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ARTICLE

FREEDOM FOR THE PRESS AS AN INDUSTRY, OR FOR THE PRESS AS A TECHNOLOGY? FROM THE FRAMING TO TODAY

†

EUGENE VOLOKH

INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................461  I. EVIDENCE FROM AROUND THE FRAMING: THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AS A RIGHT OF “EVERY FREEMAN” ............................465  A. Cases, Treatises, and Constitutions..................................... 465  B. The Structure of the Framing-Era Newspaper Industry ........... 468  C. The (Possibly) Dissenting Sources ....................................... 471  D. The Grammatical Structure of “the Freedom of Speech, or of the Press” ................................................................. 472  E. Responding to the Redundancy Objection ............................ 475  II. EVIDENCE FROM AROUND THE FRAMING: THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS COVERING AUTHORS OF BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS ...............477  A. The Non-Press-as-Industry Status of Many Book and Pamphlet Authors ...................................................... 477 †

Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law ([email protected]). Thanks to Stuart Banner, Stuart Minor Benjamin, Michael Kent Curtis, David Forte, Philip Hamburger, David Lange, Edward Lee, Renée Lerner, Adam Liptak, Michael McConnell, Jason C. Miller, Scot Powe, Saikrishna Prakash, David Rabban, Clyde Spillenger, Vladimir Volokh, and Steve Yeazell for their help, as well as to Amy Atchison, Kapiljeet Dargan, June Kim, Ian Leong, Lynn McClelland, Stephanie Plotin, Michael Rappaport, Vicki Steiner, and John Wilson of the UCLA Law Library for their invaluable research assistance. When the article was in page proofs, the author was considering representing the defendant in Obsidian Finance Group, LLC v. Cox, No. 11-0057, 2011 WL 5999334 (D. Or. Nov. 30, 2011); but this did not affect any aspect of the article, which was substantively complete long before Obsidian Finance was decided. The only substantive change following November 30, 2011 was the inclusion of a brief summary of Obsidian Finance in note 336. (At the time the article went to press, it was not yet decided whether the author would indeed participate in this case.)

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University of Pennsylvania Law Review

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[Vol. 160: 459

  B. Specific References to the Freedom of “the Press” as Covering Books and Pamphlets .......................................... 480  C. Freedom of the Press as Extending to Literary, Religious, and Scientific Works ......................................................... 481  III. EVIDENCE FROM THE FRAMING AND THE EARLY REPUBLIC: CASES FROM 1784 TO 1840 ............................................................483  A. Discussions of the Freedom of the Press as Protecting Non-Press-as-Industry Writers (England) ............................. 484  1. Rex v. Shipley (Dean of St. Asaph’s Case) (1784) .......485  2. Rex v. Rowan (1794) ................................................486  3. Rex v. Burdett (1820)................................................488  B. Discussions of the Freedom of the Press as Protecting Non-Press-as-Industry Writers (America).................................489  1. United States v. Cooper (1800) ...................................489  2. Impeachment of Justice Chase (1805)...................491  3. People v. Judah (1823) ..............................................492  4. People v. Simons, Commonwealth v. Blanding, In re Austin, Commonwealth v. Thomson, and Taylor v. Delavan ......................................................493  a. People v. Simons (1823) ............................ 493  b. Commonwealth v. Blanding (1825) ........... 494  c. In re Austin (1835) .................................... 494  d. Commonwealth v. Thomson (1839) .......... 495  e. Taylor v. Del