How do US states differ in their laws regarding pornography production and distribution?

1. Federal baseline and the gap it leaves to states

At the top level, federal statutes criminalize child pornography and the interstate distribution of obscene material, and they reach production or distribution that uses interstate commerce or the mails, but they do not blanketly criminalize adult consensual pornography that fails the narrow legal definition of obscenity; that gap hands a great deal of regulatory responsibility to states ^{[3] [2]}.

2. Obscenity: community standards make state law a patchwork

Obscenity is judged under the three‑part Miller test and therefore depends on “community standards,” so material that courts in one state call obscene can be protected speech in another—this creates divergent enforcement risks for producers and distributors who operate across state lines and for internet publishers exposed to the most restrictive localities ^{[1] [4]}.

3. Child pornography: uniform federal prohibition with severe penalties

Depictions involving minors are prosecuted under strict federal statutes (e.g., 18 U.S.C. §1466A and related provisions), and these federal rules make production, distribution, and possession with intent to distribute child sexual material a federal offense, often carrying sex‑offender registration and heavy prison terms—leaving no meaningful state‑by‑state variance on core prohibitions ^{[3] [5]}.

4. Age‑verification and “harmful to minors” rules: states are splitting on access controls

Since the internet boom, many states have adopted laws aimed at keeping minors from online pornography, but statutory approaches vary: some states require commercial sites to use “reasonable” age verification or to block access, and as of mid‑2025 dozens had enacted verification mandates, producing a patchwork of technical and compliance obligations for site operators ^{[6] [7]}.

5. Nonconsensual (revenge) porn: near‑universal state action with varying scope

States have moved more uniformly against nonconsensual distribution of intimate images—by mid‑2025, every state and D.C. had laws banning nonconsensual pornography, though statutes differ in remedies and in whether they are civil, criminal, or both; courts have also diverged on First Amendment challenges to those laws ^{[8] [9]}.

6. Production location and the old “illegal to film porn” myth

A persistent myth suggests only California and New Hampshire “allow” adult film production; legal scholarship shows the issue is more nuanced—courts have analyzed whether porn production runs afoul of prostitution statutes and free‑speech protections, and apart from a few specific rulings, most states do not have an outright ban on adult consensual production, even though prosecutions could theoretically be pursued under other statutes in some places ^[10].

7. Enforcement, industry practice, and hidden agendas

Practical differences boil down to enforcement priorities and local politics: some states enact aggressive age‑verification or indecency laws driven by child‑protection advocacy or moral reformers, while others stress First Amendment limits; industry actors push for uniform rules to avoid compliance burdens, and advocacy groups push for stricter access controls—these competing agendas help shape which state rules survive legal challenge ^{[7] [6]}.

8. What producers and distributors must navigate today

Anyone producing or distributing porn must reckon with federal prohibitions on minors and interstate obscenity, but operational compliance is dominated by the state law landscape—obscenity prosecutions hinge on local community standards, online access rules and age‑verification vary by state, and nonconsensual distribution is broadly outlawed though statutory details differ—making multi‑jurisdictional risk management the industry’s central legal problem ^{[1] [3] [7] [9]}.