How can a song about an obviously fictional character violate a real person’s rights? But Columbia’s high court has just ruled that a pop song violated children’s rights, despite not referencing any actual child, and despite not containing an obscene or indecent matter.
Reason Magazine reports:
The song “+57,” from the Colombian musicians Karol G, J Balvin, and several others, violates the rights of children, a Colombian court has ruled. The Associated Press reports that the court has ordered the artists “to refrain from publishing music that violates the rights of children and teenagers.”
How can a song violate someone’s rights, let alone the rights of multiple people? Unless we’re talking about copyrights, it makes little sense. And no, the court isn’t saying that kids of Colombia have a collective copyright claim to “+57.”
The issue is lyrics in the song that could be read as sexualizing a teen girl. The court claims these lyrics represent a violation of children’s rights. “Sexualizing minors reduces them to becoming objects of desire, and exposes them to risks that can affect their development,” the 14-page ruling says.
“+57” is about someone who goes out partying after telling her boyfriend she is going to sleep. The contested lyrics—sung in Spanish—call someone “a hot mama since she was 14” and say “although that baby has an owner, she goes out whenever she wants”… These are not graphic lyrics. The outrage over them isn’t about preventing a patently offensive and obscene depiction from reaching people’s ears…These are lyrics that tell a narrative about a particular fictional character. It is a story, albeit a pretty light one—most of the song is just about drinking and dancing and partying behind the boyfriend’s back. The character is clearly meant to be young, though nothing indicates she’s still under age 18. Nor is there reason to believe that the song’s creators are celebrating the idea of her having been a “mamacita” from a young age.
Colombia’s judiciary has issued some radical rulings. For example, Colombia’s Supreme Court ruled that a collection of youths could sue corporations, municipalities, and the Colombian government over climate change, and in the process, bestowed “rights” on the Amazon River, which is not a person.
Colombia’s Supreme Court also ordered the Colombian government to issue a “nonbinary” birth certificate to a biologically-female woman who wanted to change her gender on her birth certificate from female to nonbinary. She continues to use the “she” pronoun. And she was born female, not “nonbinary.” So she is female, not nonbinary. Ordering government officials to change her birth certificate to include the false claim that she is nonbinary is falsifying records and lacks any legal justification.
