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Free Advertising: The Case For Public Relations As Commercial Speech, Tamara R. Piety

Tamara R. Piety

The commercial speech doctrine has suffered from definitional ambiguity. Some commentators have argued that the doctrine's application should be limited to speech that is clearly advertising and should not be extended to cover speech by a corporation on matters of public concern. This is of particular concern with respect to public relations communications about labor or environmental practices (to name just two examples) which industry advocates argue should be treated like fully protected speech. In this article I argue that because all for-profit corporate speech is in furtherance of its commercial purpose, public relations speech should be presumptively covered by …