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In case you ask what community standards are.... I always like to get a legal definition...
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Contemporary Community Standards
What is considered "art" versus "obscenity" varies in different jurisdictions, based on the prevailing "contemporary community standards." Juries in obscenity prosecutions are asked to guess what most people in their community would think about the content in question. This means that if obscenity is charged in Hollywood or Manhattan, "obscenity" will probably mean something different than if the crime is charged in, for example, Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Internet is a unique forum in at least one regard: while other forms of communication such as magazines or videos must be physically brought into a hostile jurisdiction, allowing you to choose whether to do business there, the content of your adult website can be viewed by anyone anywhere with a computer and Internet access. What this means for adult site webmasters is that it doesn't matter where you, your pictures, or server are located - you risk prosecution if a prosecutor anywhere views your adult website or home page and believes that the content is obscene.
For example, a husband and wife operating a Bulletin Board System (BBS) from their house in Milpitas, California, were prosecuted and convicted in Tennessee for displaying obscene content. The BBS provided, among other things, access to GIF scans for a membership fee. A U.S. Postal Inspector purchased a membership from Memphis, Tennessee. The husband called the Inspector in Memphis and gave him an access code.
The Inspector brought six counts against the couple under 18 U.S.C. § 1465 for using a means of interstate commerce (a combined computer and telephone system) for the purpose of transporting obscene images, namely GIF files containing images of "bestiality, oral sex, incest, sado-masochistic abuse, and sex scenes involving urination." The couple was convicted on all six counts, and a few others including mailing a sexually explicit video to Tennessee. Their computer system was "forfeited" (the government took their property by force without compensation - see 18 U.S.C. § 1467), the husband was sentenced to 37 months in prison, and the wife was sentenced to 30 months. The Appeals Court upheld their convictions, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. See United States v. Thomas, 74 F.3d 701 (6th Cir.), Cert. denied, 117 S.Ct. 74 (1996).
Image files are not the only medium that can land you in jail. In another case, Jake Baker published stories in an Internet newsgroup entitled "alt.sex.stories," that graphically described the torture, rape, and murder of a woman with the same name of one of Baker's classmates at the University of Michigan. He also sent similar stories and communication via email to a friend. Baker was charged under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c) with threatening to kidnap and injure another person. A true threat to injure or kidnap another person is not protected speech under the 1st Amendment. The charges against Baker were eventually dismissed because his words were not "true threats," but he was kicked out of school, denied bail, and he spent one month incarcerated. Plain text, if it explicitly describes sexual conduct, might provide the basis for an obscenity charge.
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