The COPINE scale was originally developed for therapeutic psychological purposes. More specifically, it is used to distinguish between child erotica and child pornography. [...]

In the late 1990s, the COPINE project ("Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe") at the University of Cork, in cooperation with the Paedophile Unit of the London Metropolitan Police, developed a typology to categorize child abuse images for use in both research and law enforcement.^[4] The ten-level typology was based on analysis of images available on websites and internet newsgroups. Other researchers have adopted similar ten-level scales. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COPINE_scale

Is the child victimized by the photographer? or is the photographer victimized by the child porn law?

SAP scale

In 2002, the sentencing advisory panel (SAP) of England and Wales devised the SAP scale, condensing the different levels of child porn from 10 to 5 It dropped the Copine levels 1 to 3 completely.  The SAP levels indicate increased seriousness of the crime, and are also considered indications of the dangerousness of the offender (which is problematic).  See Sexual deviance: theory, assessment, and treatment.

Dost Test

In order to better determine whether a visual depiction of a minor constitutes a "lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area" under 18 U.S.C. § 2256(2)(A), the court developed six criteria. [...]

1) Whether the focal point of the visual depiction is on the child’s genitalia or pubic area.

Harmless photos might become child pornography, when cropped in a way that they emphasize clothed genital areas. Cropping a photo (with emphasis on the genital areas) turns it from a legal mainstream newspaper child swimsuit photo into a heinous child porn photo. It is hard to understand how the child in the photo can be victimized by cropping the photo.

Concerning the lascivious display of clothed genitalia, the Department of Justice described use of the Dost test in child pornography and 2257 documentation regulations in a 2008 rule, writing that the precedent United States v. Knox, 32 F.3d 733 (3d Cir. 1994) did not prohibit ordinary swim team or underwear model photographs, but "although the genitals were clothed in that case, they were covered by thin, opaque clothing with an obvious purpose to draw attention to them, were displayed by models who spread or extended their legs to make the pubic and genital region entirely visible to the viewer, and were displayed by models who danced or gyrated in a way indicative of adult sexual relations." [...]

The test was criticized by NYU Law professor Amy Adler as forcing members of the public to look at pictures of children as a pedophile would in order to determine whether they are considered inappropriate. "As everything becomes child pornography in the eyes of the law—clothed children, coy children, children in settings where children are found—perhaps children themselves become pornographic en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dost_test

Everything becomes child pornography. 

You will see in the Copine scale analysis below, that any department store adolescent lingerie catalog can become child pornography, when collected by a man that might get excited by the photos.

Human-Stupidity Analysis

The Copine scale (and the derived Sap scale) is a good attempt to rate child pornography on one dimension, by its "seriousness".

It totally fails to consider 2 other important dimensions

1. age:  penetrative sex with a toddler or with a 17 year old have the same rating (Copine 9 out of 10). The first causes serious injuries and is surely unnatural. The second is perfectly legal in Europe where the age of consent is 16, a natural legal act between adolescent lovers, still it is one of the most serious levels of child porn. An adolescent couple can legally have sex, but they cannot photograph themselves doing it. Otherwise they get victimized by themselves (?). Human-Stupidity believes they get victimized by the insane laws.
2. consent vs. non-consent: consensual S/M spanking play of adolescent minors or kidnapping torture are the same (Copine 10, the highest rating)

The Copine scale

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