I have seen conflicting information on what exactly reconstitutes legal and illegal images. I have been told that completely digitized images depicting minors explicitly is legal but morphed images are still illegal. You can create a "virtual porn child" legally but you cannot take a legal porn image and graft a child's face to it. The SC ruling was in 2002, overturning the 1996 legislation I believe. Is this correct or are morphed images legal? I have also heard that cut and paste and/or morphed images are legal. I try to keep up on relevant art issues but, not being in the porn business, the exact legalities have escaped me in this instance so maybe someone here can enlighten me.
It is impossible to differentiate between a 100% synthetically created human image and an organically generated one. I know many people think they can do so with great accuracy but AFAIK no person or computer program has demonstrated a <15% error rate. For some strangely arrogant reason I feel I could probably do so with a <5% error rate. This sounds like it means that unless the actual child used in an image can be found defendants can claim the images to be computer generated. The burden to prove the images are computer generated shouldn't fall on the accused should it? This sounds like it gives too much room for purveyors of child porn images to maneuver within for it to be accurate. I can't see legislators being this "lax". I guess I should note that my use of the phrase "too much room to maneuver" is not an expression of a personal opinion on the current state as I understand it but rather an expression of what I perceive would be currently allowed by legislators and society. Hopefully my gibberish is understandable.
John Thornton