Law and Media Courses

The law school includes a number of courses related to law and media. While not all courses are taught each semester, some examples include:

• First Amendment: Students study the constitutional right of freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. Topics include conflicts between freedom of speech and national security; defamation and privacy; offensive and racist speech; obscenity and pornography; symbolic expression; commercial speech; regulation of campaign finance; Internet and broadcast regulation; restrictions on time, place, and manner of expression; freedom of the press; and freedom of association.
• Communications Law: This overview course addresses issues in broadcast, telephony, and cable regulation; including broadcasters' "public trustee" obligations, the digital television transition, media concentration, cable must-carry rules, and application of telephony-based rules to the Internet.
• Introduction to Intellectual Property: This course introduces the core doctrines of intellectual property, including trade secret, patent, copyright, and trademark. It considers the rationales for intellectual property protection, as well as the challenges posed to these rationales by the Internet and digital technology, open source innovation, social movements, and the expansion of intellectual property to the developing world.
• Cyberlaw: The digital world of cyberspace presents a host of novel legal questions. This course explores specific problems that arise in the context of applying law to cyberspace in areas such as intellectual property, jurisdiction, privacy, and content control.
• The Law of E-commerce: This course explores the novel legal issues arising from the conduct of business in cyberspace, including whether cyberspace should be regulated at all by governments; emerging doctrines related to personal jurisdiction, electronic contracting, intellectual property, privacy, spam, mobile commerce, and taxation.
• Access to Knowledge Practicum: Students work on projects that promote innovation and distributive justice through the reform of international intellectual property and telecommunications laws, treaties, and policies that shape the delivery of health care services, technology, telecommunications access, education, and culture around the globe.
• Information Privacy Law: This class examines information privacy law with a special emphasis on workplace privacy, and covers consumer privacy and information privacy as against "War on Terrorism" law enforcement demands.
• Internet Privacy: This course explores how the Internet and other technologies are changing the privacy landscape, and how courts, legislatures, agencies, advocacy groups, and legal commentators are responding.
• Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic: Students in this practicum work with attorneys on cases involving media freedoms and information access.
• Media Law: This class studies the regulation of communications media, including newspapers, broadcast media, cable, and the Internet. Topics include telecommunications regulation, defamation, rights of publicity, privacy, access to information, and press freedom.

In addition, law students may take courses outside the law school, often for credit toward their degree.