§ 52.8

(a) In a civil action seeking damages or equitable relief against any person or entity that distributes, benefits from, promotes, or induces another person to distribute unauthorized obscene materials, including through electronic distribution, a prevailing plaintiff shall be awarded attorney’s fees and costs.

(b) For purposes of this section:

(1) “Obscene material” means material, taken as a whole, that to the average person, applying contemporary statewide standards, appeals to the prurient interest, that, taken as a whole, depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and that, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

(2) “Unauthorized” means either of the following:

(A) The obscene material was coerced, made, or obtained by trickery or subterfuge, or stolen, made, obtained, or distributed without the knowledge or without or beyond the express permission, freely given, of the person in the photograph, or the person whose identifiable likeness appears in the photograph.

(B) The obscene material is of a person who was less than 18 years of age at the time the obscene material was created.

(Added by Stats. 2022, Ch. 26, Sec. 1. (SB 1210) Effective January 1, 2023.)