Nintendo Pulls Dead Or Alive Over Porn Fears In EU 350
cpu6502 writes "The new Nintendo 3DS game Dead or Alive: Dimensions is being pulled from EU member states Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. The distributor said an in-game photography mode allows players to look-up the dresses of 17-year-old Ayane, Koroke, and Kasumi — which could be considered 'child porn' by local police."
Norway isn't a member of the EU. (Score:5, Informative)
Norway isn't a member of the EU.
Re:Norway isn't a member of the EU. (Score:5, Insightful)
And nudity isn't considered pornographic or even indecent in Denmark. Some parent groups are starting to act weird, and child pornography is banned in Denmark, but child pornography in Denmark does not mean under US legal-consent teenagers, it means tweens or younger.
Re: (Score:3)
They're not parent groups. They're moral crusaders, out to inflict their narrow field of view (and likely shame of their own thoughts) on you.
Oh, the irony. (Score:4, Insightful)
Pedantry is its own reward.
Re:Norway isn't a member of the EU. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a medical condition. Spawning Induced Stupidity SYndrome.
Symptoms are irrationality, fear, and a belief that anything is justified in the name of their child.
Re:Norway isn't a member of the EU. (Score:5, Informative)
EUR is the code for Euro, the money not the continent...
It's not being pedantic. I live in the EU, and I've never heard of EU being "the short code for EUrope" ever. And it's not "good enough", being a member of the EU means you have to follow laws agreed by the EU, and if Norway's not in the EU, and EU has this law against looking up digital skirts, and Norway doesn't, it means it won't be illegal in Norway...
Is that pedantic enough for you, Mr. Know It All?
Re: (Score:3)
And after reading the linked post, it's the 3 countries (one of which isn't even in the EU), but the title of this post makes it sound like the game is being pulled out of the entire EU.
Yeah... well done, Mr. Summary Writer. Fucking moron.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I love the way you say you live in the EU under some kind of crappy assumption I don't. I live in Europe too, and I'm aware that EUR is also the Euro. What I was saying is that it's not unheard of for people to (wrongly) refer to Europe as EU or EUR as a form of 'country code', even though it refers to the European Union or the currency.
My mistake here is that I skimmed over where the summary said 'member state' and missed it. Clearly the summary was referring to the actual EU and not the country code. So t
Re: (Score:2)
EU was the short code for Europe before the European Union was formed. Many companies that had worldwide coverage broke down the regions into short codes, for example ours were: NA, SA, EU, and AP (North America, South America, Europe, Asia Pacific). Our DNS and AD servers and many other internal infrastructure systems still use these abbreviations.
Re:Norway isn't a member of the EU. (Score:5, Informative)
EU = European Union. It never means Europe.
EUR = Euro, currency, not a continent.
Re: (Score:2)
I've corrected what I meant to the original post, but I'd just like to point out that under some (non official) variants of ISO 3166, EU is a region code for Europe. It is not as rare as you seem to think it is
Re: (Score:2)
[...] (non official) variants of ISO 3166, [...]
Yeah, that kind of makes it not part of ISO 3166. The only ones I've seen use "EU" for all of Europe have been people who failed to understand the difference between the EU and Europe.
Re: (Score:2)
EU is the short code for EUrope in some cases
In which cases?
More like... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Barbie and Ken had better watch out. By the way, what age is Barbie anyway?
OH NOES! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't about prudishness in the "ZOMG A BREAST!!1 THINK OF THE CHILDREN!! AAAAAAH!!!111one" sense.
This is about the usual child porn hysteria. Here in Sweden our politicians were chasing easy points with the public and pushed through various laws against child porn that basically made erotic drawings of someone who could be considered to be a child illegal. That is, it doesn't have to be a real person. In retrospective the only people who seem to like this law are the politicians.
Re:OH NOES! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:OH NOES! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Which is making an accusation without proof. Cute. What happened that caused her to take this kind of position.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is making an accusation without proof. Cute. What happened that caused her to take this kind of position.
It's not what happened, but rather what didn't happen. To my knowledge the woman hasn't taken a single course from the law school curriculum and she's obviously not sufficiently aware of the extent of her own ignorance. If she was she would have asked an adviser with the right competence who would have told her that it's an atrocious idea.
