Daniel Rubin at the Inquirer has put up a post about U.S. Code: Title 18: Section 2257.

A reply to me in the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy weblog warns:

Karl, my understanding is that even the lawyers are having trouble making sense of this. Most people seem to think that a webmaster could be held accountable for any image that appears on his web site, even if the image is hosted by another source. You might need to hire a lawyer.

But this will definitely impact more than just the porn industry because so many mainstream companies make money either directly or indirectly from porn. HBO and Showtime could be affected because of shows like “Real Sex” and “Family Business.” And what about that explicit oral sex scene between Vincent Gallo and Chloe Sevigny in “The Brown Bunny?” This is a movie that got a three-star review from Roger Ebert. It’s not a porn film, but it will have to comply. And so would all the web sites that reported on the controversial billboard that shows Sevigny performing oral sex on Gallo.