Families of SOs Community Group
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Today the U.S. Supreme Court held that a victim of CP offenses must establish "proximate cause" between a defendant's conduct and any injury alleged. This was the right way for the Court to go. The alternative was that no showing was required, in which case, merely because a defendant possessed a CP image of the victim, the defendant now owed the victim some money damages. Only the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had gone this route, and the Supreme Court correctly held that the Fifth Circuit was in error. The Court also held that a single defendant cannot be held liable for the totality of damages a victim may have suffered even if proximate cause is established; a defendant can now only be held liable for any harm he caused. In short, this was a victory for CP defendants and, hopefully, will take the wind out of the sails of so many plaintiff's attorneys out there who are so eager to exploit an awful situation for profit. You can find the full the opinion here:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-8561_7758.pdf
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-8561_7758.pdf
There goes Vicky's and Amy's gravy train. It also will put a damper of their attorneys who were no doubt making a killing here.
No doubt these two young ladies deserve something for their pain, but the court was correct here.
rewdiazepam
Vicky and Amy---not their real names---were two small children that were molested and the sexual assault was filmed and uploaded to the Internet. There were several videos of each child made and the Vicky series is the most well-known series among CP collectors.
They did not get paid for this at all and they were in no way complicit to this crime. Basically, they were raped. But Congress passed a law that victims of CP were entitled to damages for their suffering and emotional trauma at the hands of the perpetrator.
In the past, whenever the government raided a home and found CP on the computer the law stated that the children identified had to be notified. This happened many times with Vicky and Amy. They hired a civil lawyer and sued the person who downloaded the images for their pain and suffering.
The problem was who pays this amount and how much. Most courts have ruled in the past that they can only sue those who were the "proximate cause" of the pictures and videos and that downloaders could not be mandated to pay a settlement. Common sense would tell you that the proximate cause was not the downloader but the person who committed these acts on Vicky and Amy and uploaded them to the Internet.
This opinion sheds more light on who is actually responsible and how much they should pay.
rewdiazepam
They are all over the P2P networks with thousands of guys having them on their hard drives. Also many of the pictures are on servers that are not within the jurisdiction of the United States. Many computers/servers are located in Russia or European countries of which our government has no control.
But copy after copy has been made of those picture for years. Remember when you download a Vicky image, all you are downloading is a copy of that image. Probably hundreds of other CP collectors has downloaded the same image as a copy. Then more collectors make copies from the downloaders images, so it is out of control.
No, they will never come even close to getting all those images or videos off the Internet. There are too many of them possessed by too many people.
But the government DID do one thing that exacerbated this situation. Every time a house was raided for CP and Vicky or Amy's pictures were found, the government CONTACTED the girls to make them aware that they had been found. If the government had just instituted a policy in which the victim was NOT notified, this would not have been the mess it has turned out to be.
rewdiazepam
Of course Vicky was notified.
I think there should be damage recovery from the initial producer. One and done.
This is a great first step.