Some countries consider virtual or non-photographic child pornography which depict children who are not real to be a type of child porn that is illegal, whereas other countries do not consider this type of child porn illegal. Making this type of child porn illegal has been controversial. This is is due to multiple reasons: due to the opinion that it is pointless to protect children who are not real, the opinion that such laws remove people of their rights, a fear that these laws can cover harmless material, and the fear that it is possible to exploit such laws to charge harmless individuals with heavily disproportionate charges. Another criticism that is often given to the illegal nature of pornographic depiction of fictional children is the assertion that removing a potential a paedophile's ability to access an alternative to the "real thing" will encourage them abuse real children. Research on whether this is true or not has produced mixed results. 