IP: "child porn piece from my 1997 book proposal comes true!!!"

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

>Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 16:32:51 -0400
>From: jordan pollack <pollack@cs.brandeis.edu>
>To: declan@well.com, farber@cis.upenn.edu
>
>
>When is it illegal to own information?
>
>   Information is difficult to police. employees of a company
>are enjoined from taking company information out. Tobacco
>companies, for example, don't want any internal memos of
>research or legal departments circulating, tho some got to
>the berkeley site.
>The government doesnt want information on bomb-making, poisons,
>illegal activities of the CIA, etc. circulating, partly for
>the protection of society, partly to cover its own butt.
>
>If you have a dubbed cassette tape or copyrighted video tape,
>(not from broadcast!) or software on a hard disk, without evidence of
>license,
>you could be arrested someday. Most small crimes of property are not
>enforced
>since police would rather focus limited resources on violent crime.
>Software piracy today is like sodomy, tax evasion, or marijuana smoking
>- If
>the powers want to put you away, they have a crime to use.
>
>There are some kinds of information which is forbidden even
>to own. The most obvious is "kiddie porn,", images of children
>portrayed as sexual objects. This is somewhat incredible.
>You could make a law which protects children by electrocuting
>the photographers, the procurers of models, those who sell
>and even those
>who BUY the information. But under the social protection notion, it is
>not these exploited
>models or others who might be exploited, but all children who
>are at risk from any portrayals of them as sex partners.
>
>Therefore, stories you write yourself
>about child sex are illegal to own. Cartoons
>about child sex are illegal to own. The following sentence is
>obviously legal:
>
>After some instruction, the 20 year old Natasha was an expert in
>glass blowing. She could blow quite large test tubes and keep it up
>for hours. And although her globes were small,
>they had the cutest little nubs on their end.
>
>But if a nasty editor substituted 14 for 20,
>you could be arrested for owning this book. Unless it were art.
>
>Virtual Valerie versus Virtual Valerie Junior.
>
>Similarly, if one made a computer animation of consensual sex with
>computer
>graphics, moving geometric configurations, it would be fine,
>but if you remade the animation using the configurations of
>the bodies of children, that software would be illegal.
>
>Another potentially illegal ownership of information is algorithms
>for strong encryption, which is classified as a munition. Many americans
>who work in the field of cryptography have put up with heavy
>restrictions
>on their publications. The US government went around looking for copies
>of
>Phil Zimmerman's PGP code available on many ftp servers, under the
>export
>of munitions act.
>
>A final information which might be illegal to own is information about
>building weapons, depictions of national flag-burning,
>or even under some future political systems, information on abortion.
>
>The No electronic theft (NET) law passed recently criminilizes the
>receipt
>of pirated IP. So if you own information which you received or retrieved
>which saved you a bunch of money on licensing fees, you could be
>arrested or fined.
>
>
>
>--
>Professor Jordan B. Pollack   Dynamic & Evolution Machine Org
>Computer Science Department   FaxPhone/Lab: 781-736-2713/3366
>MS018,  Brandeis University   http://www.demo.cs.brandeis.edu
>Waltham Massachusetts 02454   e-mail: pollack@cs.brandeis.edu



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