united-states us-constitution constitutional-law freedom-of-speech first-amendment
When do speakers need a license to speak?
<p>I was reading this article.  It's fairly long, but one sentence states that "generally, speakers need not obtain a license to speak".  You can do control-F to find the location in the article.  Here is the article.</p>

<p><a href="http://ij.org/report/occupational-speech-first-amendment/" rel="nofollow">http://ij.org/report/occupational-speech-first-amendment/</a></p>

<p>Now I am focusing on the word "generally".  When DO speakers need a license to speak?</p>

<p>As far as I know, the contexts where you need a license to speak all reduce to contexts where government has the power to regulate some business, and has identified certain professions as requiring a license. The license is not simply to speak, it is to speak in a particular manner -- "as" a person engaging in a regulated business. The premise is that nobody should hold themselves out as being an attorney (which includes as part of its meaning "is licensed to practice law in this state") unless they actually <em>are</em> so licensed. Thus anybody can speak about the law, but only an actual attorney should claim to be an actual attorney. Not all cases of suppression of speech reduce to controlling fraudulent misrepresentation of business credentials, since in a number of cases such as <a href="http://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Memorandum-Opinion-Order-IJ072926xA6322.pdf" rel="nofollow">Rosemond v. Markham</a> the accused was not pretending to be licensed (as a psychologist).</p>

<p>There are, of course, property issues pertaining to speech: you need my permission to give a political speech on my property. Licensing to speak via EM broadcast is really a property issue, that the government assigns a temporary and revocable property right to certain bands of the EM spectrum (a "license" to that band).</p>
