Should it be a crime, if an artist use actual children as a reference for NSFW? Or if they draw NSFW material based on actual children?

[Giacobbe]

That doesn’t answer if it should be a crime, however. An invasion of privacy isn’t always illegal. I struggle with this same question a lot and have posted about it before on this forum:

Child psychiatrist jailed after making pornographic AI deep-fakes of kids

I personally have a LOT of very mixed opinions when it comes to the subject of using a real-life reference for NSFW art. It’s a subject I struggle to come to any concrete answer on, and many whom I ask have their own opinions and admit they don’t have all the answers. Now, it should be noted that (unless I am misunderstanding) this man had non-AI CSAM. Pure photographs of naked children that he had taken without their knowledge. I fully agree that this is immoral. But let’s move away from this…

I could/would argue that making NSFW of a cartoon character despite the original creator being uncomfortable with it is a violation of their wishes. Does that mean all Rule 34 (“if it exists, there’s porn of it”) should be considered illegal because of copyright violation and sexual harassment/exploitation of a creator’s characters? Where is the line to be drawn?