Re:OH NOES! (Score:4, Funny)
To my knowledge the woman hasn't taken a single intercourse
FTFY
Re: (Score:3)
It's not what happened, but rather what didn't happen. To my knowledge the woman hasn't taken a single course from the law school curriculum and she's obviously not sufficiently aware of the extent of her own ignorance.
Of course, anyone complaining about this violation of moral and legal principles must be a woman-hating rapist themselves, because that's the only reason that someone would complain about this idea. There's a reason I don't support feminism. (Actually, there's numerous reasons, most of them related, but that's one of them.)
Oh, and like all the really unjust feminist-proposed ideas, it was suggested safe in the knowledge that neither the person proposing it nor any other people she had any empathy for would
Re: (Score:3)
Since nothing stops you from buying your own brightly colored envelopes, you could have a lot of fun with that. Just mail all your bills, birthday cards, and similar in such envelopes.
Re:OH NOES! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think someone confused Sweden and Scandinavia. Swedes are prudes, and have really weird laws. Denmark on the hand has legalized prostitution, and considers nudity acceptable most places, and sex in public legal as long as you "try" to be discrete.
Re: (Score:3)
All the mentioned nations have their own odd laws regarding porn and sexuality.
Speaking from a Norwegians perspective, we are allowed to own porn, but one can not sell it. End result is import from Sweden.
As for sex, the minimum age is 18, tho the judge can show leniency down to 16 if both parties are of similar level of development or something like that. I think the rule of thumb is a 5 years age difference, max.
What i think has happened here is that there is one distributor handling the whole region. And
Re: (Score:2)
No. The age of consent in Norway is 16, not 18.
And it's down to 14, not 16.
Re: (Score:2)
Eh, from all the things you got wrong I have to seriously wonder if you even live in Norway. Sale of hard pornography is legal and has been legal since 2005. The age of consent is 16, not 18 but any pictures or movies of people under 18 is considered child pornography. However, we also include drawings, stories and actors that "appear to be" under 18 in our definition, even if it is proven that all actors were in fact over 18. And yes, there are actual convictions to that effect.
As for actual sex, anyone ca
Re:OH NOES! (Score:4, Informative)
Only based on a Supreme Court decision in fact. There were specific things outlawed like pornography with children, animals etc. but the general ban against pornography was based on an interpretation of what was "offensive" (støtende), "humiliating" (nedverdigende) or "objectifying" (forrående). Essentially the law was interpreted so that genitalia erect or in sexual activity were considered offensive.
Basically the Supreme Court said in a 5-0 decision it could not find that normal sexual activity between consenting adults was found offensive, humiliating or objectifying by the general public and so could not find them guilty by the letter of the law. That if the parliament wanted a law like that, they'd have to pass one that explicitly said so. Which they didn't, so in practice it changed while staying the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
1. Asian women look younger to us westerners.
2. All men are obviously obsessed with young girls.
3. All women are obviously obsessed with looking like young girls.
Shortly: youth is the only thing which never gets out of fashion.
Regarding molestation... This actually interesting question. But it should be rephrased: why it is only that kind of stuff gets imported into the West?? Why it is nearly impossible to find a decent romance or ero manga here?? They are actually in Japan are more numerous com
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure it takes as much effort to import something relatively innocent, as it takes to import something quite vile. The innocent thing will often also be available locally though, making the import much less interesting. That might be an explanation why only the worst of Japanese porn gets to the west.
Anyway, as far as I know the Japanese simply do not have any real "legal age", and there's a whole lot of other laws about sex that the west has, but they don't. So, whatever's attractive and doesn't fight t
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What the fuck is wrong with the Japanese? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I'm not that big into Japanese culture. But from what I gather they're not really that "obsessed" with young girls. Not any more than the Dutch are obsessed with dope. Or the average US person with guns.
We just perceive it that way because we get told a lot that these things are legal there while being illegal where we live and our sensationalist media show us that Japanese businessman who buys little girl panties, the Dutch dopehead who smokes one blunt after another in a coffeeshop and the gun-toting redneck enjoying his afternoon with a machine gun.
Re:What the fuck is wrong with the Japanese? (Score:4, Insightful)
Two points:
1) What you describe is a stereotype of Japanese culture, which may have a grain of truth behind it, but is based on a rather limited familiarity with that culture, and is not generally true. Japan punishes actual child sexual abuse, much like any other modern industrial country does.
