There are some serious problems with the story "Herd Not Obscene" (Wired 2.03, page 66), from a legal standpoint.
The primary problem is that the author conflates obscenity law with child-porn law. The two areas of the law are entirely different.
A child-porn conviction based on VR would have to be overturned, since no children are involved.
An obscenity prosecution, in contrast, would raise no new legal issues whatsoever.... But the law does explicitly specify that a child must be used if it's to be declared child pornography. Even the Justice Department and the Supreme Court can't rewrite the law to eliminate that requirement.
Note: VR child porn could still be found obscene, but this is a wholly separate issue (although your author seems confused about this). Strictly speaking, VR child porn isn't even child porn under the law if children are not used to make it.
Mike Godwin mnemonic@eff.org
