The Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA) was a United States federal law to restrict child pornography on the internet , including virtual child pornography .
7-514: Before 1996, Congress defined child pornography with reference to the Ferber standard. In New York v. Ferber , 458 U.S. 747 (1982), the Supreme Court held that the government could restrict the distribution of child pornography to protect children from the child sexual abuse harm inherent in making it. In Osborne v. Ohio , 495 U.S. 103 (1990), the Ferber proscription
14-452: A child less than sixteen years of age." Paul Ferber, an owner of an adult bookstore in Manhattan, was charged under the law after he sold an undercover police officer two films depicting young boys masturbating. He was charged with promoting both obscene sexual performances and indecent sexual performances. At trial, he was acquitted of the obscene sexual performance count but he was convicted of
21-778: A violation of the First Amendment for being too broad. This United States federal legislation article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . New York v. Ferber New York v. Ferber , 458 U.S. 747 (1982), was a landmark decision of the U.S Supreme Court , unanimously ruling that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution did not protect the sale or manufacture of child sexual abuse material (also known as child pornography) and that states could outlaw it. New York had an obscenity law that made it illegal for an individual to "promote any performance which includes sexual conduct by
28-624: The Court observed that this provision "captures a range of depictions, sometimes called 'virtual child pornography,' which include computer-generated images, as well as images produced by more traditional means." The second prohibited "any sexually explicit image that was advertised, promoted, presented, described, or distributed in such a manner that conveys the impression it depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct." The Supreme Court struck down CPPA in 2002 in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition as
35-622: The constitutionality of New York's obscenity law, ruling that it did not violate the First Amendment, and reversed and remanded the case. For a long time before the decision, the Court had ruled that the First Amendment allowed the regulation of obscenity. Under the Court's previous decision in Miller v. California , 413 U.S. 15 (1973), material is "obscene" if, taken as a whole and applying contemporary community standards, it lacks serious scientific, literary, artistic, or political value,
42-431: The indecent sexual performance count, and the conviction was affirmed by the intermediate appellate court. The New York Court of Appeals overturned the conviction, finding the obscenity law unconstitutional under the First Amendment because the law was both underinclusive as to other films of dangerous activity, and overbroad as to its application to materials produced out-of-state and non-obscene materials. The Court upheld
49-419: Was extended by the Court to the mere possession of child pornography. The Child Pornography Prevention Act added two categories of speech to the definition of child pornography. The first prohibited "any visual depiction, including any photograph , film , video , picture, or computer-generated image or picture" that "is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct." In Ashcroft case,
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