Originally Posted by jaclynann

Just a quick comment... It doesn't matter so much where your company is, but where you do business. Typically the feds prosecute in remote, conservative jurisdictions. All they have to do is go online, and order a DVD to some po-dunk county in West Virginia, and as soon as you ship it to them, the government has a "community standard" that is very different than anything most of us have ever seen. That standard of that particular area is what matters at trial, not the social norms where it was produced. The way the obscenity standard now stands (and a reason why so many people have a problem with it) allows it to change. The "standard" exists in a specific place at a specific time. It can change from town to town and from day to day. In short, the feds file in conservative jurisdictions because that's the only place they have a hope of winning.

Additionally, obscenity statutes are written under Congress' authority to regulate interstate commerce (if I remember correctly from my Con Law class), and it can only be prosecuted once an allegedly "obscene" item is entered into the stream of commerce. The government does't go after the production of obscene material, it goes after the material's sale. The jurisdiction has much less to do with where a company is located, and much more to do with where it does business.