YouTube Musician Evan Emory Faces 20 Years in Prison for Clever Editing

grant sarver

grant sarver

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Evan Emory, a musician who posts his material on YouTube, recently uploaded a video that might earn him 20 years in prison. Yes, you read that correctly. One totally harmless video. Twenty years in prison. Attorneys, however, told WoodTV8 that the felony charge may be unconstitutional. Curt Benson, professor at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School, said the trial could pose “a constitutional question” because it violates Emory’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech.


So let’s back up. What’s this all about? The 21-year-old Emory posted a video of himself on YouTube singing a sexually explicit song to elementary school students. Before you take the side of law enforcement, it’s not as raunchy and inappropriate as it sounds. The video was only edited to make it appear as if young children were in the classroom, even though they weren’t. Emory posted two disclaimers on the video that elementary school students were not exposed to the explicit lyrics.


If Emory is charged with the count of manufacturing child sexual abusive material he is facing, he could spend 20 years in prison for what he says was just a joke. Muskegon County Prosecutor Tony Tague said Michigan law ‘provides penalty’ for those who actually manufacture child sexual abusive material ‘but also has a provision for those who make it appear that the children were actually abused.’

....

Parents are too outraged to worry whether Emory’s rights may be being infringed upon. One parent interviewed said, “He humiliated my child. He’s humiliated all the parents that are involved in it and something definitely needs to be done.”

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Only in American. I think you could offend the average American by breathing and potentially get summoned to court for it.
 
Well that's just stupid.
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Shelley said:
Only in American. I think you could offend the average American by breathing and potentially get summoned to court for it.
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I'm an advocate of removing warning signs and let Darwin sort things out. :p
 
He did not commit a crime....how can he arrested?...at best he can be sued for airing minors on broadcast media without parental consent and for damages (which I don't see traumatic responses deriving from really.) if any. If anything parents who had kids involved as it was said WERE not subjected to the lyrics...should be arrested for allowing there children unfettered access to the internet in their homes...That's what parental based internet filters are for and if your going to sue someone you should at least have your grounds be on a solid foundation. In fact I didn't know where he or those kids where from until they arrested him and made a big ordeal out of this. This should have remained a civil matter and this is improper procedure that someone decided to get all gung-ho on to get a rep. Crap like this pisses me off...For Christ's sake people raise your effing kids with values and you won't have to worry about the bad influences if that's what you want them to think they are.


Shelley said:
Only in American. I think you could offend the average American by breathing and potentially get summoned to court for it.
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Agreed and that brings us to the problem...there is no law yet here to criminally prosecute someone who uses money+court system in order to legally harass someone as far as I am aware of nor is there any sort of provision for it anywhere I have looked. Seems like an infinite loop to me.

Any one practice US law and understand what I am questioning here?
 
anotheralias said:
I do think that ought to be illegal though, if it isn't already. I'm not a parent, but if I were, I'd be spitting mad if someone used my child on a youtube video in any capacity whatsoever. And I wouldn't care if it was a song about kittens and rainbows.
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Right... as would I be mad as hell...but as people who would care about our offspring it would be the more logical and safer solution to not approach the matter in the way to make a local media fiasco about it since that is what they were mad about in the first place right?

There kids did not actually here him do anything but a legit concert as I remember and were put in a video from clips that were recorded at a legitimate event. All he did was edit the video with which a proper disclaimer could be aired anyways if it was a local free event. He didn't actually commit a criminal act...which is why I would tend to think this is a case that should have been handled on a civil level. Like Shelley said only in America...and I hate when people out here grow up, act like kids, and portray the Jerry Springer lifestyle of Americans to the world. When at the same time...Shelley is right...only in America would something that is all about privacy for minors end up being on TV and thus print and digital medias and be totally against the point. Again they should have kept their junk in their backyard. All they are doing is adding views to the subject matter. Fueling the fire...fanning the flames. Way to go mainstream media!
 
Shelley said:
Only in American. I think you could offend the average American by breathing and potentially get summoned to court for it.
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...Halitosis? If someone get's sued for this I'm leaving...LOL you can be fired from your job for it though on the grounds of hygiene.

Couldn't resist responding to this :)
 
Hmmmm

If my kid was taken from an innocent video of a school concert or whatever and put into some foul mouthed Rapper's music vid I would be calling for Jail time too... very stupid an inappropriate thing to do imo.
 
Dragonfly said:
Hmmmm

If my kid was taken from an innocent video of a school concert or whatever and put into some foul mouthed Rapper's music vid I would be calling for Jail time too... very stupid an inappropriate thing to do imo.
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Stupid yes. Naive yes. Worthy of jail time? Hardly. People have done far worse crimes and never ended up in jail.

At the end of the day, no child was hurt or had their ears subjected to questionable music. All he did was rather ill-advisedly used the imagery without consent. At worst its really infringing copyright law.
 
Wasn't the imagery from a concert HE performed at ... as long as the venue does not say no cameras or recording devices he didn't break any laws. Nobody outside of this county would have heard about it if the NEWS didn't publicize it. They are the ones that connected a youtube clip of an edited hodgepodge of media into a place with a name and location. No one would have known otherwise, forget out of the country..no one would have even heard it out of his county. If they had a problem they could have made him take the video down instead of becoming the center point of a media escapade. I hardly believe we are all hearing about this because of anything other than some PTO parents want some tv face time and their 5 minutes of fame along with whatever police officer felt this was a criminal matter. File a police report sure...but there should have been no enforcement action by the police. This was a civil matter plain and simple. The only people with any grounds for real action is the town itself for him violating their trust...but again he was legally using footage he owned and due process says he is innocent even if personally anyone want's him in jail.

