Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Brenner

J.D. Seminar 303 | 3 credit hours

This seminar explores content issues that arise on the internet, with special focus on how first amendment, tort, and IP laws apply to networks and cyberspace content. The course looks at how the first amendment developed in print, broadcasting, cable and the internet. It examines speech torts like copyright and trademark infringement and federal and state unfair competition laws as applied to the internet. It also looks at network management issues: what rights, and what duties, do broadband providers owe to customers and content providers?

Beyond acknowledging that there are, or may be, differences, courts have done little to explain how differences in technologies affect the way that the speech and press clauses of the first amendment should be applied. A jurisprudence of internet copyright and other speech torts is beginning to emerge. But a unified theory, which equates the rights of the print media to, say, broadcasters or cyberspace speakers, has not developed. Is "spam" speech? May broadband networks block content? How should vertical integration apply to Internet content distributors?

Each student will prepare a paper. The papers will identify a current content issue in the internet or other newer media, with some attention - as the topic permits - to how the first amendment affects the analysis. Students should consider how empirical or field research - data collection, interviews, or other research techniques - can be brought to bear along with traditional scholarly, regulatory and judicial materials.

Recommended: Constitutional Law II, Trademarks and Unfair Competition Law, or Copyright Law.

This course will be enrolled via waitlist. This seminar will be limited to 15 students. Students must register for the three credit section of the course (LAWJ-303-16) if they wish to write a paper fulfilling the Upperclass Legal Writing Requirement.