Hmmm, hard to tell I’d say. On one hand, removal of mosaic in Japan is against the law. On the other hand, there is lots of good old fashioned porn that is uncensored on the P2P networks in Japan (as I understand it, I don’t know first hand). For now I’d say it is a case of wait and see. For all I know, other people have been busted for the regular uncensored porn, and it just didn’t make the news. After all, reporters go for the story they feel will attract readers.
That’s interesting. Sort of bizarre, but at least it has some legal justification. Unmosaiced porn is considered obscene in Japan (hence Japanese eroge has mosaics). This person had an uncensored copy of Rapelay. He then shared his uncensored copy via P2P, thus he participated in distributing obscenity. Makes perfect legal sense.
My only issue is the law predates P2P, and treats P2P sharing as no different than distributing physical packages or hosting a website with links. The difference I think is important when applied to obscenity. The latter two tend to commercialize or broadcast obscenity, exposing people to it who’d prefer to avoid it, while P2P sharing does no such thing (you have to go to the trouble of downloading it to experience it; at that point you’ve lost your claim to innocence). Of course you could argue that P2P sharing should be illegal because it tends to involve software piracy. That’s fine, but prosecute offenders for software piracy, not distributing obscenity.
I think this case shares a lot in common with the phenomenon of treating sexting as distribution of child pornography, a problem the US is experiencing. Technological advancements have changed the social landscape, bringing a segment of society you wouldn’t typically consider criminals into conflict with law enforcement, which is acting on outdated laws. Law, particularly obscenity law, is designed to punish social deviance (which typically harms others, in the non-obscenity case). But when social values are changing rapidly, the law simply can’t keep up, and you get cases of common fringe behavior being prosecuted as crimes.
Yea… he’s got zero chance of winning in court, if they throw the obscenity charges on him. I think he’ll plea bargain so he can get a lesser sentence. Really can’t see any other way he could wiggle the rope off his neck, unless law enforcement made some procedural mistakes or something. 
I cannot access Nitro+ any longer but a friend of mine is able to, from his jp server!
Seems like Nitro+, of all people, blocked access to non-Japanese IPs. Can people in Japan check asap, please?
Laincursed Nitro+! AZIFU!!! Not my Azifu!!! The end is near… 
I’m unable to hit Nitro+ from a Japanese provider. Friend can’t do it from his Osaka apartment. Seems to be a server problem on the Nitro+ end.
EDIT
I did a traceroute and the pings die at 221x112x16x102.ap221.ftth.ucom.ne.jp
Seems more like a host failure than an ip block… maybe they’ve been getting hammered with too much traffic or ran out of bandwidth? 
feels better
Good. I almost had a heart failure. I mean, Azifu, My Azifu~ I wouldn’t stand not being able to access a site where I know she is.
It’s like… locking her away from me! T_T
I’m not especially really fond of her, of course, with possibly only at best a moderately borderline fondness for her, but…
EDIT: it works now. I guess the server was just down. I know I was a bit paranoid because of the current situation but, well, AZIFU WAS AT STAKE!!!
Uh huh, sort of like my ‘moderately borderline’ fondness for Kunimi Ema? =P
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saori:_the_House_of_Beautiful_Girls
Here is something interesting about Japanese obscenity and the EOCS’s founding.
I see! My enjoyment of dark eroge, stems from enjoying Disney films:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CWMCt35oFY
The Mouse made me do it. :twisted: 
Disney movies are just reflecting current societal norms. In addition, the narrator’s points, based on cute sound bytes, are often brought into question when considered in the context of the work as a whole. Sterilizing our media even more than it already is isn’t what we need. There’s a point at which media becomes so sterilized that it’s completely artificial, an idealization of life that doesn’t reflect at all how the world actually works. How is that any more helpful to children than simply reflecting societal norms?
Recently discovered another porn actress who did roles like she was under aged: Amai Liu. She also goes by the handle of Tiny Tabby. I believe she’s still active (Kitty I found, retired from porn after having her first child).
To be honest, I’m sorta vexed how actresses like Amai and Kitty got away with what they did… the whole DoJ witch hunt with fictional child porn… but if the government made any sense, there wouldn’t have been a witch hunt to begin with, now would there?
because real children weren’t used.
There are also laws against adult performers pretending to be children in porn, in at least a few jurisdictions. shrug
Isn’t that exactly what happened with Max Hardcore?
Yup. That’s why he’s appealing to the Supreme Court… among other things… the whole “we’ll prosecute like this sometimes; but totally ignore and do nothing like this other times.” It’s like the DoJ picks when something is illegal or not… unlike say actual murder, in which they always prosecute when it happens (at least we hope they do). It’s no secret that Max Hardcore is a dick. The man insulted the DoJ on multiple times and he’s an arrogant SOB when it comes to the media. Plus he treats women in his movies like utter trash and filth. That made it easy for the prosecution to paint him as vile evil. But a threat to society and criminal mastermind? Please. Come to think of it… I believe the DoJ only picks cases they KNOW they will win, and uses them to create a foundation so they can ALWAYS win later cases with the loopholes these victories create. That’s a crooked way of enforcing the law…
Welcome to the America.
Yea… it’s really amazing how The Law finds people guilty of something. I mean how illogical and insane can things be? :roll:
Never going to allow myself to be taken to court… that only further proves the mockery of justice it adheres to. Buying a verdict… :evil:
Considering this is from sankaku, I know it shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but is there any truth to this article at all?
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/08/2 … entai-ban/
Still even if it is true, it probably isn’t that much to fear. I mean if the UN can’t get Japan to stop whaling, then I doubt they’re going to do much better with this. And what are they going to do if Japan ignores this demand, pass sanctions? No matter how what measures they take, it would just look ridiculous to the rest of the world when it comes out that it’s just about a bunch of drawings.
If you notice at the bottom of the article, there is a link to the website of the Japanese newspaper ??? (Asahi Shinbun), which it sites as the source of the news. If I had time, I’d translate what it says myself, but since I’m swamped with homework from my Japanese III class that just started, I let Google translate it. Of note is this line:
Google translates it as:
Thus, it looks like the UN is only recommending that a ban be made. However, it should be noted that the Japanese language is less direct and confrontational than English. Without reading the actual document Asahi is referencing, it is unknown how strong the original language is that the UN used.