Cameras and Cheerleaders Don't Mix

Guy videotapes a public performance by a cheerleading squad, is arrested and charged with possession of child pornography. Discuss.

Complication 1: Cops say he tried to "conceal" the camera. Why would he? And do we take the cops' word for it to begin with? It sounds sinister but may not mean anything. More information needed. Complication 2: We also don't know what, if anything, was on the rest of the tape. What we do know is that the guy's name and his career are destroyed, and so far, no one seems to understand why.

Previous decency-flouting cheerleading bandit here. Texas legislature banning "suggestive" cheerleading moves here.

[hat tip: reader Steve Murphy]

Comments

[Phil]

My question is why aren't all the people at the cheerleading event up on charges for PARTICIPATING in child pornography?

[Rob]

Fully clothed porn?
Never heard o' that; I must be even more culturally challenged than I thought I was.

[Hermes Ten]

As a photographer, I can't say I'm surprised. I understand the mindless zealotry and witch-hunt mentality in this country well enough that I would have been afraid to take photos at an event like this in the first place. I never take photos of children under any circumstances. There are a lot of people out there who are going to suffer some rude awakenings.

[Token]

Wasn't everybody else at the event, INCLUDING THE OFFICERS, then guilty of viewing child pornography?

[Steve Murphy]

My 1 year old attended a birthday party at one of these Gymboree type places. There were 20 or so little 1-3 year olds running around bouncing off the foam padding. My wife told me to grab the camera and start taking pictures.
I was honestly afraid to be taking pictures of little kids at a birthday party that I was invited to. I just hope my boy doesn't grow up to be a cheerleader.

Also- Aren't cheerleaders supposed to be considered sex symbols? They were when I was in high school. Or is it like flight attendants where we are now supposed to check those thoughts with our baggage. Only cheerleaders have yet to trade their skirts for pleated khakis.

[Phelps]

One of my jobs right after HS was working on a crew that filmed cheerleader competitions. We worked really hard to keep all the footage nice and wholesome, but that had more to do with the fact that our customers were the girls' parents than anything else.

I guess that makes me a former pornographer. And all the parents purchasers of porn starring their own children.

[Michael Chaney]

I had a guy call me up one time and complain that one of his copyrighted images was on a web site on my server. Happens occasionally, so I asked him where and he told me the web site. So I look, and there are some pictures of people and children at some children's sporting event, and the picture in question included a young 3-year-old girl in a cheerleader outfit. So, I asked him if he took the picture and he said "no". So, the next obvious question was "Um, so why do you own copyright on it?" The answer was obvious: "because that's MY little girl". Ah. Someone alert the copyright office, seems things are quite as we've always thought.

So I explained that he didn't own copyright to the image unless he was explicitly granted it, and he would have to swear under oath that he did own it and all that. So he started screaming about his lawyer. And I explained that his lawyer would tell him the same thing I did.

Long story short, it came down to he didn't want pictures of his little girl dressed like that on the internet, because anybody could see them. I had always wanted to talk to a moron like this, so I asked him why on earth he would allow her out in public like that if he didn't want people to see her like that. He didn't have a ready answer to that question. I alerted the site owner and they voluntarily removed the "offending" material just to keep him away.

As the first poster said, if it's porn to record it, then surely it's porn while it's happening. If it's not porn while it's happening, then it's not porn to record it. If your cheerleading squad is performing pornographic acts in public, you might want to take that up with the school.

[Hermes Ten]

So then Michael, in essence, the site owner violated the rights of the copyright holder in order to please a moron who had no legal claim to control over this image, simply because the moron was more likely to be a problem than the photographer. Or am I missing something?

I guess we all need to start acting like morons.