I'm sure there is other cases we know of where people are being tried for ridiculous reasons and people on the other side of those accusations probably feel similar to some people here about putting him to shame based on their values...but remember the law has no prejudice so convicting the right guy for the wrong reason is still wrong or the system doesn't mean **** and that means every single person here (in the US or dealing with)could be subject to false imprisonment for any reason. This is my whole point. He DID NOT COMMIT A CRIME. Those who ruin HIS life based on that are breaking more laws than he did and in fact before a judgement is even made, we publicly are speculating on his actions. Then go head and tell me a jury that reads these articles and newscasts and won't have a biased opinion. So wait because he doesn't have a press pass he can't post the video but the news can publicize it for ratings...because it is news? What he did was equivilant to kicking a dog in a movie and then you remember reading the disclaimer "no actual animals hurt in the making of this film, it is camera trickery"

I have seen less taste on items that were MEANT to be viewed by children...and if no one made a stink it would have just been some random kids on some random video. Again...who really did more damage here?
 
Maybe technically he didn't commit a crime, but it takes a very sick mind to do what he did. There's enough porn around for adults, add another one. Children are the only beautiful gift of God who are truly innocent. I would be mad as hell if my daughter's clip got edited into a sexual vid.

That said, in fairness, twenty years jailtime is unfair. The guy should be sent to a psychiatrist and banned from going anywhere near a device that can connect to the internet for a very long time.
 
If you saw the clip or segments of it you would understand that what children watch on tv is worse than that...and so are most of their idols. He also did not commit a crime and in reality if someone watched the video...they would really know that it was not to be taken seriously and if I understand correctly you needed to log in to youtube to see it as restricted content. It was a total parody ..yes in bad taste...not a crime.

I hear you on the the whole thing about your daughter... but in reality what he did was not a crime when he committed the act...ex post facto..and if you were one of those parents your only legal recourse should have been file against the school for not having a visitor policy in a school with minors for non essential personnel. It is their fault for him being there and he had unfettered access to the school materials premises legally. He did not sign an agreement or agree to any policy explicitly because the school did not have one and/or make him acknowledge one. The liability is theirs. What do you think about your kids school allowing people in without due procedure?

What anyone would like to see happen to that guy is regardless in this light as he did not commit a criminal act. The school allowing him access was negligent and the area is steamrolling a kid for exploiting it without breaking a law. An elementary school should be more secure than that. Shame on this kid ...but the blame is on municipal/BOE of that particular area.

If what he did is a crime than every single person who uploads a booty shaking video up to youtube and titles it the name of a song is soliciting sexually explicit content to minors. Technically what they are doing is strip club material and they are misleading people to think they are going to watch a music video. Rick Rolled with a twist. It is a bad joke...that was made possible by the school policy. They should have not made a stink...revoked his privileges locally from school grounds submitted the complaint for removal of the video, changed the school visitor policy for elementary schools and in the end he would have to live with the shame locally. What they did was publicize it so people around the world would hear about it and ended up making thousands of people look for stray copies of the video on random web venues and in the end bring more attention to their children which is who they were trying to protect in the first place right?

I don't know it seems like blaming him was the path of least resistance...arresting him hinders the town from being sued because they are taking action against him. They will probably secure the school down the road quietly. That's how it works. Take the path of least resistance.
 
Michigan law "... also has a provision for those who make it appear that the children were actually abused."

Editing a video to make it seem as if he was reading those lyrics to kids, IMHO, does make it APPEAR as if he was actually doing it. Does that violate the provision? Yep. Does it also violate his first amendment rights? Yep. Was he a ****ing dumbass for making that video? Yep.

***** slap him, make him do community service, call it a day.
 
Wired said:
Michigan law "... also has a provision for those who make it appear that the children were actually abused."

Editing a video to make it seem as if he was reading those lyrics to kids, IMHO, does make it APPEAR as if he was actually doing it. Does that violate the provision? Yep. Does it also violate his first amendment rights? Yep. Was he a ****ing dumbass for making that video? Yep.

***** slap him, make him do community service, call it a day.
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Exactly what I am saying...there was no need for this to be put in the news. They could have handled this internally as a town/city and made less of a mess.
 
dutchbb said:
Sorry US, but are you becoming completely retarded? (With all respect for Americans opposing this frenzy).
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I can't tell from that which side you're coming down on - we're retarded for objecting to children being used as youtube fodder, or we're retarded for letting children be used as youtube fodder?

And I really don't see where free speech comes into it. We don't have the right to invade someone's privacy in order to speak freely.
 
If you can't tell that, then there is little I can say. If you really think that even the risk for 20 years in prison is appropriate in this case, then I'm happy I'm not living in your country.
 
The thing is the footage he used was from a recording of his presentation I believe that he gave. They did not require consent from the parents for him to do it and obtain said footage so it is the schools fault...as much as you want to hate the guy...the school is at fault. It isn't like he was peeping.. he took legit footage and made a parody of it in a way a lot of people find horrid. How come no one is questioning how this kid was able to do that as a legal adult with no kids, yet was still in a elementary school doing a performance and was not forced to sign anything...even a guest pass. I can't even walk into the high school I went to without a guest pass obtained by signing in at the office. Point blank...this kid is being hamstrung..if he can be prosecuted...so can everyone who allowed him access and so can the news teams for covering a story that by covering it could add exposure to peoples they were protecting from exposure in the first place. The people in the area who would be responsible are pointing fingers at him....as they are trying to not feel the heat.
 
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