On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 9:23 AM, Caroline Becker <carobecke...@gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
>> The Flickr account has been closed down (usually for breach of Flickr's
>> terms of service). Note that there are no 18 USC 2257 records demonstrating
>> that the persons depicted were 18 or over. According to my understanding of
>> US law, any Wikimedian who uploads or inserts such an image without having
>> documentation of model age, name, and publication consent is in breach of
>> US law; see discussion at
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Philippe_(WMF)#Implications_of_2257_record_keeping_requirements_for_editors.3F
>>
>> Andreas
>>
>
> Does it also apply to artwork of nude underages, such as
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Boy_playing_jonchets_by_Julien-Charles_Dubois
>  or
> the trillion paintings with nude babies ?
>


No. Record-keeping is required by law for images whose production involved
actual people engaged in sexually explicit conduct, meaning "actual or
simulated—(i) sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital,
anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite
sex; (ii) bestiality; (iii) masturbation; (iv) sadistic or masochistic
abuse; or (v) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any
person."

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2256

If creation of the image did not involve real people engaged in such
conduct, no record-keeping requirements apply.

Note that while the Wikimedia Foundation, due to Section 230(c) safe harbor
provisions, does not have a record-keeping duty here, my layman's reading
of http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2257 is that every *individual
contributor* who

– uploads an image depicting real people engaged in sexually explicit
conduct, or
– inserts such an image in Wikipedia, or
– manages such content on Wikimedia sites,

thereby becomes a "secondary producer" required to keep and maintain
records documenting the performers' age, name, and consent, with failure to
do so punishable by up to five years in prison.

Note that this includes anyone, say, inserting an image or video of
masturbation in a Wikipedia article or categorising it in Commons without
having a written record of the name, age and consent of the person shown on
file.

I've asked Philippe Beaudette to confirm that this reading is correct. He
has said that while they cannot provide legal advice to individual editors,
they will put someone to work on that, and that it will be a month or so
before they can come back to us.

Andreas
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