Freedom of the Press 2.0

In today’s digital age, copyright law is changing. It now attempts to regulate machines. Over the past twenty years, and particularly with the advent of the Internet, copyright holders have increasingly invoked copyright law to regulate directly—indeed, even to prohibit—the manufacture and sale of technology that facilitates the mass dissemination of expressive works. Although the concerns of copyright holders about the ease of digital copying are understandable, the expansion of copyright law to regulate—and, in some cases, to prohibit—technologies raises a troubling question. Can the government regulate under copyright law technologies that facilitate the dissemination of speech, consistent with the First Amendment? If so, are there any limits to what the government can do? Or does copyright law have constitutional carte blanche to regulate technologies, without any First Amendment scrutiny? Because copyright law, dating back to the first Copyright Act of 1790, traditionally refrained from regulating technologies directly, these questions were scarcely considered before. But, today, these questions have vital importance as copyright law and other laws proposed in service of copyright holders contemplate even greater regulation of emerging technologies that are revolutionizing the ability of individuals to create expressive content on the Internet, in the “Web 2.0” culture of user-created content. However, despite their importance, these questions have escaped attention in legal scholarship. This Article attempts to answer these questions by tracing the historical development of the “freedom of the press” that led to the Framers’ inclusion of the concept in the First Amendment. My core thesis is twofold: (i) the Framers understood the freedom of the press as the freedom of the printing press—a speech technology— to be free of intrusive governmental regulation, including restrictions on technology imposed under copyright law; and (ii) today, the Sony safe harbor operates as a “First Amendment safeguard” within copyright law that is designed to protect the freedom of the press and the development of speech technologies. All future attempts by Congress to regulate speech technologies under copyright law must answer to the Free Press Clause or the Sony safe harbor. Freedom of the Press 2.0 Edward S. Lee Ever since the days of the printing press, copyright law has affected the regulation of technology that mass produces books and other works for dissemination to the public. But, historically, copyright did so only indirectly. Instead of regulating the technology of the printing press itself, the first copyright act in England, known as the Statute of Anne, only regulated the products of printing, i.e., who owned the exclusive rights to print and publish works of authorship. The printing press itself was left offlimits from monopoly and government control, marking a profound change from the prior regime of the British Crown under which the printing presses were regulated in virtually all respects, including a strict limit on the total number of presses allowed in England. That limitation on the number of printing presses, along with the requirement of licensing and registration before any work could be published, effectively served the dual ends of censorship and monopoly. Limiting the number of presses was intended to limit the number of publications deemed to be heretical or piratical. Control over the technology, in other words, effectuated control over content. The Statute of Anne replaced this repressive regime of press regulation with a system of author’s rights. And it did so while staying clear of regulating any aspect of the printing press, or the machines of mass publication. Copyright law was thus borne with a freedom of the press—an aversion to government control over the technology that enables the mass publication of speech. This basic corollary of copyright—a freedom of the press—lasted for well over two hundred years. Today, however, copyright has begun to change. It now attempts to regulate machines. Over the past twenty years, and particularly with the advent of the Internet, copyright holders have increasingly invoked copyright law to regulate directly—indeed, even to prohibit—the manufacture and sale of technology that facilitates the mass dissemination of expressive works. In 1984, Universal City Studios and Disney asserted, unsuccessfully, a claim of secondary liability under copyright law to stop Sony’s manufacture of video recorders. The Supreme Court rejected what it characterized as an “unprecedented” attempt by copyright holders to stop a technology from production. The Court held that Sony could not be held secondarily liable for the copyright infringement of users of its devices: liability does not attach to the mere distribution of a technology that is * Associate Professor, Michael E. Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University. I thank David Goldberger, David McGowan, Mark Rose, Chris Sprigman, and Peter Shane for their insightful comments on earlier drafts. 1 8 Anne, c. 19 (1710) (Eng.). 2 Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 421 (1984). 3 Id.