Direct quote:
“But, as soon as you start sharing the pictures with others, you have technically become a child porn distributor.”

Key word, “technically.” Our child porn laws are inadequate for cases like this.

Direct quote:
“Defense lawyer Brian Hurley, president of the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association, called it a ‘problematic’ case regarding the child pornography distribution charge, but said it also illustrates shortfalls in our child porn laws.

Hurley noted the legislation doesn’t reflect changes in current society such as people becoming sexually active at younger ages and the growing use of technology, such as cell phone cameras and webcams, in everyday life.

‘I think our laws need to be changed,’ said Hurley.”

Look at the age of consent, 14. You can have sex, but you can’t share pictures, on a technicality?! Sure, the age for child porn ends at 18, but think for a second, and tell me why that law is there in the first place. It is not some universal, divine mandate. It is merely an age that some lawyers way back when thought would be the age when most people could be considered mature enough to be treated as an adult.

Child porn laws are there to protect “innocent” youngsters from being traumatized by having their nude selves publicized before they had the maturity to realize that was wrong. The age chosen for this law was 18, not because it makes sense, so much as because that was the “legal” age at which someone becomes an adult. I think the girl in this case was well aware of what was happening and should not be viewed as a minor. (and she’s so friggin’ close anyways) It is her own fault for trusting an untrustworthy guy with her nude photos.

The law would have no effect if the guy was a year younger or the girl was a year older, but because of that magic age of 18, he is now facing YEARS in JAIL because he showed his friends some pics of his gf! What a way to ruin some poor guy’s life!

I realize something worse may have happened to cause the father to find out, (most of the school finding out and teasing her) but still, up to 10 years jail time for the guy?! I realize that laws were broken, and that those at fault ought to have been more aware and cautious of these laws, but frankly, these laws have always irritated me. Some d**kwad in court should not be able to tell me when I can and can’t have sex or when I can take/share/view nude photos, willingly taken. These lawyers need to get a life.

I think 45 days is an entirely appropriate punishment. It doesn’t matter if she took the photos herself, it doesn’t matter that they were dating. He is an 18 year old person, a legal adult, who sent around a nude picture of someone under the age of 18, a legal child. Their relationship to each other doesn’t matter because the law doesn’t provide a “but I knew her” exclusion when people break the law. For more information on that, see rape laws and domestic violence laws.

Anonymous, a person cannot commit a crime against themselves. She can take all the pictures of herself she wants to in whatever manner whether she’s 5 or a day less than 18. The law steps in when an adult steps in. I’m not sure, but I doubt that (I hope that he wouldn’t) he’d get in trouble simply from her sending him the picture and him doing nothing but looking at it. Technically he’d be in possession of child porn, I suppose, but I have a hard time imagining a DA that would prosecute him on that alone.

Oh, here:
“Even though there was a reasonable chance of conviction, they may have exercised their discretion not to prosecute if he had simply received the photos,” said Anand.

ZKid, the age of consent to have sex has nothing to do with the age of consent to engage in pornography. They are two entirely different legal entities. I wonder if you could get around it by having two 16 year olds having sex, another 16 year old working the camera, another 16 year old directing, and only showing it to other 16 year olds?

Frankly, I’m not sure how you can read this:
17-year-old girl took a series of nude photographs of herself and e-mailed them to the man’s cell phone and he later showed them to other people.
And assume that her father simply views her as damaged property. Does no one remember high school? She’s probably completely ostracized, people are calling her a slut, and the pictures have been seen by the entire school. I imagine either she’s coming home crying and her parents worked the story out of her, the school authorities figured it out quickly enough and called her parents, or another student/friend/sibling told her parents.

And I thought Canada was a reasonable country.

1. Young women, unfortunately, should know better than to take racy pictures of themselves for young men. While I might trust, say, my 30 year old boyfriend with those, I would not trust any 18 year old boy with the same.

2. The feeling that her father is prosecuting this over his “damaged property” is pervasive (to me) and makes me uncomfortable.

3. While it was a real dick move to forward on those pictures, I don’t believe that the punishment is appropriate. But I wouldn’t say that I necessarily disagree with him receiving some sort of punishment, whether via community service or probation, either.

In some cases in the USA the underage person taking the photos of themselves have been charged for making porn.

If he’s guilty, so is she in this case.

The issue is that he distributed child pornography.

So, IMHO, the distributor should not get a more severe penalty than the photographer (her). The photographer should not be exempt in this case, either. And, she should be tried in juvenile court for taking and distributing child pornography.

Or, neither should be charged.

“Fair is fair!”