A record who's function is defined by its owner. Unlike a birth certificate, which remains a certificate of one individuals birth regardless of who owns it. A newspaper is the same in that regardless of who owns a particular printing of a newspaper, it is by definition a newspaper and nothing more. A map, is a map, regardless of who's holding it, and whether they're holding it right side up.
Conversely, moving images with sound depicting two people engaged in a game of Twister while clothed in only their birthday suits can have very different functions. If this film is under the ownership of a film-maker, it is regarded as art. If it is under the ownership of a collector of films that portray naked people doing, well, anything, then its a pornographic record. A still image of a woman's genitalia is a medical record when it is an official record of the placement of freckles on a humans body and it is owned by a dermatologists office. That same picture owned by John Q Public, is a pornographic record. I don't have to detail the difference between images of young children that are owned by their parents versus adults who are not in any way related to the child; the function of records which have the potential to be labeled as pornographic changes the classification f the record itself as the owner of that record changes.
The implication is that the act of recording sexual activity, sexual body parts or the naked human form is not what is devious; it is the ownership of such material which implies an inherent devious behaviour. Thus is it also implied that those persons participating in the act of creating pornographic records are not as devious as those owning those same records? And if those participants are not the devious record makers, is this not a source of support to the argument that pornographic records are just as valuable as any other recorded unit of information which is bestowed with the proud title of a "record", and thus, worthy of archival processing?
Conversely, moving images with sound depicting two people engaged in a game of Twister while clothed in only their birthday suits can have very different functions. If this film is under the ownership of a film-maker, it is regarded as art. If it is under the ownership of a collector of films that portray naked people doing, well, anything, then its a pornographic record. A still image of a woman's genitalia is a medical record when it is an official record of the placement of freckles on a humans body and it is owned by a dermatologists office. That same picture owned by John Q Public, is a pornographic record. I don't have to detail the difference between images of young children that are owned by their parents versus adults who are not in any way related to the child; the function of records which have the potential to be labeled as pornographic changes the classification f the record itself as the owner of that record changes.
The implication is that the act of recording sexual activity, sexual body parts or the naked human form is not what is devious; it is the ownership of such material which implies an inherent devious behaviour. Thus is it also implied that those persons participating in the act of creating pornographic records are not as devious as those owning those same records? And if those participants are not the devious record makers, is this not a source of support to the argument that pornographic records are just as valuable as any other recorded unit of information which is bestowed with the proud title of a "record", and thus, worthy of archival processing?
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