47 U.S.C. § 561
Section 561 · Scrambling of sexually explicit adult video service programming
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 13 court decisions — leading case United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc. (2000)
Most recently applied in 2023 IL App (4th) 220364 - People v. Rolfe (February 2023)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
In providing sexually explicit adult programming or other programming that is indecent on any channel of its service primarily dedicated to sexually-oriented programming, a multichannel video programming distributor shall fully scramble or otherwise fully block the video and audio portion of such channel so that one not a subscriber to such channel or programming does not receive it.
Until a multichannel video programming distributor complies with the requirement set forth in subsection (a) of this section, the distributor shall limit the access of children to the programming referred to in that subsection by not providing such programming during the hours of the day (as determined by the Commission) when a significant number of children are likely to view it.
As used in this section, the term “scramble” means to rearrange the content of the signal of the programming so that the programming cannot be viewed or heard in an understandable manner.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Effective Date
Section 505(b) of Pub. L. 104–104 provided that: “The amendment made by subsection (a) [enacting this section] shall take effect 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act [Feb. 8, 1996].”