Looks like book bloggers, booksellers, and enemies of censorship in Massachusetts need to send a federal judge a thank-you note.

In an article by Andrew Albanese at PW Daily yesterday we learned that U.S. District Judge Rya W. Zobel has blocked a new obscenity law that was set to take effect. In April, the state legislature passed a law meant to protect minors from being exposed to sexually explicit material, reacting to the overturned conviction by the Massachusetts Supreme Court of a man who had sent a 13-year old girl a nude picture of himself. However, according to the plaintiffs in the case, it appears that in their haste to close this loophole legislators drafted a law so expansive that it violated the First Amendment:

“The problems with this law show the danger of legislating out of fear, and in a hurry,” said Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts.”This case is a reminder that we need to remain ever-vigilant in the defense of basic civil liberties against lawmakers who try to capitalize on cases involving children to expand government power in ways that could be used to silence booksellers, artists, healthcare providers, and the rest of us.”

If enacted, the law could have made “anyone who operates a Web site” hosting content deemed obscene or explicit–and perceived to be targeted at minors–subject to a $10,000 fine and face up to 5 years in prison, according to Albanese. But as the plaintiffs argued, the law was so vague that its application might have made anyone with a blog excerpting, say, Lady Chatterley’s Lover on their site liable for prosecution.

As the Associated Press reported, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the ACLU, and internet content providers all argued that it:

…amount[s] to “a broad censorship law” that would ban from the Internet a variety of information that could be seen as harmful to minors, including material about contraception, pregnancy, literature and art that adults have a First Amendment right to view.

Judge Zobel agreed, writing that “The plaintiffs have demonstrated, without question, that the 2010 amendments … violate the First Amendment.”

So until and if Zobel’s ruling is appealed and overturned, it’s okay to put this on your site:

Lady Chatterley