Booksellers and other plaintiffs have won a preliminary injunction against a new Louisiana law that requires websites to age-verify every Internet user before providing access to non-obscene material that could be deemed harmful to any minor. A federal district court judge found that the plaintiffs are likely to prevail on their claims that the law violates the First Amendment and is unconstitutionally vague.
The lawsuit was brought by the Media Coalition and the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Garden District Book Shop and Octavia Books in New Orleans; Future Crawfish Paper, publisher of Anti-Gravity magazine; the American Booksellers Association; and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
To comply with the law, booksellers and publishers would have either to place an age confirmation button in front of their entire website, thereby restricting access to materials that may be appropriate for all ages, or attempt to review all of the books or magazines available at their website and place an age confirmation button in front of each individual page that might be inappropriate for any minor. Failure to age-verify, even if no minor ever tries to access the material, is a crime that could lead to a $10,000 fine.
"This is an important victory for me as a bookseller and for my customers," said Tom Lowenberg, co-owner of Octavia Books. "This law would have placed an impossible burden on our website by forcing us to 'ID' every person who visited the site before allowing them to browse our books or risk getting a $10,000 fine."