Generally, these statutes prohibit the sale, lending, renting, giving, publication, exhibition or other dissemination of materials, with general knowledge of their obscene character and content. Drafted before an electronic age, many states define materials as covering any writing, written matter, picture, pictorial representation, film or motion picture, or sound recording. Of course, what constitutes the relevant community in on-line environments without geographic boundaries is an open issue. In a very few states, obscenity laws cover the dissemination of tangible material only, a matter of some importance given the debate in other areas of the law whether computer software or other information in digital format is tangible or intangible. Similarly, many states prohibit the distribution of electronic or electrical reproductions of obscene material.
All states prohibit child pornography.
All such laws require actual knowledge, or reason to know, that the person portrayed or the recipient of the obscene, indecent, or harmful material is a minor. A few states also penalize the distribution, with reckless disregard, of obscene or indecent materials to minors. The states generally provide defenses to the publisher or distributor where some reasonable attempt has been made to discern the age of the recipient of the obscene, indecent, or harmful material. As noted above, most state statutes reach beyond what is deemed to be obscene for adults to prohibit the distribution of material that has been determined to be harmful to minors, including that which is indecent or excessively violent. As with obscenity statutes generally, what is harmful to minors is to be determined with reference to the local community.