2) What you do see, that gives you this impression, is an example of the unintended consequences of censorship. Japan's culture has its own flavor of prudery, which enacted laws intended to stop the publication of sexually indecent images. One key provision of this was "no images in which pubic hair is visible". But rather than stopping artists and photographers from showing nekkid females, it merely stopped them from showing nekkid females with pubic hair. Which makes them look a bit like children, and in the minds of some Japanese men, has eroticized those childlike features.
But like I said, most Japanese men have no interest in sex with little girls. They may indulge in school-girl fantasies and role-play, they may want their female partners to sport the hairless look of the porn they grew up beating off to. They are obsessed with youth Just Like American Men. But the Japanese are not (as a culture) obsessed with molesting young girls.
Re: (Score:2)
Why do they feel the need to portray the molestation of them in video games, their poorly-drawn comics and cartoons, and even at their comic book conventions?
Basically every other modern culture has realized that there are some things that you just don't do to or with children.
In all fairness, it's works of fiction. Just because it acceptable to portray it in fiction doesn't mean we actually find it acceptable to do in real life. A drawing of abuse has no equivalence to actual abuse.
Don't RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
Don't bother clicking the link. There aren't any pictures.
CHILD!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Child? You call those virtual plastic-y goddesses of bounce physics CHILDREN?
What is becoming of this world...?
Simple fix... (Score:5, Insightful)
Make them 18!
Re: (Score:2)
That's our solution in America, but to be honest I don't really get it. I can understand not depicting characters that are clearly prepubescent in pornographic situations, but once the characters start looking post-pubescent, I'm not sure what difference it really makes as there's no way of really knowing one way or the other and the description in that dimension isn't going to be particularly influential to the viewers.
Re:Simple fix... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Make them 18!
Or wait one year until they turn 18, sometime in early 2012.
And if you say "no, they don't age" then they aren't human and porn laws don't apply to them. You can't have it both ways.
Also, Norway is not a member of the EU, however: (Score:3, Informative)
Norway has ties to the EU through various treaties which force most of the EU laws on Norwegian citizens anyway.
Modern society (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a game with the word "Dead" in its name, and people have a problem with it because you can look up women's skirts?
Re: (Score:3)
Hey, nobody gave half a shit if they wore long dresses while bludgeon each other to a gory death with baseball bats.
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone eventually dies, but not everyone looks up women's skirts.
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got to be kidding me... This is so ridiculous I can't believe it's real.
It's a video game. They aren't real people. It's pixels on a screen. No child is being harmed, regardless of where you position the camera.
I also doubt if there's much to look at under those skirts. I doubt if the developers spent much time rendering realistic genitalia that'll likely never be seen... And if they were seen, would just generate outrage.
Further, they're 17 in the game. Here in the US that's just one year shy of legal adulthood. Are you telling me that there's some magical transformation on your 18th birthday that renders you immune to the psychological harm of somebody looking at your crotch?
But even if we accept that this is some kind of virtual child pornography that's somehow exploiting underage pixels... If we really want to make sure we protect the children... It's somehow OK to brutally beat them to a pulp? I mean, Dead or Alive is a fighting game. A "beat'em up". Like Tekken or Soul Calibur or Mortal Combat or Street Fighter... It's OK to pummel some virtual 17-year-old girl into a bloody mess, but it isn't OK to look up her skirt? How does that make any kind of sense?
Re: (Score:2)
...Further, they're 17 in the game. Here in the US that's just one year shy of legal adulthood. Are you telling me that there's some magical transformation on your 18th birthday that renders you immune to the psychological harm of somebody looking at your crotch?
Short answer according to the law? Fuck Yes.
18 = look all you want, no harm, no foul
17 = could result in being a convicted felon(lewd and lascivious, indecent acts) and most likely a registered sex offender for life
I never said the laws make sense, but don't sit here and just blow off 17 as "one year shy" like it's no big deal within the legal framework today. The difference between those ages, as I've pointed out here, can be permanently life-altering.
Re: (Score:2)
No child is being harmed, regardless of where you position the camera.
But Nintendo can be harmed when someone asks why the camera is being allowed that particular view. The game developer can be harmed when someone asks why the camera is being allowed that particular view.
Because there are no good answers.
Re: (Score:2)
Jesus Christ, because it's a FIGHTING game. FIGHTING. Not a puzzle game. Not a standing-around-doing-nothing game. The characters here are using kung fu and doing flips, kicks, twirling around, jumping, movement movement movement. That's kind of the point!
