Gregory Maxwell wrote:
It would be super-fantastic if someone could confirm that you can just walk into a record store in the UK and buy it. There are stores here that have it, I'm tempted to go get a picture of myself holding... and start a campaign of other folks doing that.
I'm not sure that would send the right message.
On the radio interview: I thought David sounded unfair, espousing some unlikely conspiracy theories suggesting that the IWF chose Wikipedia for any other reason than the fact that some disgruntled Wikipedian submitted it to their tip box a few days ago.
On the wider issue: I'm sure the IWF would not mind at all if the police started raiding music stores. And there are elements of the wider community that would support them in that.
Australians are in the privileged position of having seen this all before, in the form of the Bill Henson controversy six months ago. An art gallery was raided by police and explicit photographs were seized. Journalist David Marr gave us an incisive analysis of the motivations of the prudes, both at the time, and at length in a book published in October.
Why is it that this cover image has been around for 30 years, but only now do we see moves for censorship? Marr was asked a similar question in a TV interview regarding the Bill Henson case, and he said "It's the Internet".
"The Internet has changed the way we view photography. There is a sense in which no photograph can actually be corralled anymore. Everything is potentially available to anybody anywhere in the world, once it gets on the Internet. We still have to deal with that, that apprehension of the Internet, because it's changing the way we consider art, photography, all sorts of things. Part of the purpose of my book is to look at the history of that fear of the Internet, and try to work out whether in fact we need to be so afraid. I don't think we do."
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2383376.htm
-- Tim Starling