Child Protection Law Overturned
COPA (the Child Online Protection Act) which was enacted in 1998, criminalized posting content that was considered to be "harmful to minors" for "commercial purposes" without age verification procedures (i.e., credit card age verification) was overturned today as violative of the First Amendment by the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Third Circuit upheld the ruling of the lower court finding that COPA was an unreasonable burden on free speech. You can find the text of the decision here:
http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/072539p.pdf
In pertinent part, the court stated:
"It is apparent that COPA, like the Communications Decency Act before it, 'effectively suppresses a large amount of speech that adults have a constitutional right to receive and to address to one another,' Reno, 521 U.S. at 874, 117 S.Ct. at 2346, and thus is overbroad. For this reason, COPA violates the First Amendment...."
The courts decided that the statute was overbroad and had a "chilling effect" on free speech. The statute does not have a narrow definition of "harmful to minors" and, as such, on its face would require that any content not suitable for a very small child would have to be placed behind a firewall. There are certainly less restrictive ways (such as filters) to keep minors from truly harmful content.
The court stated, "Unlike COPA, filters permit adults to determine if and when they want to use them and do not subject speakers to criminal or civil penalties...."
So what does this mean for you if you have adult content on your site? Essentially nothing yet.
It is likely that the government will appeal the ruling to either a full panel of the Third Circuit or to the Supreme Court. Even if this law was struck down as being unconstitutional, Congress will, undoubtedly, relegislate the issue immediately. The best advice for adult content sites is to keep your age verification system in place and continue to keep minors off of your site.
http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/072539p.pdf
In pertinent part, the court stated:
"It is apparent that COPA, like the Communications Decency Act before it, 'effectively suppresses a large amount of speech that adults have a constitutional right to receive and to address to one another,' Reno, 521 U.S. at 874, 117 S.Ct. at 2346, and thus is overbroad. For this reason, COPA violates the First Amendment...."
The courts decided that the statute was overbroad and had a "chilling effect" on free speech. The statute does not have a narrow definition of "harmful to minors" and, as such, on its face would require that any content not suitable for a very small child would have to be placed behind a firewall. There are certainly less restrictive ways (such as filters) to keep minors from truly harmful content.
The court stated, "Unlike COPA, filters permit adults to determine if and when they want to use them and do not subject speakers to criminal or civil penalties...."
So what does this mean for you if you have adult content on your site? Essentially nothing yet.
It is likely that the government will appeal the ruling to either a full panel of the Third Circuit or to the Supreme Court. Even if this law was struck down as being unconstitutional, Congress will, undoubtedly, relegislate the issue immediately. The best advice for adult content sites is to keep your age verification system in place and continue to keep minors off of your site.
posted by Deena B. Burgess, Esq. at
10:09 AM
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