Professor Andrew Murray, NAB7.26

Available to students on Parts I and II LLB and to students on BA Anthropology and Law.  Available to General Course students and as an outside option.

This course discusses the impact computers and the internet are having on the substantive law of the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States. By following a socio-legal approach through case studies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter we will examine the effects of regulatory structures on the development of internet communities.

1. Introduction: Basic terminology. An introduction to Computers, Cyberspace and Internet Technology: How they developed and what role they play in modern society.
2. Digitisation and the Information Society:: How the Digital Society differs from the Physical Society of Everyday Law. Physical vs. Digital Space.
3. Regulating the Digital Environment: Who regulates Cyberspace? How do they Regulate?
4. Cyberharms: Viruses, Denial of Service Attacks and Hacking; Pornography, Extreme Pornography and Child Pornography; Terrorist Websites; Violent Content and Racially Abusive Content; Libellous materials and Spam.
5. Privacy & Surveillance: Online Privacy, surveillance, commercial data gathering and Encryption; Data Protection and Data Security; Technologies to track and trace individuals offline.
6. Intellectual Property Rights: Copyright in computer software; Patenting software applications; Trade Marks and Domain Names, internet keyword searches and trade marks.
7. The New Intellectual Property: Peer-to-Peer Systems; Free and Open Source Software; the Creative Commons; Digital Content Management Systems (DCMS)
8. E-Commerce: Electronic Contracts; Digital Signatures.
9. International Aspects: IPL and choice of law; Internet Regulation ICANN, WIPO and the registrars.
10. Communities and Data: Identity, Privacy and Ownership of data - Social Networking and Identity (Facebook and Google). Data responsibility and accountability - Wikileaks and harm.

One two-hour lecture and one one-hour class both held weekly in the MT, LT and 1 revision lecture meeting in the ST.

This course is web supported. In addition to Moodle support pages this course operates a dedicated Facebook group (closed group) and a website which may be accessed at: http://www.itlawweb.co.uk

Students will be required to produce two formative essays during the year.

Murray, Information Technology Law: The Law and Society (OUP 2010); Reed & Angel, Computer Law (6th edn, OUP, 2007); Edwards & Waelde, Law and the Internet (3rd edn, Hart, 2009); Murray, The Regulation of Cyberspace (Routledge, 2006); Klang & Murray, Human Rights in the Digital Age (Glasshouse, 2005); Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (ver. 2.0) (Basic Books, 2004).

A formal three-hour examination in the ST.