Censorship News

14.05.2008 - Porn shop appeals movie X-rating

2008-05-14T08:12:00Z

Online business Adultshop.com today appealed against the failure of its legal bid to reduce the X rating given to an adult film.In November last year, Justice Peter Jacobson dismissed the online store's application for a judicial review of the Classification Review Board's decision to rank the film Viva Erotica as X18+.

Written by Nicolas Perpitch. Read the full story here

26.02.2008 - New book, The Porn Report, reveals sexes X-rated tastes

2008-02-27T02:09:00Z

The traditional sterotype of a porn user is a dysfunctional middle aged man in a grubby raincoat, but that is being challenged by an unlikely newcomer to the scnene, according to a new book on pornography in Australia.

That newcomer says author Catharine Lumby, is likely to be a woman aged under 35 who lives int eh suburbs, votes for a progressive party like the Greens, is in a momogomous relationship with a man and earns slightly more than average.

From The Daily Telegraph. Read the full story here.

22.02.2008 - Bare facts about porn.

2008-02-27T01:43:00Z

Predominantly male, Liberal as well as Labor voters, more likely to be religious and living in a monogomous relationship. This is not the target market for a new Holden sedan but your average Australian pornography user.

From The Australian. Read the full article here.

18.02.2008 - The X Files

2008-02-18T01:37:00Z

A Sunday Age investigation into Victoria's adult entertainment industry has found storefront shelves heavy with tens of thousands of X-rated films, which show real depictions of sex and are illegal to sell in Australia outside the ACT and Northern Territory.

More worrying though, is the widespread presence of unclassified films, which have not been submitted to the Classification Review Board and as such are illegal to sell anywhere in Australia.

Article from The Age. Read the full story here.

20.12.2007 - AdultShop.com to Appeal Federal Court Decision

2008-01-16T04:16:00Z

On November 29th 2007, Judge Jacobson handed down his decision to dismiss AdultShop.com Limited's case for judicial review of the Review Board's classification of the non violent erotic film, Viva Erotica, as X18+.

The appeal was lodged on December 20th 2007 with the Western Australian District Registry of the Federal Court.

The grounds for appeal are that "in making its decision on the classification of Viva Erotica as X18+, the Review Board failed to take into account the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults as required by s.11(a) of the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 in that the Review Board did not first determine what those standards were in relation to Viva Erotica."

A directions hearing is expected to be listed before March 2008.

30.11.2007 - AdultShop loses appeal on X-rated films

2007-12-03T04:12:00Z

AdultShop.com has suffered another set back in its battle to sell explicit sex films across Australia after the Federal Court dismissed its appeal against the decision by the Office of Film and Literature Classification to give a film an X18+ rating.

Read the full story here.

28.05.2007 - Teacher, mind expander, spice of life: porn's multiple positions

2007-05-29T08:16:00Z

smh.com.au reporter, Adele Horin highlights that the unexpected findings of a survey of porn consumers. Nothing in 30 years of research about pornography has ever suggested it has a positive side. But that, says Alan McKee, is because the wrong people were being asked.

Read the full story here

20.04.07 - Triple J takes a look at the debate over X rated Classification

2007-05-10T01:47:00Z

Should X rated films be freely available to Australian adults?

Triple J's Steve Cannane presents a balanced interview with AdultShop.com CEO Malcolm Day and the Australian Family Association's Angela Conway.

View the podcast here

03.03.07 - Australia's adult industry challenges film ratings

2007-03-06T00:53:00Z

Article: Australian's porn industry challenges film ratings

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's porn industry began a court challenge to the country's film ratings on Thursday in a test case which family groups said could lead to explicit sex movies being sold openly in shops and petrol stations.

Pornographic movies can only be sold legally in two Australian territories, including the capital Canberra, and generated an estimated A$500 million ($393 million) last year, mainly through mail orders.

While it is legal to own or watch sexually-explicit movies at home anywhere in Australia, sales are banned in the country's six states.

Australia's censors rate films from G, which are open to anyone, to R for violent or disturbing films suitable only for adults, and X for sexually-explicit films with heavily restricted distribution.

Now pornography company AdultShop.com Limited has asked the Federal Court to overturn the X category used by censors, arguing community tastes had changed since standards were drafted in 1984.

"The Office of Film and Literature Classification is required to take into account current community standards in relation to explicit erotic films," AdultShop Chief Executive Officer Malcolm Day told Reuters.

AdultShop operates 28 retail stores throughout Australia and New Zealand and is valued at around A$9 million. The company sold A$42 million worth of adult products last year.

Day denied the court action was aimed at boosting business, although he described the company's current worth as "dismal", blaming state restrictions.

A survey for the company last September by ACNielsen found 70 percent of Australian adults were not offended by explicit erotic films and 76 percent thought they should be available on a restricted basis.