Even if the camera was exactly static and the user couldn't move it at all, you'd still get panty shots every so often. Even the most innocent, kid-friendly game gets panty shots from time to time if the lead character is a woman who's actually doing actio
Re: (Score:2)
Fine then. Rather than trying to restrict the camera (no easy task btw), how about a few strategically-placed polygons to "protect" the "offensive" areas ? You know, like underwear !?
Nintendo + government = an even dumber generation of gamer kids that can't think for themselves.
Growing up in the 80s, I'm sure every last one of us knew at least one kid who'd swipe his father or big brother's Playboy/Penthouse and sneak them into the clubhouse to give his friends a peek. It's called being a curious, male,
Re: (Score:2)
Further, they're 17 in the game. Here in the US that's just one year shy of legal adulthood.
Just checking .... has anyone told you that Sweden, Denmark and Norway are NOT in the United States?
Strange as it may seem to you, other countries do have different laws and the ones that the US enacts don't apply elsewhere.
Re: (Score:2)
Further, they're 17 in the game. Here in the US that's just one year shy of legal adulthood.
Just checking .... has anyone told you that Sweden, Denmark and Norway are NOT in the United States?
Strange as it may seem to you, other countries do have different laws and the ones that the US enacts don't apply elsewhere.
You think maybe that's why I specified here in the US?
A quick Google search indicates that the age of consent across most of the EU is between 13 and 18, so it isn't like the laws here in the US are completely out of line. It isn't like these 17-year-old video game characters are still decades away from being considered legally adult video game characters.
Regardless... They're still video game characters, which makes this all kinds of ridiculous.
Hey, Nintendo! (Score:3)
Next time just let their skirts ride up a bit while they get gunned down with the blood splattering the screen from the inside. That should be ok.
Norway? (Score:2)
Factual error in the summary: Norway is not a member of the EU.
Of course it's by now one of the very few countries in Europe that has chosen to stay out of the EU, still they're not a member and likely won't become a member anytime soon.
Hypocrisy? (Score:2)
Not a very good headline... (Score:2)
This is NOT local laws (Score:3)
This is Nintendo overreacting to some ass hat Swede who threatened with a lawsuit.
Denmark has some of the worlds most liberal laws regarding pornography and game violence, granted, we don't allow child pornography - but we do for instance allow models from age 16 as long as they have their parents consent (and supervision) to pose nude.
At no point would anyone consider throwing the book at Nintendo for making a game where you can see up a skirt on a 17 year old cartoon player.
(It has become illegal to poses cartoons portraying child pornography here, but again - emphasis on pornography - a naked child does not porno make).
It's worse than that... (Score:3)
Considering the short amount of time that the 3DS has been out, these characters are not even a year old yet, although they are masquerading as characters that are much older. In fact, this would apply to all characters in the game, not just the three "teenagers" mentioned.
Therefore, not only could this be construed as child pornography, but it could also be said to actively encourage pedophilia!
I trust that the absurdity of this argument makes my underlying point apparent. If not, I will try to emphasize it now:
They are computer graphics, and are not real
I don't condone child pornography for one minute, but if even the appearance of it is illegal where it clearly isn't actually happening, then something is wholly F*'ed up.
For crying out loud, if fictional sexually oriented depictions of minors are illegal, then ought it not to also be illegal for a person of majority to make themselves appear much younger than they are and engage in any sexual act? And if the latter is reasonable to be legal, then I can see no even slightly coherent reason to outlaw the former.
Age of Consent in those Countries is like 15 & (Score:3)
It's weird, but a quick google will show the age of consent in those countries is 15 & 16.
So how is looking up the skirts of a 17 year old possible child porn?
They aren't children at that age in those countries.
Not to mention, it's not real people.
Seriously, wtf!
Re: (Score:2)
What difference would that make? The legal age for consent in Scandinavia is not 18. This story doesn't make any sense.
Re:A Simple Fix (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't know the swedish law, but here it is illegal to profit from pornography of people under 18, but the it is not child-pornography. Child pornography has particular harsh laws and only apply to pornography with actual children, not teenagers or young adults.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
IIRC they make a difference between being allowed to fuck someone and being allowed to take an "erotic" picture of someone. Yes, we're not talking about real people here, but the law doesn't make a difference here.
