You will find the FAQs within the downloadable Free Speech & Music document in this section.

No, not conclusively. One scholar who analyzed about 200 recent studies of media violence said none provided support for the existence of a cause-and-effect relationship between violent imagery and actual violence. Japanese and Canadian TV programming is more violent than American TV, but those societies have much lower violent-crime rates than the United States.

Courts have generally said that it cannot be restricted without a violation of the First Amendment protection of free speech.

There is no mandatory V-chip system in effect, and the constitutionality of such a regulatory scheme has not been tested. What is in place now has been agreed to by the television networks. But it is true that television broadcasters may feel a threat of government regulation lurking behind even "voluntary" programs.

It depends. Generally, the government may not prohibit speech because it finds the speech to be offensive — see Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989). Government may decide not to fund the arts at all, but if it does fund them (for instance, in the form of support to a museum), it cannot single out works to be banned or removed because they may be shocking or offensive.

The First Amendment protects also against viewpoint discrimination — suppressing certain points of view in favor of others. However, if the government promotes a program and defines the program’s limit, it can fund speech that promotes its goals, even to the detriment of other goals, as seen in Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173 (1991). In the case of NEA v. Finley, the Court did not see any harm in adding a decency standard to an already subjective process. Therefore, the NEA can take into account whether a piece of art offends the sensibilities of the public when deciding whether to fund the art.

Free-speech advocates warn that "voluntary" programs may seem to come from willing industry participants, but compliance is usually due to significant pressure from lawmakers.

No. Private galleries are private spaces, and gallery owners and curators can show what they like. An artist whose work is rejected by a private gallery cannot legally assert a First Amendment claim.

A satire tends to invent a fictitious situation (though possibly with elements that actually occurred) for the purpose of ridiculing someone or even some idea. A parody imitates an existing work — often in an absurd way, such as by exaggerating its characteristics — in order to make fun of it and point out its flaws.

Yes. In the 2000 case Texas v. Castillo, a book dealer was convicted of obscenity for selling a sexually explicit comic book.

Not necessarily. In America, most comic-book readers are adults, almost 70%. Many more comic-book readers are older teenagers. The same is true in Europe and Japan, where comics are not stigmatized as a children’s medium. Thus, many of today’s comic books are intended for mature audiences, in the same way that many television programs, movies and novels are intended for mature audiences. Of course, publishers still print certain comics almost exclusively for children, and print other comics, such as Archie or Batman Adventures, for mixed audiences.

But adult comics have an old and fairly distinguished heritage. America’s first comics to contain original material may have been the sexually explicit “Tijuana Bibles” of the 1920s or earlier. Adult-oriented “underground comix” played a prominent role in promoting counterculture politics during the 1960s and ’70s. The adult comic Maus, an allegory about the Holocaust, won a Pulitzer Prize during the 1980s. Modern comics from authors Daniel Clowes and Harvey Pekar have been made into critically acclaimed, dramatic films.

Yes, under the Supreme Court’s rulings in cases including Winters v. New York, Miller v. California and Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition. Those cases protect all forms of literature and art under the First Amendment, except when a particular item constitutes “obscenity” or “child pornography.”

A work of literature or art is not “obscenity” unless, (1) as a whole, the work appeals to a "prurient" interest in sex — an abnormal, unhealthy interest in sex; (2) the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by state law; and (3) the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. The first two prongs of that Miller v. California test are judged by contemporary community standards, and the third prong is judged by contemporary national standards, under precedent in Pope v. Illinois. “Child pornography” is defined as sexually explicit images of actual minors or based on actual minors. Images of youthful adults, and images of children who have never existed in the real world, are not child pornography under the Free Speech Coalition ruling.

(See more on obscenity and pornography in Adult Entertainment.)

Most comic books now have warnings or ratings on their covers if they contain mature content. Marvel Comics and DC Comics, the respective publishers of Spider-Man and Superman, mostly publish material that would be “G” or “PG” at the theater, except when a rating or warning on the cover indicates otherwise. When such warnings are present, the material is usually comparable to a “PG-13” film — or an “R” rated film if the comic is part of DC’s Vertigo line or Marvel’s MAX line — but no more explicit than that.

Parents can safely assume that Archie and its spinoffs are all “G” material, and that Mad magazine is usually “PG-13.” Parents should assume that comics from DC’s Vertigo and Marvel’s MAX lines are for adults only, unless parents screen specific issues. MAX comics are not available on newsstands, but are sold in comic-collectible stores. Parents should also assume that the following comics are for adults only unless screened: Heavy Metal, Vampirella, Love and Rockets and its spinoffs (except the children’s book Measles), and anything that says it was authored by Robert Crumb.

The content in Elfquest comics has varied from innocent fairy tales to sexual romps, and the earliest issues with mature content did not always bear warning labels. So parents of younger children may wish to screen older issues of Elfquest for mature content.

Parents of young children likewise might want to screen comics from small, independent publishers. Some of those publishers put out critically acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction that make good reading for adults and older teenagers but are inappropriate for children.

No. The Supreme Court ruled in Jenkins v. Georgia that "nudity alone is not enough to make material legally obscene under the Miller standards," even when sex acts are indirectly simulated. But certain direct, nude portrayals of sexual activity ("hardcore" images) may be patently offensive and/or prurient according to the community standards of some jurisdictions. Such images may constitute “obscenity” if they have no serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

No. The Supreme Court ruled in the 1957 case Butler v. Michigan that the law cannot “reduce the adult population ... to reading only what is fit for children.”

