LL4AA Half Unit
Global Copyright Policy: Contemporary Issues
This information is for the 2015/16 session.
Teacher responsible
Anne Barron NAB6.05
Availability
This course is available on the MSc in Law and Accounting, Master of Laws and Master of Laws (extended part-time study). 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 here 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 in the MT.
Students on this course will have a reading week in Week 6, in line with departmental policy.
Formative coursework
One 2,000 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); 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); Neil W. Netanel, Copyright’s Paradox (OUP 2008); Aram Sinnreich, The Piracy Crusade: How the Music Industry's War on Sharing Destroys Markets and Erodes Civil Liberties (U Mass Press, 2014); Peter K. Yu (ed.), Intellectual Property and Information Wealth: Issues and Practices in the Digital Age (Praeger, 2007) (Vol. 1).
Assessment
Essay (100%, 8000 words) in the ST.
Key facts
Department: Law
Total students 2014/15: 10
Average class size 2014/15: 9
Controlled access 2014/15: Yes
Value: Half Unit
Personal development skills
- Self-management
- Application of information skills
- Communication
- Specialist skills