June 24/13

Isn't the internet just something else...

I know I've said it before, but in six easy clicks can get from 30 Rock to 'is it legal to watch Traci Lords' underage porn movies in Canada.'  Before you judge, let me first walk you through the process before I explain why this is the moment of the day.

It begins with thinking back to the episode of Cerie's wedding (step 1), when Liz Lemon meets Carol Burnett, and Jack chooses Avery over Nancy.  From the wiki on that episode, I clicked on the link for Avery Jessop (step 2).  From there, I moved on to the wiki for the actress playing Avery, Elizabeth Banks (step 3).  From there, a query had me click on the link for the movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno (step 4), where I eventually go to the wiki for Traci Lords (step 5).  It was here that I learned for the first time that Traci Lords was underage when about 100 of her 200 or so porn movies were made, which apparently led to an enormous legal clusterfuck, and resulted in those titles becoming illegal to produce, buy or sell in the US.

I had no idea about any of this.  And why would I know anything?  When this was all going down in the US in 1986, I was a child, and this was well before the internet became the ubiquitous juggernaut that it is today, so I wouldn't have heard about it, and wouldn't have had the cognitive ability to grasp what I would have heard anyway.  Indeed, chances are excellent that if you are under 40, and you are not a big 80's porn aficionado, you would be just as surprised as I was to find this out.  But I digress...

While reading the wikipedia page, I noted something that piqued my intellectual curiosity in the form of a line in the text reading as follows:

(However, in non-US jurisdictions where the age restriction on pornography is lower, as well as over the Internet, her earlier films continue to be distributed.)

The reason why this would pique my curiosity is twofold.  First, in this age of streaming video, where it is possible to view video content without actually downloading it, does that mean that any of her earlier films streaming on adult websites are technically not being "distributed" because the content is not being "downloaded" or "uploaded" in the traditional sense of the terms as understood by the ordinary internet user?

It's such a dicey topic, given the international community's efforts to tackle child pornography, and most users just don't know the patchwork of laws covering the topic in various counries.

Which leads to the second reason my curiosity was piqued: Is there an easy way to understand and learn about the rules?  To test this, I googled the question "Is it legal to watch Traci Lords' underage porn movies in Canada" and the answer may dishearten you: No.  There is no simple way to clarify the rules for streaming any of her early movies over the internet in Canada.  Where I ended up with this last step (step 6) was an old discussion forum on the internet where a user back in 2009 posted a similar question (although he went further in discussing the context (nostalgia) and morality of viewing those films, knowing now that she was underage at the time).

As it happened, this forum discussion was taking place against the backdrop of proposed legislation to tighten laws around child pornography in Canada, so at the time, no one knew what the new laws meant for answering the legal aspects of the question (but believe me, a lot of tangential stuff was said on the morality issue!). 

I was so fascinated by what I was reading, I was actually tempted to contact the Ottawa Police just to ask what the situation was regarding the so-called Traci Lords Argument, but that would be way too nerdy of me, and it would waste police resources, so I dropped the idea.

I have so many questions, not the least of which is how does one go about clarifying this gobbledegook and legal mumbo-jumbo and get a straight answer on such a complex question?  And yes, I recognize that I'm totally nerding out here.

Oh the places you will go (online)...

...Wish you were here.