SOFT PORN, HARD SELL

"At the end of the day we're in business, but we're not the only company selling adult films. As a result of the restrictions 95 per cent of films are sold uncontrolled on the black market," Day said.

The company decided on court action after censors gave an X rating to the comedy "Viva Erotica" about a failed Hong Kong director who decides to make a softcore film starring his girlfriend Miss Mango to pay his bills.

"The OFLC's decision to classify 'Viva Erotica' X18+ was based upon the film containing depictions of actual sexual activity between consenting adults and did not address whether or not the content within the film was likely to cause offence," Day said.

As the case opened, the classification board said it would begin public forums over the next six months to gauge whether people agreed with current ratings.

Anti-porn activists said any move to weaken standards could see porn become more easily available in video stores and shops.

"There is a demand for pornography. We would be of the view that that's regrettable, but that's a different debate. People can access X-rated material in Australia very easily at the moment," the Australian Family Association's Angela Conway told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

But Day won support from respected prime-time film reviewer Margaret Pomerantz, who said non-violent pornography should not be solely singled out for draconian restrictions.

"It can make people happy. It can improve people's sex lives," she told a community forum in Sydney.

Source: Reuters

02.03.07 - The Australian newspaper calls for reader comments!

2007-03-01T23:51:00Z

Caroline Overington, Senior Journalist for The Australian newspaper has established a blog that encourages readers to make comment on whether explicit erotic films should be made available to Australian adults?

Click here to read through some of the interesting comments that highlight just how much support there is for explicit erotic films to be made available to adults who wish to purchase them!

01.03.07 - AdultShop.com takes classification board to court

2007-03-01T01:07:00Z

Last night, a Symposium organised by the University of Sydney and faciliated by ABC Movie Show host and anti-censorship campaigner Margaret Pomeranz, was held to openly discuss the topic of Sex, Censorship and Community Standards.

Today, AdultShop.com goes before the Federal Court to argue that films showing actual sex between consenting adults should be given a rating of R instead of X18+.

Click here to listen to the ABC News audio file

01.03.07 - Board to study positions on porn

2007-03-01T00:50:00Z

The Classification Review Board has agreed to conduct research into whether the so-called reasonable adult is offended by films that show actual sexual intercourse, writes Senior Journalist Caroline Overington for The Australian newspaper.

An interesting development given AdultShop.com's main argument in today's Federal Court challenge is that the Classification Review Board has not conducted any research into community standards, and if they were to would find that the reasonable adult is not offended by explicit erotic films.

The article can be accessed here

27.02.07 - Porn a X-roads

2007-02-28T01:50:00Z

A court challenge over an X-rated film has reignited a debate over whether the ban on non-violent pornography should be lifted, writes Caroline Overington, Senior Journalist for The Australian newspaper.

The article can be accessed here.

27.02.07 - Be adult, porn industry pleads

2007-02-28T01:38:00Z

An article written by Senior Journalist Caroline Overington, posted on the website News.com.au this morning, outlines the pending Federal Court challenge that will take place later this week.

The full story can be accessed here, along with some interestng readers' comments that indicate that Australian adults are fed up with censorship in Australia.

26.02.07 - Departing censor admits to digital defeat

2007-02-26T07:46:00Z

The nation's chief censor has admitted that trying to ban inappropriate content in films, computer games and pornography was a losing battle in the digital age.

The outgoing director of the Office of Film and Literature Classification, Des Clark, said the difficulty in restricting content across borders meant that consumers would increasingly have to decide for themselves what was appropriate.

"It seems to me that if you have this global stuff where you're not able to harness it, what comes into play - for instance with online gaming - is that you have protocols established by users . . . it's not something that government is necessarily able to regulate," Mr Clark said in an interview.

"I suspect there's a whole lot of intuitive classification that happens."

Mr Clark said technology allowed people access to "strong and controversial content that was not available or easily available beforehand", and that self-regulation was part of the pathway to reconcile local and global values.

Mark Finn, lecturer in media and multimedia at Swinburne University, questioned the relevance of national standards in today's world.

"Bodies like the OFLC are set up to administer national guidelines, but we live in an age where national borders are increasingly porous," he said.

As a result, any attempts to clamp down on user-generated content - such as sexual or violent modifications for popular video games - were a particularly fruitless exercise.

"The OFLC is constructed on a premise to slap a sticker on something," Dr Finn said.

Mr Clark singled out interactive video games and movies as a target of the OFLC. "The classification system is particularly sensitive to interactivity, and rewards for interactivity. Whether it involves sex or violence, if people are rewarded for inappropriate activities, like drug taking, killing, we look at that much more harshly."

The video games industry is big business with sales worth $925 million in 2006, approaching the sums spent on other forms of entertainment like DVDs.

After seven years as head of the OFLC, Mr Clark will step down in April. He addresses the International Ratings Conference in Sydney today.

Source: Australian Financial Review