Supreme Court cases discussing the limitations the First Amendment places on state defamation law indicate that there is no constitutional infirmity in Georgia law holding publishers liable under a negligence standard with respect to the commercial advertisements they print. SOF also alleges that payment of the jury's verdict would force the magazine to close and, consequently, would deprive public debate of SOF's protected, non-commercial speech. In Eimann, 880 F.2d at 837, the Fifth Circuit agreed that "the publication's editorial content would surely feel the economic crunch from loss of revenue that would result if publishers were required to reject all ambiguous advertisements." See also United States v. at 2350 (First Amendment affords greater protection to non-commercial speech) Virginia Pharmacy Board, 425 U.S. SOF further argues that imposing liability on publishers for the advertisements they print indirectly threatens core, non-commercial speech to which the Constitution accords its full protection. Accordingly, since " ublishers do not tout their own products or services," they "have a far smaller financial interest than advertisers in the advancement of any one particular product or service." Id. Firenze, Note, Publishers' Liability for Commercial Advertisements: Testing the Limits of the First Amendment, 23 Col.J.L. However, "in the advertising context, a publisher only provides a forum for the actual speaker as a means of communicating with the listener." Lisa F. The advertiser's strong economic interest helps ensure that its particular message reaches the public, even in the face of restrictive regulations. 2d 810 (1977) see also Board of Trustees of State University of New York v. Most cases involving regulation of commercial speech present only a minor risk that overly broad regulation will chill protected commercial speech because, generally speaking, "advertising is linked to commercial well-being" of the speaker. This case poses a greater risk than one finds in ordinary commercial speech cases that a state's regulatory regime or tort law will impermissibly chill publishers from printing commercial speech that enjoys First Amendment protection. Such a chilling effect would compromise the First Amendment interest in commercial speech by depriving protected speech "of a legitimate and recognized avenue of access to the public." Manual Enterprises, Inc. Meyerson, This Gun for Hire: Dancing in the Dark of the First Amendment, 47 Wash. However, if state tort law places too heavy a burden on publishers with respect to the advertisements they print, the fear of liability might impermissibly impose a form of self-censorship on publishers. at 2560 ("We have no doubt that a newspaper constitutionally could be forbidden to publish a want ad proposing a sale of narcotics or soliciting prostitutes."). at 2350, and, thus, there is no constitutional interest in publishing personal service ads that solicit criminal activity, Pittsburgh Press, 413 U.S. It is well-settled that the First Amendment does not protect commercial speech "related to illegal activity," Central Hudson, 447 U.S. Imposing tort liability for publishing advertisements that result in injury directly implicates the First Amendment interest in commercial speech. Public Service Comm'n of New York, 447 U.S. at 1827 see also Central Hudson Gas & Elec. In addition, the Court noted that society has an interest in commercial speech because it facilitates intelligent and well-informed economic decisions. may be as keen, if not keener by far, than his interest in the day's most urgent political debate." 425 U.S. 2d 669 (1973)), the Supreme Court recognized that the First Amendment protects speech that, like Savage's ad, "does 'no more than propose a commercial transaction.' " The Court observed that a "particular consumer's interest in the free flow of commercial information. Pittsburgh Comm'n on Human Relations, 413 U.S. 2d 346 (1976) (hereinafter Virginia Pharmacy Board) (quoting Pittsburgh Press Co. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S.
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