Copy-pasted from another journal, please guys spread the word, this is very important! Think about your fav arts and video games!
Please have a look at this: toffmikin.tumblr.com/post/3613… and hanguk-dongin.deviantart.com/j… (english version lower)
Other deviant journals here too: wintel.tumblr.com/post/3618505… sirohikari.deviantart.com/jour… evergreen-rew.deviantart.com/j… These new rules are a real danger for artistic expression in Korea and concern
anyone who is a South Korean citizen, regardless of where they live. Illustrators and animators in America can be removed with no consequence, and even small freelance artists and game developers can lose their jobs and have their projects revoked.
I understand the point of the people that created it such as preventing paedophilia and adolescent pornography, indeed this is right to want to stop these things.
But the rules here are clearly exaggerating and are way too ambiguous!
"Anyone found as a creator, seller, or buyer of materials containing adolescent pornography will be punished as a sexual offender." (I think we're all agreeing here)
But more specifically, the law states the following counts
• Any appearances that could be seen as a teen/child (OK, that is perfectly understandable)
• Any type of pornography from explicit sex to being semi-nude (think mini skirts or swimming suits)
• Any media from illustrations, games, videos, films, etc. (That too in understandable... )
• The subject is wearing a school uniform/P.E uniform (this doesn't matter how old the subject is, meaning if it's someone 90 years old wearing a school uniform, it's illegal!)
• Contains a background that reminds the audience of school (WHAT??)
• The subject's facial/body features make him/her look young enough to make the audience think that s/he is a kid/teenager (That will be a serious problem in some kinds of style! Chibis will be problems as well!)
• (these apply to videos) 5. The video has a file name that is related to teens (for example even if the subject is actually a middle-aged woman, if the title says 15 years old yadda yadda, whoever spreads the video gets punished)
• The subject's pubic hair hasn't grown yet (How should we do for people who shave themselves and depilate?)This means for example...
• 2 teens making out = you may get arrested
• 2 adults wearing a school uniform making out = you may get arrested
• A picture of single person wearing a uniform but it has sex apeal = you may get arrested
• 2 kids holding hands walking in to sunset, but if it seems inappropriate to uncle Bob living in who knows where and he files complaints to police = you may get arrested
• You may get arrested for just viewing and possessing such material. Ratings of the contents does not matter.
These are arbitrary laws based on the simple appreciation of the police and anyone that is having a look at art or any other media. If I take the simplest example: the manga style. In most of the situations, even a character that is 20 years old can easily look like a 15 years old character.
This means that almost half of the people on Deviantart could be accused of adolescent pornography because they depicted a character that they like in a swimsuit or school uniform, no matter the age of the character.And even worse with these new rules:
"[…] the government has set up a system where people can get paid for turning others in who violate this law. One person had even linked 1700 personal websites, many of which were casual art blogs for Korean artists."This is not a state of rights but a state of denunciation and informing…
Please resist against this law and spread the word to protect our fellows korean artists! They can end in jail and lose their job by the simple fact that someone decided that their art is against the law. Amazing korean artists are deleting their gallery already…