UK Says No To Internet Ordered Porn

from the interesting-precedent dept

Over in the UK, the High Court has ruled that people can no longer order “adult” DVDs online. The reasoning makes sense at first, but quickly becomes problematic. The basic explanation is that there’s no way to verify the age of the person who’s ordering, and this ruling is meant to keep porn out of the hands of children. Basically, this moves the “age test” to the store, where the Court assumes a clerk can run the old “eyeball test” to figure out how old someone is. Leaving aside, of course, the fact that plenty of children figured out ways to see porn before the internet existed, this could become more troublesome soon. As content moves from plastic discs to online, then how will the courts distinguish between ordering a DVD online from clicking a button to see streaming video online? If anything, it seems like this ruling could eventually mean that all internet related porn is illegal in the UK — which would be impossible to enforce.


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Comments on “UK Says No To Internet Ordered Porn”

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5 Comments
TJ says:

Internet is already a bigger sex shop

Really, no ‘walk in’ store could match the breadth of porn that is already available today via download or streaming on the ‘net. So much of it is pay, of course, with age verification that is usually nothing more than that one has a credit card. How it is more of a problem to ship a DVD by post than have instant access online is baffling.

Oh well, it is good to know that the USA doesn’t have a monopoly on pointless court decisions.

TJ says:

Re: No Subject Given

Agreed, so long as said porn isn’t enjoyed in the office or on a DVD player in the car that’s visible from other vehicles (both of which frighteningly do happen). Porn is just the latest thing we’re all supposed to give up in our private lives “for the sake of the children”. Why don’t we ever make children give anything up for the sake of the adults? There are way more of us anyway, and we can vote.

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