Computer based digital images are ‘copies of a photograph’ sufficient for the Act, and so possession of digital entities capable of being transformed into images were such photographs. Making a file available for download, was sufficient to amount to distribution or publication of them.
Times 03-Oct-1996, [1996] EWCA Crim 825
Protection of Children Act 1978, Obscene Publications Act 1959
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Straker v Director of Public Prosecutions QBD 1963
The defendant had been prosecuted with respect to negatives of films, and argued that a negative was not an article within section 1(2); it was not a film, and that even if it were an article thus defined, it could not be obscene unless published, . .
Cited – Attorney General’s Reference (No 5 of 1980) CACD 1980
The court was asked whether a person who provides screen images derived from a video tape ‘publish[es] an obscene article’ contrary to section 2 of the 1959 Act.
Held: Such a publication came within the Act. The court rejected the defendants’ . .
Cited – Regina v Brown (Gregory) HL 9-Feb-1996
The issue was whether ‘data’ within the Data Protection Act 1984 was limited to data in computer-readable form.
Held: The offence of the ‘use’ of protected data required something beyond inspection on a computer screen including printout. . .
Cited by:
Cited – Atkins v Director of Public Prosecutions; Goodland v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 8-Mar-2000
For possession of an indecent image of a child to be proved, it was necessary to establish some knowledge of its existence. Images stored without the defendant’s knowledge by browser software in a hidden cache, of which he was also unaware, were not . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 18 January 2022; Ref: scu.148489