US Law: Animal Crush Videos

This morning someone on my Facebook friends list reposted “SUPPORT HR 5092-MAKE CRUSH KITTEN/PUPPY VIDEOS ILLEGAL | Change.org.”

This in turn prompted me to look into the issue. I believe it is already against animal cruelty laws already on the books to actually perform the act, this is really in reference to wether or not it one is allowed to create imagery or video and wether they may profit from it or not.

I’ve learned is that originally the law that was passed was too broad and would have made it illegal, for example, to produce a hunting show or to video tape as a journalist and not as a participant. The latter being the reason why the Supreme Court struck down the law for being too broad in the case of The United States v. Stevens on April 20, 2010.

This in turn caused a quick response to amend the law to be more specific in it’s intent on April 21, 2010. I really don’t believe it is a matter of “if” the law will pass, I believe it’s a matter of “when” the law will pass.

The changes would not prevent anyone from creating or possessing any depiction of animals intentionally being hurt. But would prevent them from profiting or attempting to profit from them.

The exceptions are where the depiction has religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical or artistic value.

Also, note this only accounts for visual depiction, and not for audio or written depictions.

With these changes, even once they are in effect, what will they really do?

As long as there are people doing the acts in question, then someone, somewhere, will most likely capture some form of visual depiction of it.

The only hope is that this will prevent people from doing it to profit or potentially profit from the acts.