Professor Andrew Murray NAB 6.08

Other Staff Involved: Dr. Valerie Verdoodt NAB 7.23

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Regulation 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 is capped at 30 students. Students must apply through Graduate Course Choice on LSEforYou. 

This course does not require an in-depth understanding of contemporary computer technology. 

This course examines and discusses topical issues in relation to the law and digital data information storage, access and exchange through digital information devices (computers, smartphones, tablets etc.). It opens by examining the issues relating to network regulation or control by addressing questions such as “can internet-enabled communications be regulated?” and “who is competent to police online content and activity?” It concludes its examination of structural controls by examining the highly topical and politically charged issue of enshrined network neutrality: by asking the question: should Internet Service Providers be allowed to vary service conditions by types of content? It will also address cutting edge issues such as algorithmic regulation, profiling, deceptive content, protection of children, influencer and advertiser regulation and “smart’ devices (Internet of Things).

Students taking the course will be expected to develop knowledge and understanding of the different values brought to bear in the regulation of new media technologies and communities formed through such technologies and the factors leading towards choices of particular values, regulatory institutions and process. Such knowledge and understanding will operate both at the theoretical level and the level of particular examples of regulatory regimes. Students will be expected to apply organisational and analytical skills to the investigation of evidence and problems and show effective communication through written work and seminar discussion. Students shall research an assessed extended essay.

This course is delivered through a combination of classes and lectures totalling a minimum of 20 hours in Lent Term.  This year teaching will be delivered through recorded online lectures and a mix of both in-person and online classes to accommodate students who are unable to physically be on campus. This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Lent Term.

Students should submit an essay plan and working bibliography for the assessed essay. All students are expected to contribute to a series of class and online exercises, and to submit one 2,000 word formative essay.

Murray, Information Technology Law: The Law and Society (OUP, 4th ed, 2019)

Edwards (ed), Law, Policy and the Internet (Hart, 2018)                                                                                                          

Reed & Murray, Rethinking the Jurisprudence of Cybersapce (Edward Elgar, 2020)

Murray, The Regulation of Cyberspace (Routledge, 2007)

Reed, Making Laws for Cyberspace (OUP, 2012)

Lessig, Code Ver, 2.0 (Basic Books, 2006)

Zittrain, The Future of the Internet (Penguin, 2009)

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