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Opinion of the Court
by imposing severe criminal penalties on persons selling, advertising, or otherwise promoting the product." Id., at 760. Under either rationale, the speech had what the Court in effect held was a proximate link to the crime from which it came.
Later, in Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U. S. 103 (1990), the Court ruled that these same interests justified a ban on the possession of pornography produced by using children. "Given the importance of the State's interest in protecting the victims of child pornography," the State was justified in "attempting to stamp out this vice at all levels in the distribution chain." Id., at 110. Osborne also noted the State's interest in preventing child pornography from being used as an aid in the solicitation of minors. Id., at 111. The Court, however, anchored its holding in the concern for the participants, those whom it called the "victims of child pornography." Id., at 110. It did not suggest that, absent this concern, other governmental interests would suffice. See infra, at 251-253.
In contrast to the speech in Ferber, speech that itself is the record of sexual abuse, the CPPA prohibits speech that records no crime and creates no victims by its production. Virtual child pornography is not "intrinsically related" to the sexual abuse of children, as were the materials in Ferber. 458 U. S., at 759. While the Government asserts that the images can lead to actual instances of child abuse, see infra, at 251-254, the causal link is contingent and indirect. The harm does not necessarily follow from the speech, but depends upon some unquantified potential for subsequent criminal acts.
The Government says these indirect harms are sufficient because, as Ferber acknowledged, child pornography rarely can be valuable speech. See 458 U. S., at 762 ("The value of permitting live performances and photographic reproductions of children engaged in lewd sexual conduct is exceedingly modest, if not de minimis"). This argument, however, suffers from two flaws. First, Ferber's judg-
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