Mangablog is still the place for all the NYAF news you need to know, although there’s one wrinkle in the comments section at The Beat… apparently some retailers are not doing the amount of business that they’d like at the event.
It’s perhaps prudent to save the trash talk and doomsday predictions until after the entire con runs its course… but if you believe Al Kahn, we’re already boned (sorry, I just watched Bender’s Big Score for the 4th time).
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In all seriousness, it may only be porn-loving fans who are in for some boning, according to this entry on the Yahoo Tech Blog regarding a bill that just passed the House. The latest version of the SAFE Act – Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online – would increase fines (and make criminal prosecution possible) for any internet service provider, from the biggest telecom to potentially an individual running an unsecure Wi-Fi network, which fails to report child porn and other obscene materials that travel over its systems.
There are two major problems with this legislation, besides the fact that it does not require service providers to actively moniter for such traffic, hence most will probably elect not to do any monitering at all if this bill were to become law… first, SAFE basically calls for people to make legal determinations (whether an image is obscene or not) when they have absolutely no qualifications or standing to do so. Secondly, the bill’s language still includes drawings, cartoons, sculptures, and paintings as mediums which may be defined as obscene visual depictions (and in a sign of the times, many news sites reporting this story specifically mention “hentai” as being vulnerable).
The biggest failure of logic inherent in nearly all legislation of this type is that one cannot know whether he is distributing obscene material, unless the material in question is first deemed obscene… and only a court can do that. And the inclusion of fictional depictions in the language is akin to a poison pill that opens the entire bill to constitutional scrutiny. Most confoundingly, all but 2 members of the House voted for its passage (crazy-in-a-good-way presidential candidate Ron Paul being one of the dissenters). They really ought to know better.
Edit: Anime News Network writes about similar legislation being considered in Japan.
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Uh-oh… parent angered by insinuated nudity in a Shojo Beat trade, vows never to shop at Books-a-Million ever again. (Short commentary at The Comics Reporter)
Edit: Precocious Curmudgeon weighs in.
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All Free Comic Book Day books must now be “suitable” for all ages, and contain no nudity of any kind. Unlike the reactionary commentators at CWR or Newsarama, I for one applaud this policy change, for surely this means that only a Peanuts teaser from Fantagraphics would be eligible for FCBD in 2008. This also means the FCPD – Free Comic Porn Day – that I’ve been lobbying for could have far more participants than initially anticipated.
/sarcasm
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From what I can tell the latest version of the SAFE act is yet another piece of legislation that if passed will likely die a quick death at the hands of the courts with the words ‘vauge and overly broad,’ being used alot. The courts have long pointed out that the freedom of expression is right that any limits placed on it must be narrowally tailored so as to avoid infringing upon that right. The language of the SAFE act is so wide open I doubt that any US attorney would be loathe to bring a case to trial under the act knowing that even if he won at trial he would surely lose on appeal. A better question is why is this included in an act that is suppousedly meant to protect children and adolescents from online predators in the first place? Surely congress has better things to do than to pass bills trying to regulate the free exchange of information when much more pressing issues are at hand.
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