stupid question time

[kaigou]

I figure someone on my elist is gonna know the answer to this one. Maybe?

Context: I'm aware that different countries have different laws about what is, and is not, legal. Like the fact that the US considers the demarcation of child pornography to be 18, not 16, as it is in some other countries. Or, perhaps purchases of drug paraphernalia. And whatever else: but essentially, things you cannot just walk into a local store and buy, because of your country's laws. (Cuban cigars, anyone?)

But over the internet, wouldn't that be a different matter? Let's say we're talking about... oh, hmm, like, ebooks. Righto. There's a good example. I order one by going to the publisher's or distributor's site, I put in my c'card -- or I use Paypal -- and within a few minutes, I download the book and read it. If I'm ordering from an international publisher (and yes, I do, actually), then my bank or credit card converts the foreign currency into my local rates based on the most recent exchange and I'm good to go. No extra effort on my part.

And, more importantly, no customs officials to rip open my email or download and inspect it thoroughly. It's true that any computer can track my IP, and that some countries do have domain-wide blocks, but there are oodles of ebook publishers and distributors and they're growing with every month and week. I have real trouble believing that any govt has the capacity to track down all those domains and block them for all in-country IPs -- yes, it can be done, but outside one really notable example, I've not heard of any other country having such major domain-blocks on its citizens' access to the internet.

Without those blocks, I can't see anywhere else -- technologically -- that I could be prevented from purchasing something over the internet that arrives in my email box, or that I then download from a site. If I can see the site, I can interact with it. At least, that's my understanding.

Am I wrong? Does anyone on my flist live somewhere that even online-purchase-and-download is limited or restricted (such as ebooks, or software, or any other kind of completely-electronic money-for-goods exchange)?

I'm not advocating breaking the law, if law it be. But it does seem to me that it's one thing to shy away from purchases that will be shipped internationally and inspected by customs... versus a purchase made in the privacy of your own home, that gets lost in the morass of internet traffic and about which no one would ever freaking know.

Or a better way to put it: if one is so worried about breaking the law by purchasing certain types of electronic materials, wouldn't possession of those materials also constitute breaking the law? Would it really amount to much of a defense if you told the judge that, well, the child pornography was a gift, so it's not like you actually spent money on it. Based on what I've seen of the way the world works, I don't think it makes any difference at all -- so if the laws are such that ordering a book, or a software, or whatever, would be bad, then it would follow that just owning such would also be bad... right?

Anyone?

Comments

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Free or paid for, possession of kiddie porn is in itself a crime in the US. It does not matter if the kid in question is legal in his/her home country - what matters is, was that kid legal age according to US law at the time it was filmed.

It doesn't even have to be a real kid - look into the case of Christopher Handley, who was arrested for possession of child pornography because he collected manga, including lolicon and yaoi manga series. (Both genres can involve explicit sex, and the typical manga drawing style means that the characters tend to look pretty young.) All of his collection were legitimately acquired, and perfectly legal in Japan... but the cops in Iowa thought that the characters looked like kids, so into the slammer he went. http://www.yaoi911.com/how-to-keep-manga-fans-out-of-jail/ has a good review of the case, if you're curious.

[cosplayeriori.livejournal.com]

from my understanding of things if you own it..gift or not..it still illegal. IF found you probably will get in trouble. :/

But with your first part with say ordering something from a non-domestic site that is like an ebook or a program. I agree that it proably would get lost in the fray of other internet exchanges. And not be looked at.

I order from a japanese bishoujou game/doujin place (for the lay person that would be H-games, hentai, adult, however you wanna put it) that has now started into the e-book/manga range as well. I've seen this starting to pop up now. E-manga, buy your stuff online, now you REALLY don't have to leave the house. But there OH LORD, the stuff you can get that if ever opened up at a post office you could potentially get in trouble for. (re the guy that is now going on trial for japanese doujins = child pr0n cause someone decided to open up a package at the post office. I am getting ready to do a order of BL stuff from jpqueen before they close their site and this is making me MILDLY antsy about it. There shouldn't be anything in that would get me in trouble but still. Its disconcerting)

If your internet savvy enough, and know at least very very basic japanese you can EASILY order from this site with a CC card. (I have as well!)
This sites word to foreign users? The stuff on the main site are for Japanese users only. If you buy something on the Japanese site and it doesn't work on your system or your can't figure it out? Too bad we won't help you or refund you. (since the site DOES have an English side but its offerings are pretty bad..and by bad I mean bad quality)

So the internet is full of gray, and their really isn't much (I think) of people policing non domestic orderings of things like ebooks and programs.

This turned really rambling and inane =_=

[haya5h1.livejournal.com]

Amazon and Real won't let me buy downloadable media (software and music and in the case of Amazon, I can't buy ebooks from them because they won't sell the Kindle to me) because of where I live, but I think that's more corporate stupidity than local law. That said, these days I hesitate to buy doujinshi through the mail because possession of porn (of any type not just kiddie) is illegal here, and if the Customs or postal authorities go through my snail mail, which they are more wont to do than not, I'd be in a whole heap o'trouble.

...that is, if they didn't just steal it.:p

[branchandroot]

To the best of my knowledge, no government has bothered with the set-up that would be necessary to 'inspect' electronic goods transfers yet. Aside, as you note, from the Government With Too Much Time On Its Hands, and even they only block. We both know it would be possible to do, but it would be a hella pain to set it up and extremely heavy on the man-hours unless they went with some kind of text-scanning algorithm which would be... well probably just as many man hours to look at all the false positives. And I'm not sure it could be done invisibly (that is without noticeable delay of delivery), so in some countries you'd also have huge public outcry about reading a person's mail since that's how most of the first world public would probably think of it, foreign purchase or not.

[muffiewrites.livejournal.com]

Some countries restrict the purchases/use of electronic materials. Iran and China are excellent examples of places that do these things. In these countries, possession is enough of a crime. Many places have laws based on purchase and based on possession. In the US, for example, you can be charged with possession of illegal drugs, possession with intent to sell, and for purchasing drugs (depending on your locality) because of RICO.

Data has the same kind of thing going on. I have a friend who runs a porno site that archives stories and supports it by selling movies. It's international with the servers based in California. It's blocked in about half of the world. China can't read it, if the country has Sharia Laws, they can't read it. Sometimes Taiwan can, sometimes they can't. It's illegal to access the site and possession of it's contents on the harddrive is (temp files, cookies, etc.) is prosecutable. People do it anyway. I haven't heard of anyone prosecuted for doing so, but it has been done. China regularly prosecutes people for accessing websites. They prosecute bloggers. Owning a blog is prosecutable. So, yeah, just possessing the electronic copy of forbidden material in the State in which a person lives can be enough for prosecution.

China is currently attempting to restrict the purchase of Operating Systems so that only State approved websites may be accessed. That means no more Myspace, Facebook, Hotmail, etc. if they can get the OS makers to go for it. So far, it's not working.