[SageRaven]

Part of the US legal theory is that each viewing of the offending media is an affront to the victim(s), causing them further harm.

I personally don't agree with this line of thought, as that line of thinking leads down a dark road. I think Jessie Slaughter, the Star Wars Kid, and relatives of those beheaded/executed publicly abroad likely suffered measurable emotional damage from the spread of those videos, but we'd be idiots make that illegal. The mass media in general profits immensely off of the embarrassment and emotional suffering of individuals, and while the practice is abhorrent, censoring such media is not the right thing to do.

So far as I know, there has been at least once case where the victim of child porn successfully sued a person for damages because he was in possession of her photos and videos. I don't know the case name, but I read about it on the "cyb3rcrim3" blog, which I highly recommend for people wanting/needing to know about the law plays out with regard to such issues.