It involves a man charged with animal cruelty for selling DVD recordings of illegal dog fighting, portraying animal violence such as dogs eating a live pig and tearing its jaw off. The defense is claiming that even though the act portrayed is illegal, it is not illegal to sell recordings of the act. This opens up a floodgate of problems, because if this case will be deemed in favor of the defendant, that means that generally the legal system deems that making a profit of a violent act is alright, just as long as you don't actually, physically, perform it.
Under such thinking, there should be nothing wrong with selling snuff films - as these DVDs are basically animal snuff films - nor would there be anything wrong with selling child pornography, if you are not involved with the actual violence. It should be noted that the first child protection cases were tried under laws of animal treatment, back in the 19th century, and it would be a great double standard if the Supreme Court will allow animal violence videos as "free speech" without following the same path with e.g. child pornography videos: "Animal cruelty is illegal in every state in this country. It is a crime. To make money off a crime is to compound the crime. That's one of the many good reasons that child pornography is illegal." (LA Times, April 21, 2009).
More articles on the issue: CNN.com and The Washington Post.
Indeed, the before-mentioned "crush videos" (see post below) will be part of this case, making the upcoming trial all the more gruesome and interesting.
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