## Facts

- Federal prosecutors charged Extreme Associates, Inc., a pornography company, with conspiracy and substantive violations of federal obscenity laws for distributing obscene materials in interstate commerce.
- The indictment alleged distribution of three videotapes sent by mail and six digital video clips delivered over the Internet to an undercover postal inspector in Pittsburgh.
- The inspector ordered videotapes through a publicly accessible website and accessed the six clips by purchasing a monthly membership to a members-only portion of the site.
- Defendants sought pretrial rulings that, under the Miller obscenity test, (1) the “work, taken as a whole” should be the entire website (and linked pages) rather than each charged item, and (2) the jury should apply a “worldwide” community standard because the Internet is globally accessible.
- The government argued the “work” was each specific charged tape or clip and that Miller requires applying the local community standards of the district where the case was tried.

## Issues

1. For Miller’s “work, taken as a whole” element, whether the relevant “work” is each charged videotape or Internet clip, or instead the defendants’ entire website and related linked content.
2. For Miller’s “contemporary community standards” element, whether Internet distribution requires a worldwide standard or permits use of the local community where trial occurs.

## Decision

- The court denied dismissal and resolved the pretrial evidentiary/instructional questions through a ruling in limine.
- For the mailed videotapes, the “work, taken as a whole” is each individual videotape charged in the relevant count.
- For the Internet-delivered items, the “work, taken as a whole” is each individual digital video clip charged in the relevant count.
- The court rejected treating the entire website (or linked pages) as the “work” for Miller purposes.
- The court held the jury must apply contemporary community standards of the Western District of Pennsylvania, not a worldwide Internet standard.

## Legal Principles

- Under Miller v. California, obscenity determinations ask (1) whether the average person applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest; (2) whether it depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and (3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
- In a prosecution charging specific allegedly obscene items, the “work, taken as a whole” is the specific charged item (e.g., a particular videotape or discrete Internet clip), not a defendant’s broader catalog, website, or external links.
- Internet distribution does not displace Miller’s community-standards framework; absent controlling authority to the contrary, the relevant community is the locality where the trial is held.
- Pretrial rulings may define the units of analysis (“work as a whole”) and the applicable community standard to guide evidence presentation and jury instructions in an obscenity trial.

## Conclusion

The court applied Miller in a count-by-count manner, treating each charged videotape and each charged Internet clip as the relevant “work as a whole,” and instructed that obscenity must be judged using local community standards in the trial district rather than a worldwide standard for online content.


United States v. Extreme Assocs., Inc., No. 03-020, 2009 WL 113767 (W.D. Pa. Jan. 15, 2009)