hmmm interesting what this guy says.... possibly an extreme scenario but he has a point that it does sound a tad wishy woshy. I don't particularly like the idea of the stats being trashed by for example everyone who bought a copy of "Welcome to the NHK". Kinda amusing to think that Forbidden Planet might get raided and have half (or more probably) of their manga section confiscated. The world could live without FB of course but what about Waterstones...

Incidentally this isn't the same guy who I met in London who wrote 60 years of manga. Different Spelling.

QUOTE:
"The proposed offence has been carefully constructed to target the material which causes most concern and is at the extreme end of the spectrum. Images will have to meet certain conditions to be considered illegal."

More of the same old flim-flam. anyone with the sense to avoid becoming a New Labour minister can see that the definitions are over-broad. Yet again. they do this time after time and just say "trust us not to misuse the power we are taking". Do you trust them?

A detailed reading of the bill will show anyone with a modicum of knowledge about comics, and Manga in particular, that this will endanger very many already existing and widely owned Manga and Anime. In effect this law will create thousands of criminals, correction; sex offenders, out of perfectly innocent men and women. Some twit, showed an idiot minister a few Hentai images and persuaded them that this was about children. So the outraged fools, not knowing any better, nor caring to find out, decide "something must be done".

The police will have a field day, children and adults will be prosecuted wholesale and the sex offenders register will become bloated and irrelevant. Lives will be wrecked, families torn apart and marriages broken, but hey, that's snall price to pay if some minister can smile self-righteously to themselves and bask in the knowledge that they did "something"."

For info, I noticed Helen McCarthy's name on the list. It did amuse me though that to sign up you need to submit full details. Certainly a good way to put people off.

At the end of the day its daft to feel self concious about objecting. I have a friend I know who's busy collecting the full set of Ranma mangas. There's a fair wack of nudidy in Ranma and the characters are specifically identified to be under 18 (ie children by the law). I don't particularly want her to have to bin them all if the law gets passed...