Which is odd if you ask me. Laws are supposed to protect someone from harm who cannot defend themselves. And I still refuse to consider the rights of fictional people.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Pornography and having sex isn't the same thing.
The retarded thing is that child-pornographic FICTION is a crime.
Who gives a shit about drawings? Murder, violence and so on in fiction form isn't crimes.
Over reaction and 100% retarded.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's true - just like Muslim extremists flip a shit over drawings of Muhammed, the Western world does likewise over images of child sexuality.
We're just as bad as them.
Re: (Score:3)
I think we're worse, because we believe we're more civilized and cultured than they are.
I would imagine they view themselves the same way. Anyone on any sort of moral crusade always thinks they're standing on the high ground. They might not choose the words "civilized" or "cultured" though, maybe something like "enlightened".
Re:A Simple Fix (Score:5, Insightful)
images of child sexuality feed the lusts of depraved individuals to the extent they are compelled to act, or think we are complicit with them in their abuse of children
Do you have even one peer-reviewed citation for that? Your claim seems to have as much scientific backing as a claim that a drawing of Muhammad angers Allah and imperils the immortal soul of anyone who sees it.
Re: (Score:2)
It might be a crime in Sweden and in Australia, who got the stupid idea in the first place, but what does that have to do with countries that are not Australia or Sweden?
Re: (Score:2)
So what you are basically saying is that OS's should include an "age_of_consent" variable into their locales so developers don't have to know and the games will automatically adjust to changing laws?
Re: (Score:3)
What difference would that make? The legal age for consent in Scandinavia is not 18. This story doesn't make any sense.
It's Swedish law which doesn't make sense. The age of consent is 15 in Sweden, while depiction of persons under 18 is considered child porn. Additionally, if the model's age is unknown, the prosecutor only needs to prove he/she appears to be under 18.
Re: (Score:2)
Well now, considering the first DoA game was released in 1996, these "children" should be well in their thirties by now ;)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
So, how old is this beauty?
o|--
Re:A Simple Fix (Score:4, Funny)
Only twelve! And it's amputee porn you sicko!
Re:A Simple Fix (Score:5, Informative)
Actually it's not as simple as that.
If it's a real person who's over 18 but looks 12 it will still be legal.
If it's a real person who's 17 but looks 20, it will still be legal.
If it's a fictional character that is 50 but looks 12, it's illegal.
If it's a fictional character that is 18 according to the swedish version of the game but 17 according to every other version of the game then most likely it would be illegal as it would be clear that the age was changed simply to avoid the swedish legal system.
Of course, IANAL but I am swedish.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure whether that's more or less insane than the system in the US. You end up with these bondage cartoons where the characters are consenting to whatever it is because somehow that's better than if cartoons characters weren't consenting.
Plus those characters have to be over 18, rather than not obviously children because that would be child porn even though there's no way of determining it otherwise. I mean seriously, because it's really harmful to society to be ogling characters that could theoretic
Re: (Score:2)
But if I write a book about a serial-child-murderer/rapist that's okay. Why?
Re: (Score:2)
But if I write a book about a serial-child-murderer/rapist that's okay. Why?
Is the book about murdering and raping children, or is it about solving the mystery of who the rapist-murderer is and how to catch him/her?
Re: (Score:3)
If it's a real person who's 17 but looks 20, it will still be legal.
Not quite. If the model's age is known, it's child porn if he/she is under 18. If the model's age is unknown, it's child porn if he/she looks under 18.
In practice, the law is used to lessen the burden of proof. The prosecutor just needs to prove the model looks under 18, and then it's up to the accused to find the model and prove he/she was over 18 at the time of photography.
(Yes, I'm Swedish too)
Re: (Score:3)
To get the law tested some guys on the swedish anti-establishment forum of flashback(.org) planned to sue the swedish distributor for child pornography distribution once the game was out, which might've been what triggered this hesitation from nintento.
So sweden joins the club of countries where you can go to prison for being skilled with a pen.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the fundamental flaw with all fictional-child-porn laws. They are not based on the principle of protecting people from mistreatment, but on the principle that people should not be allowed to imagine mistreating someone. This is literally a victimless crime.
