Mojo@neocha (from neocha.com)
Forget the fluff. China Daily brings straight meat:
A man in Qianguo county, Jilin province, was detained 15 days and fined 3,000 yuan ($471) for downloading pornographic videos to his home computer, South China Metropolis Daily reported on June 15.
The man first posted his story online on June 10, saying that police found 95 porn videos in his computer and then seized it.
“The police said that I copied porn films and broke the law. Who can tell me the punishment was reasonable?” the man asked in the post.
There’s a little confusion over whether the police detained him for the porn (on which they performed a thorough investigation with the full breadth of their organ’s power, one can only assume) or for “a picture [of] a man sitting in a police car.” It doesn’t matter. Stan Abrams, Esq., of China Hearsay honed in on the part of the article that discussed the relevant law in this case:
According to Article 68 of the Public Security Administration Punishment Law of the People’s Republic of China, those who produce, transport, copy, sell or rent obscene books, pictures, video, and audio or use computer information network, telephone and other communication tools to disseminate obscene information, will be detained for 10 to 15 days and fined 3,000 yuan.
Abrams questioned:
But what does it mean to “copy”? If I had to guess, this refers to reproduction of the pornographic work for distribution, not merely downloading it for personal use. Technically yes, one makes a copy of the digital work when it is downloaded, but that’s not exactly the same as “reproduction” as we see in other parts of the law, for example with copyright.
Just consider what it would mean if mere downloading/possession qualified as a violation under Article 68. What percentage of males above the age of twelve have porn on their computers? I’m not familiar with all the survey data, but usually the answer is somewhere around 99%, with one percent of the respondents lying about it.
If the cops can grab anyone who has digi-porn, then everyone’s a criminal. Scary thought.
Scary thought indeed.
On that note, Beijing Cream would like to remind everyone that we have a list of PORN SITES THAT ARE NOT BLOCKED IN CHINA (please let us know if any of those are now blocked). We’ll try to update the list every time we stumble upon another. Because we love you, that’s why.
He was a naughty boy.
I project that if the Chinese government focuses on the downloading of porn by Chinese citizens, they will make an estimated 59,000,000,000,00 million RMB per year in fine revenue.
98.08% of which will come from Chinese university students.
PS. I just wonder if the Chinese government will be passing on the requisite royalty fees to the in-question actors/actresses, be they Japanese, Latino or other.
I’m sure they will, as they are known for their fair handling of copyright situations.