Legal frameworks around fictional pornography depicting minors vary depending on country and nature of the material involved. Laws against production, distribution and consumption of child pornography generally separate images into three categories: real, pseudo, and virtual.
Pseudo-photographic child pornography is produced by digitally manipulating non-sexual images of real minors to make pornographic material. Virtual child pornography depicts purely fictional characters for example, lolicon manga. Some analysts have argued whether or not cartoon pornography that depicts minors is a victimless crime.
Currently, countries that have made it illegal to possess as well as create and distribute sexual images of fictional characters who are described as or appear to be below eighteen include New Zealand, Australia, Canada, South Africa, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.
All sexualized depictions of people under the age of 18 are illegal in Australia , and there is a "zero-tolerance" policy in place. In December , a man from Sydney was convicted of possessing child pornography after sexually explicit pictures of underage characters from The Simpsons were found on his computer.
The New South Wales Supreme Court upheld a Local Court decision that the animated Simpsons characters "depicted", and thus "could be considered", real people. Again, the classification law is not federal or nationwide and only applies to South Australia.
