But the new interpretation allows investigators to go after so-called "secondary producers," including webmasters who buy or steal content from someone else. Critics claim that the government could even target online museum exhibits or news coverage of the pictures from the Abu Ghraib scandal. (Images created before July 3, 1995 are exempt.)

The Justice Department's new interpretation raises a slew of issues. Adult performers fear their real names, addresses and ages will end up in the hands of countless webmasters who must now keep these records. "We deal with stalkers now," said Bill Rust, webmaster of Arikaames.com, a soft-core site featuring his wife. "We've had people who join the site and try to track her down, send cakes and candies to her parents' house."

Rust said he stopped providing the site's content to hundreds of affiliates because he wasn't willing to give out his wife's personal information to comply with the new rules.

There's another potential problem with the regulations. According to Odenberger, the law would require websites to store every explicit image they ever post. The government, he said, doesn't realize "there are such things as 19-year-old (live web) cam girls sitting in a trailer with $200 in their bank accounts, going online solely to support their child. To require them to buy terabytes worth of storage puts down an impossible barrier between them and internet access."