In what most will consider an infuriating move, the New York Court Of Appeals made a ruling yesterday that states the viewing of child pornography online is no longer a criminal offense. That's right, viewing child pornography online is now legal in NY, but MMA isn't.

The National Post reported on the ruling in question today. The ruling is directly linked to a 2009 case involving college professor James D. Kent, who was sentenced to prison for several counts of possessing a sexual performance of a child and promoting a sexual performance of a child. The appeals court dismissed one count of promoting and one count of possession due to the fact that the images were only viewed online, and not downloaded. Current law states that viewing the image on the internet does not constitute possession, and is therefore not illegal.


this doesn't make sense at all.

The Nation.
he still has 141 other counts so ya... nothing to freak out about. Definitely an interesting ruling though

I think you're looking at this hilariously wrong.

The ruling isn't approving of, or saying it's not illegal anymore - CP is illegal to possess, that is the case and always has been the case. The devil comes in the details: You cannot legally charge someone for possession if they do not possess it.

Unless it has been downloaded, it is property of the hoster/domain. It would be like people trying to sue you for listening to music on youtube. Unless you rip that music from youtube to your account, you don't possess it, and thus are guilty of nothing.

If you move into making things illegal to view online, then you begin to set precedent for absolute censorship. If just seeing something that the government, or people, do not agree with is a legal felony, then you've willfully given up your right to think and see for yourself.

So this thread is silly and I'm calling it now - People are going to read your post and then flip out over nothing and get all self-righteous about it.

On a side note - I didn't know MMA was illegal to view online. That's also silly.

Thank you, Aya. I was going to reply with a similar answer (though involving more swearing).

What they should do is look for the person who posted it online.
But why is watching MMA illegal?

Because Gov. Riley views it as barbaric, and promoting of violence.

However, regulated fights are legal as long as nobody is getting paid.

Why is it barbaric? Isn't it a sport?

>>7 Because it's two people "beating the shit out of each other for money" apparently. Gov. Riley compared it to fight club. What he doesn't want to see is that it's well regulated, and very safety-concious.

Mma = mixed martial arts correct? For some reason I thought you guys meant something else.

>>3 thanks for explaining this to me. i was outraged at the ruling and that caused me to blow it out of proportions.-_-

No its still illegal to view it, its only that if the images or video is in your cache, and not saved or downloaded to your computer than you can not be convicted of it.

>>9 No,you're right. It means mixed martial arts, just as you said.