The biggest production studios EVER operated AFTER child pornography was made illegal. The demand for child pornography today is FAR, FAR HIGHER than the demand for child pornography prior to it being made illegal. The reason commercial for profit production ground to a halt was indeed partially due to it being illegal. The reason for profit distribution ground to a halt is almost entirely due to technological changes. When the for profit distribution channels were at their peaks was right before largely distributed P2P technology became more mainstream. Nobody is going to risk their freedom paying for child pornography (making themselves a top priority consumer) when they can get the same shit for free from a P2P network (blending in with the other tens of millions of consumers using this technique, from which 1% of those identified by law enforcement are arrested in any given year). Today child pornography consumption is literally an epidemic compared to what it was when it was first made illegal. This probably is largely to do with the prevalence of internet pornography in general, because if you actually knew about the demographics of the consumers of child pornography, you would find out that the majority of them are desensitized pornography addicts who need increasingly taboo content to get aroused, and not even pedophiles. Huge increase in the amount of legally available pornography and ease of access to legally available pornography = huge increase in the amount of people who consume pornography = huge increase in the amount of people who become progressively desensitized to pornography = huge increase in the amount of people who consume increasingly taboo pornography = huge increase in the amount of people who consume child pornography. Well actually as I said prior the LARGEST FOR PROFIT STUDIOS AND DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD OPERATED AFTER CHILD PORNOGRAPHY WAS MADE ILLEGAL, NOT PRIOR. Additionally MORE CP IS DISTRIBUTED AND CONSUMED TODAY THAN AT ANY OTHER POINT IN HUMAN HISTORY DESPITE THE FACT THAT IT IS MORE ILLEGAL TODAY THAN AT ANY OTHER POINT IN HUMAN HISTORY. Also the production studios in Eastern Europe got slapped on the wrists. Not all of them even did any time in jail at all. In lots of places in the world there really just isn't that much stigma associated with these things. Shit I think Japan just made child pornography illegal a few years ago, and it is still legal to possess in the Czech Republic. Actually it is legal to view in a few states of the USA so long as you don't intentionally save a copy (cache doesn't count). See the thing is I don't particularly give a shit if people possess or distribute child pornography so long as they don't molest children. Your argument assumes that I think possession or distribution of child pornography is an immoral thing, but I only think child molestation is immoral.