I think you described pretty much my thinking, but more eloquently than I could have. It comes down to “my rights end where yours begin” — that is, the machete wielder is perfectly fine possessing and carrying the weapon, but once it uses it to start harming others without just cause, then it’s wrong.
In this case, that is, photoshopping, it’s fuzzier because the damage potentially done is to abstract concepts such as reputation. Clearly, an attempt to falsely manipulate an image for gain would be fraud, but at the same time, parody and satire are strongly protected concepts.
I think, regardless of the content of the image alteration (e.g., “lewd”, “obscene”), and such altered image that is presented as being “true” that can damage a person’s reputation and/or livelihood (the example of photoshopping an image of a pastor or priest (or say, elementary school principal) entering a porn shop is a good one) should be subject to AT LEAST civil damages for libel.
A criminal charge is harder to justify, though when you get into the realm of pornographic imagery, you’re already treading in gray areas to start with.
But something clearly presented as parody or satire (barring any obscenity issues) should be immune from such litigation.
Thanks. Agreed. Satire, and humor are entirely different than something presented as truth. The only problem with that is that in the internet age something done well and fuzzily presented as satire can then later take on a life of its own as something real. Once it has it is hard to squash, and damage can be done before it does. Still I wouldn’t want to legislate against it. We as internet consumers need to be careful that we don’t propagate misinformation. Many founding fathers quotes on 2nd ammendment for example are unsupportable from original historic sources. We would do well to check our sources and only using good information. There are plenty of valid quotes.
Lewd and obscene, I agree, are considered grayer areas. My point with that is that 200-300 years ago that was not at all gray. Is that because they were out of touch with liberty, or because we are out of touch with morality?