And because there is no objective defense against the charges – you cannot produce a legal ID that confirms whether or not the subject was a certain age or not – it is impossible for a citizen to be certain he's complying. I think t
Re:A Simple Fix (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's hope the game doesn't allow them to drink, watch an R-rated movie, vote or pick up a firearm.
Also being minors, they can't be in the game for more than the allowed working hours for minors.
Perhaps somebody from Social Services should stand behind every player to be sure.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean, like, how some old judge perceives it?
That's a bit like our law that defines porn as "something able to excite someone". So watch out for those pedo judges that get excited by pics of your daughter, you might be in for CP possession if he gets a boner from your pics.
Re: (Score:3)
Fortunately US law does not define porn as "something able to excite someone". For one thing, it doesn't define "porn" at all. Second, the definition of "obscenity" (which might be what you're thinking of) is more complex than that. One part of the definition (known as the Miller Test) is that the material as a whole has to serve to excite someone, so the fact that the judge got a stiffy during the two-minute bedroom scene in Generic Romantic Comedy VIII doesn't cut it. Also, it has to depict the sex in
Re: (Score:3)
That's good and nice for the US law.
Our porn doesn't have to have any "values", it just must not be obscene, exploitative or contrary to society's values in terms of sexuality. The advantage is that you don't have to redefine your porn laws every time your society changes its values. The drawback is that it's kinda dependent on the judge to determine whether it's within the legal limit or not.
Re: (Score:3)
clearly offensive
That isn't much better at all as it's also subjective.
literary/artistic
And these, too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
These sort of rules are an insane waste of time by any measure.
Re:A poll (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Given that there are sites dedicated to those types of photos, I'm guessing never, or at least there's a sufficient that never stop to make it profitable.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
At what age do men stop looking up girls dresses? Does it really matter?
I'm not even male yet even I do that, too!
With the screen name, "Gaygirlie" should I find this surprising? ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
It's because Sweden, Norway and Denmark are the same distribution region.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh and I case you wonder, The legal minimum age for having sex in Denmark is 15
You just can't look at it until they are 18?
Re: (Score:2)
No, the legal age for watching porn is 16
Re: (Score:2)
IANAL, but I believe this [lovdata.no] is the Norwegian law in question (translation courtesy of google):
204a. Whoever
a. produce, acquire, introduce, possess, leaving to another or for a fee or systematically familiarize themselves with the production of sexual abuse against children or representations sexualising children,
b. concerned with depictions of sexual abuse of children or representations as sexualising children, otherwise referred to in 204, first paragraph, or
c. misleads anyone under 18 to have himself photographed as part of the commercial production of motion and motionless pictures with adult content, or produce such representations where anyone under 18 is depicted,
punishable by fines or imprisonment for up to 3 years.
With children the purposes of this section, persons who are or appear to be under 18.
Anyone who negligently performs the action specified in the first paragraph, punished by fines or imprisonment for up to 6 months. At the same penalty the owner or parent who willfully or negligently fails to prevent it in a business is carried out actions described in the first paragraph.
The penalty can be eliminated for the taking and possessing an image of a person between 16 and 18, if it has given their consent and the two are roughly equal in age and development.
204 second paragraph, second and fourth paragraphs shall apply correspondingly.
Added by Act of May 20, 2005 No. 29
Emphasis (for what I think is relevant) mine. The law was probably written in good intent, but I think cartoons (which this basically is) being illegal is just crazy, it should count as free speech.
It does define children as persons though, so I would say it's not actually illegal (since a fictional character is not a person).
Re: (Score:2)
More info here [google.com]:
But if you know the backstory, it is perhaps not so difficult to imagine why. On 29 January was a manga translator sentenced for being in possession of child pornographic drawings, which has initiated a debate in Sweden about whether the laws are too strict.
A user on the Swedish forum Flashback spent Dead or Alive game as an example of a product that should go below what he considers to be an overly strict law, as the game according to the manual contains three characters who are all under 18, and in addition, shot and zoomed in on in all possible angles through the game mode Showcase. The plan was to report Bergsala for distribution of child pornography on launch day, not because he believed it was right, but to ridicule the law.
The problem is, according to a user on NeoGaf forum that another, hitherto unknown person decided to report them now, which in turn led to the Bergsala stopped the game to not only Sweden, Norway and Denmark as well. According to the user to chains such as Game and Gamestop have removed the game from their stores, giving customers who have paid the deposit for reservation of game money.
Re: (Score:3)