Comment by dragonwriter

> This was struck down in Ashcroft v Free Speech Coalition

No, it wasn't.

> A new bill, the PROTECT Act, came about.

This is a section added by the PROTECT Act. (The link includes reference to the law by which the section was added to the US code; one of the great things about LII is that it has added/amended information, not just the text.) It has nearly identical coverage to what was struck down, except that where what was struck down was struck down on the basis of not being limited strictly to obscene material, this added obscenity (by name in one place, and using the exact language of the Supreme Court standard for obscenity in another) to the former rule.

> But it only bans CP artwork that is "virtually indistinguishable" from real photos.

You are invited to read the text, this is simply false. (The PROTECT Act also added the “virtual identical” limitation you describe to the definitions applicable to the original offense, as well as adding this new one with the obscenity limitation, as a belt-and-suspenders approach — basically, the Supreme Court said that they could prohibit things that either meet the case law standard for obscenity or which has a sufficient nexus to actual come abuse, so the PROTECT Act took the original single prohibition and replaced it with two, one which was limited to be targeted on obscenity (18 USC §1446A) and one which was narrowed to what they felt might pass muster as sufficiently related to actual child abuse (the original prohibition with definitions at 18 USC § 2556, amended with the “virtually indistinguishable” restriction. The latter is the Constitutionally weaker of the two; that obscenity is not protected is well-established.)