Yes, if the comics are legally found to constitute “indecency,” but regulations cannot prevent adults from viewing or buying merely indecent material. For instance, local laws could require stores to place adult comics on high shelves, but localities could not simply ban all adult comics or unduly hassle adults who want them. In numerous cases — such as Butler v. Michigan, Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union and Sable Communications v. FCC — the Supreme Court has overturned bans on merely indecent material, and has ruled that adults must be allowed access to it, even when a few children might improperly be exposed to adult material.

In FCC v. Pacifica, the Supreme Court defined “indecency” as "language (or an image) that describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards … sexual or excretory activities and organs … when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience."

Of course, when there is no reasonable risk that children will be in the audience, or when reasonable precautions keep most children out, indecency law is often a poor justification for censorship. That’s one reason why the Supreme Court has allowed indecent material to appear on the Internet, cable TV, and phone-sex lines, in mailings, in traditional novels and books, and also in pictorial magazines that are kept out of children’s reach.

Further, not all sexual material is patently offensive. Otherwise, stores might have to sell standard encyclopedias and health textbooks from high shelves — and even the Bible might suffer such treatment to prevent children from reading its erotic Song of Solomon without supervision. Indecency law is strongest in regulating non-cable television and radio broadcasts.

No. In cases in which sellers or distributors of obscenity are prosecuted, prosecutors must not only show that a work is obscene, but must also show that the seller or distributor was personally aware of the sexually explicit “character” of the offensive item, according to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Smith v. California. In Hamling v. United States, the Court ruled that the seller or distributor does not have to be aware the item is legally obscene. However, retailers should be aware that the presence of warning labels on explicit material can be evidence of knowledge of its character, as in the state case Texas v. Castillo.

Not according to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Reno v. ACLU. However, the Court’s later ruling in Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union potentially opens a door for communities with conservative sexual mores to prosecute online material as “obscenity” even when it is considered only “indecent” in a liberal community where it was placed online. Yet sexually explicit material that has clearly serious political, artistic, literary or scientific value cannot legally be declared obscene in any community, according to the Supreme Court in Pope v. Illinois.

Serial killer David Berkowitz terrorized the city of New York during much of 1976 and 1977. He killed and wounded several people, allegedly on orders from a spirit that inhabited the body of his neighbor whose first name was Sam. According to Berkowitz, this spirit spoke to him through Sam’s dog. The media dubbed Berkowitz the “Son of Sam” after he referred to himself as such in a letter left at one of the crime scenes. After he was apprehended, Berkowitz was reportedly offered a substantial amount of money for the rights to his story. After hearing these reports, the New York Assembly in 1977 passed a law that was designed to prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes. This statute, which inspired several similar laws across the country, was nicknamed the “Son of Sam” law.

The "of and concerning" requirement means that a defamation plaintiff (the person suing) must show that the allegedly defamatory comments are being made about him or her. In other words, the plaintiff must show that the comments in question are about or "of and concerning" the plaintiff.

Defamation can result from a work of fiction. If a character in a work of fiction so closely resembles an actual person that reasonable readers believe that it refers to the plaintiff, sometimes the plaintiff can recover for defamation (assuming the other elements of a defamation claim are met). In 2003, a New York trial court explained in Carter-Clark v. Random House, Inc.: "For a fictional character to constitute actionable defamation, the description of the fictional character must be so closely akin to the real person claiming to be defamed that a reader of the book, knowing the real person, would have no difficulty linking the two. Superficial similarities are insufficient."

The book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family by Nicholas Pileggi sparked a lawsuit that eventually led the U.S. Supreme Court to examine the constitutionality of New York’s Son of Sam law in Simon & Schuster Inc. v. New York State Crime Victims Bd.The book, published in January 1986, examined the life of Henry Hill, recounting many of his criminal activities while in the Mafia. The book was later made into the Oscar-winning film “Goodfellas.” The New York Crime Victims Board contacted the publisher of Wiseguy, Simon & Schuster, and ordered the publisher to turn over monies that it had contracted to pay Hill for his help in the creation of the book. Simon & Schuster then filed a lawsuit, seeking a declaration from the court that the New York Son of Sam law violated the First Amendment.

The Court struck down New York’s "Son of Sam" law in 1991 in Simon & Schuster Inc. v. New York State Crime Victims Bd. because it found the law to be “significantly overinclusive.” The Court reasoned that the law would apply to any book in which the author makes even a passing reference to a past crime. The Court noted that the law technically could apply to The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Confessions of St. Augustine and Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience if it had been on the books when these works were published. The law simply reached too far, covered too many works and was not “narrowly tailored,” the Court said.

A disclaimer can assist a publisher and/or an author in defending against a libel suit but it does not necessarily provide absolute protection. Courts have stated that the test is not whether a publication is labeled as fiction but whether it can be interpreted as stating actual false statements of fact about someone. That said, it is a good idea to include a disclaimer. It can be a relevant factor that a court may consider in its analysis.

Generally, the libel-in-fiction lawsuits have been filed against both the author and the publisher. One goal of most tort lawsuits is to sue the defendant (an individual or company) with the deepest pockets. Generally, publishers are wealthier than individuals so it makes sense for both to be sued.

No, the Court reserved judgment on other "Son of Sam" laws. “The Federal Government and many of the States have enacted statutes designed to serve purposes similar to those served by the Son of Sam law,” the Court wrote. “Some of these statutes may be quite different from New York’s, and we have no occasion to determine the constitutionality of these other laws.” This presents the possibility that a "Son of Sam" law that is crafted more narrowly and with more precision than the New York law could survive constitutional review by the Supreme Court.