Simulated images of a pornographic nature as the subject of crimes related to the circulation of pornography: comparative research

The article examines various approaches to defining simulated images of a person as the subject of crimes related to the circulation of pornography in foreign countries. Because the Internet provides a wide range of opportunities to access simulated pornographic materials, it is important to understand the context of their use. Simulated pornography is sexually explicit content depicting fictitious anthropomorphic characters in drawing, computer graphics and neural network generation formats (for example, in the form of a deepfake image). Generated pornography is produced by digitally manipulating images of real people to create pornographic material using a morphing technique, while hand-drawn pornography uses completely fictitious and often unrealistic characters (such as in manga). Of particular interest is the attribute of realism in simulated pornographic material, which in some jurisdictions is considered key to criminalization, since only images that resemble the truth and are misleading as to their origin are considered the subject of crime. The purpose of the work is to determine approaches to the phenomenon of artificially created pornography as the subject of crime. It has been established that the legal regulation of simulated pornography varies depending on the country and the nature of the material used. The criterion for differentiation in this study is the attitude to “realistic” pornography, that is, the most accurate depiction of a person performing extremely immoral actions from the point of view of the criminal legislation of foreign countries, including various legal systems. It has been established that the number of countries where any simulated pornography is recognized as the subject of crime includes the Republic of Indonesia, the People's Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Korea, meanwhile in the USA, the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Kingdom of Spain only recreated and drawn child pornography. The exceptions are those states in which the circulation of the materials or objects under research is not considered criminal, for example in Japan and the Republic of Colombia. It is concluded that the status of simulated pornographic content in the studied legal sources of different countries varies depending on the historical and cultural characteristics of the region.