"The problem with the net is that it covers more than just individual communities. It covers more than interstate communication. The Internet covers the world."

What are the adult businesses like in your town? Are they allowed to operate within your city limits? Do the exotic dancers at your local strip club take off everything or do they have to keep their g-strings on? Are there even any adult-oriented businesses in your city at all?

The regulations, zoning codes and permissible acts that apply to your town apply to your business as an adult Internet professional. You are legally subject to the standards of your community. No matter where you are, no matter that you’re on the World Wide Web, no matter at all. If you want to know exactly how the laws concerning sexual entertainment effect to you specifically, learn the laws of your town, county, state, province or region.

Back in 1973, the US Supreme Court ruled in the case Miller VS California. The defendant had printed up brochures advertising sex books. The ads were graphically illustrated and were mailed in an aggressive marketing campaign we now fondly refer to as junk mail. Unfortunately, a handful of the brochures got mailed to the wrong people and those people were appalled at what they saw in the brochures. The reason the case made it to the Supreme Court is because the brochures were mailed from one US state to another. The Court had tried in the past to give an official Federal judgement as to what and what was not obscene. In Miller VS California they basically told the country, screw it. Let the states decide.

The Court did say one solid thing in Miller VS California:

“This much has been categorically settled by the Court, that obscene material is unprotected by the First Amendment.”

The Court just left it up to individual states, cities and juries of peers to decide for themselves what is and is not obscene. It did give guidelines as to what a community should look for when categorizing obscene material:

“(a) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated.
(b) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals.”

In other words, if the book, picture, magazine or video includes sex, the material is possibly obscene. If the material is determined to be obscene by community standards, then it’s illegal.

When the judicial branch of the government passed off responsibility in 1973, they had no idea the Internet would happen. They had no clue that in less than thirty years; the world would open wide to the web. They probably never imagine it was possible for Japanese businessman to buy all the Hentai he could download from an American paysite.

The concept of sexual materials flying across international borders and across state lines without the aid of the postal service just never came to mind.

We have in front of us a new challenge to define or not define obscenity. The recent passage of the Amber Alert Bill and the COPA/COPPA legislation will undoubtedly bring about another case where the highest court of the land will be asked again to decide what is obscene.

Already the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was struck down as unconstitutional by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. That court said it was unconstitutional to judge the legality of Internet content by "contemporary community standards". That decision was argued before the Supreme Court but they sent it back to the circuit court.

The problem with the net is that it covers more than just individual communities. It covers more than interstate communication. The Internet covers the world.

If your surfer see imagery on your site that is illegal to view where they live, should you be held criminally responsible? How can you prosecute a person who shoots content of 16-year-old models if the person lives where the legal age is 16? How can we even entertain the notion of community standards when the participating audience is as diverse as the planet Earth?

My guess is that the US Supreme Court continues to absolve themselves of amenability for making the choice. If they get butch and set a ruling on what is obscene, it’s possible that ruling might put us all out of business. If they pass the buck as they’ve done in the past, then we’re at the mercy of the morals of the guy down the street.

Know the community standards where you live. Know the laws that apply to you in your town. Know the violations as well as the permissions. After all, you live there. Can they live with you?