Quote:
Originally Posted by sortie
Maybe the ruling doesn't really mean that much.
For example, they say the video itself is free speech, but maybe that has nothing to
do with any crimes committed to make the video.
I'm thinking about the Twilight Zone deaths during filming.
The producer/staff could be charged with man slaughter but that would
not make it illegal to actually show the scene in the movie of the actual deaths.
I don't know. Just thinking that if I'm the "law" then I will say, "yes your video is
100% legal but I'm charging you with animal cruelty and this 100% legal video is simply
my evidence of you committing the crime".
|
This is the core of the ruling. It's not making the abuse in the videos legal, it's just making the use of the videos themselves allowable. If you torture an animal on film, and they can trace it back to you, you will go to jail for animal abuse.. but if you are doing something like a documentary about dog fighting and you have footage of a dog fight taking place then the footage is allowable.
If any organization should understand this it is PETA. If it wasn't for videos they have shot undercover and brought to light through television and the internet they would not have nearly as much backing for their cause. You can throw all the red paint in the world on fur coats but it's the undercover abuse footage that moves the masses. That documentary about the tortured baby monkey makes me go waterworks every time.
There's a photo series out there of some asian woman crushing a kitten with high heels. I came across it by accident and it completely destroyed me for days. Animal torture videos on the internet really REALLY fuck me up, but as an animal activist myself I had to look past my initial emotional reaction and try to take the supreme courts ruling in rationally.
IMHO the ruling was fair and just. To have found otherwise would have created a very slippery slope, the footage of an illegal activity does not automatically make the filmer or the distributor of the material a criminal. If you can find the person who created the footage to be complicit in the crime that is a separate issue and that person is open for prosecution through that avenue.