Not available in 2018/19
LL4AA      Half Unit
Global Copyright Policy: Contemporary Issues

This information is for the 2018/19 session.

Teacher responsible

Ms Anne Barron NAB6.05

Availability

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Law and Accounting and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course will be relevant to the following LLM specialisms: Competition, Innovation, and Trade Law; Corporate and/or Commercial Law; Information Technology, Media and Communications Law; Intellectual Property Law.

This course is capped at 30 students. Students must apply through Graduate Course Choice on LSE for You.

Pre-requisites

Students  must take Principles of Copyright Law (LL4N6) in parallel with this course unless exempted by the course convenor.

Course content

The aim of this course is to equip students with the skills to reflect critically on global copyright policy today. ‘Global copyright policy’ in turn is interpreted broadly to include not only the purposes and strategies underlying the formal treaties and trade arrangements that shape national copyright laws, but also those motivating the many alternative (and radically alternative) agendas for copyright's future that are currently under consideration around the world. Discussion in seminars will be theoretically informed but organised around particular topics of contemporary concern.

Teaching

20 hours of seminars and 2 hours of help sessions in the MT.

Students on this course will have a reading week in Week 6, in line with departmental policy. A help session is however offered in week 6 to assist with planning the summative essay. The help session will be designed to support students' summative essay-writing work. All students will be invited to attend this session, during which expectations for the essays will be explained.

Formative coursework

One 1500 word essay.

Indicative reading

There is no set text. Readings will be assigned week-by-week and most will be available electronically via the Moodle site that accompanies this course. Students will be expected to read a wide range of material drawn from a number of disciplines. The following sources are indicative: Peter Baldwin, The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of Trans-Atlantic Battle (Princeton UP, 2014); Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks (Yale UP 2006); Ronald Bettig, Copyrighting Culture (Westview Press, 1996); James Boyle, The Public Domain (Yale UP, 2008); Patrick Burkart, Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests (MIT Press 2014); Julie E. Cohen, Configuring the Networked Self: Law, Code, and the Play of Everyday Practice (Yale UP, 2012); Laurence Helfer and Graeme Austin, Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Mapping the Global Interface (Cambridge University Press, 2011); Tarleton Gillespie, Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture (MIT Press 2008); David Hesmondhalgh, The Cultural Industries 3rd ed. (Sage 2012); Adrian Johns, Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates (University of Chicago Press 2011); Jessica Litman, Digital Copyright (Prometheus, 2006); Kembrew McLeod et al. Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling (Duke UP, 2011); Neil W. Netanel, Copyright’s Paradox (OUP 2008); Hector Postigo,The Digital Rights Movement (MIT Press, 2012); Aram Sinnreich, The Piracy Crusade: How the Music Industry's War on Sharing Destroys Markets and Erodes Civil Liberties (University of Massachusetts Press, 2014); Stephen Witt, How Music Got Free (Viking 2015)

Assessment

Essay (100%, 8000 words) in the ST.

Key facts

Department: Law

Total students 2017/18: 11

Average class size 2017/18: 11

Controlled access 2017/18: Yes

Value: Half Unit

Guidelines for interpreting course guide information

Personal development skills

  • Self-management
  • Application of information skills
  • Communication
  • Specialist skills