Professor Andrew Murray NAB 6.08

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Law and Accounting, MSc in Media and Communications (Data and Society), MSc in Media and Communications (Media and Communications Governance), 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 critically analyses the regulation of the Internet and digital devices (such as smart devices and tablets) as well as the regulatory framework surrounding emerging digital technologies including AI, "smart" systems and robotic systems.

It opens by examining the issues relating to network regulation or control by addressing questions such as "can the internet be regulated?" and "who is competent to police online content and activity?" It concludes its examination of structural controls by examing the highly topical and politcially 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, robotics and Artifical Intelligence and the Law.

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 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 using both traditional and IT-based research tools.

20 hours of seminars in the MT.

There will be Reading Week in week 6 of MT.

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, 2018)

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.