Global InformationChild Online Protection Act information
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| Acronyms (colloquial) | COPA |
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| Citations | |
| Public law | Pub. L. 105–277 (text) (PDF) |
| Statutes at Large | 112 Stat. 2681-736 |
| Codification | |
| Titles amended | 47 |
| U.S.C. sections created | 47 U.S.C. § 231 |
| Legislative history | |
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| United States Supreme Court cases | |
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The Child Online Protection Act[1] (COPA)[2] was a law in the United States of America, passed in 1998 with the declared purpose of restricting access by minors to any material defined as harmful to such minors on the Internet. The law, however, never took effect, as three separate rounds of litigation led to a permanent injunction against the law in 2009.
The law was part of a series of efforts by US lawmakers legislating over Internet pornography. Parts of the earlier and much broader Communications Decency Act had been struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1997 (Reno v. ACLU[3]); COPA was a direct response to that decision, narrowing the range of material covered. COPA only limits commercial speech and only affects providers based within the United States.
COPA required all commercial distributors of "material harmful to minors" to restrict their sites from access by minors. "Material harmful to minors" was defined as material that by "contemporary community standards" was judged to appeal to the "prurient interest" and that showed sexual acts or nudity (including female breasts). This is a much broader standard than obscenity.
- ^ 47 U.S.C. § 231.
- ^ COPA is sometimes confused with COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which remains in force and limits the ability of sites to offer services to those aged twelve and under without explicit parental consent.
- ^ Reno v. Am. Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844 (1997).