t even knew what to call the images but I guess that is what they meant)
I still have a small hope that they will come to their senses and make a distinct line between real abuse and, to put in their terms, cartoons.
Hi, I’m an admirer of your work, I’ve visited this blog for 4 years and only recently I’ve decided to take some pictures. And my first expo will be in 2 weeks and I did a ‘tribute’ for you too, but I couldn’t find an email to send you the pic and it seems the contact link at the beggining of the blog is not working. Greetings from Brazil.