Professor Pamela Samuelson
E-Mail: pam@sims.berkeley.edu
Phone: (510) 642-6775
Office Hours: Mon, 3:15-4:15 pm at 434 North Addition
Tue, 2:15-3:30 pm at 305B South Hall
Class Meeting Time: Mon & Wed, 1:55-3:10 pm
The emergence of global digital networks, such as the Internet, and digital technologies that enhance human abilities to access, store, manipulate, and transmit vast amounts of information has brought with it a host of new legal issues that lawyers preparing to practice in the 21st century will need to understand and address. Although many are trying to "map" existing legal concepts onto problems arising in cyberspace, this strategy sometimes doesn't work. In some cases, it is necessary to go back to first principles to understand how to accomplish the purposes of existing law in digital networked environments. The course will explore specific problems in applying law to cyberspace in areas such as intellectual property, privacy, content control, and the bounds of jurisdiction.
Students with familiarity with the Internet and its resources or with backgrounds in some of the substantive fields explored in this course are especially welcome, but there are no formal prerequisites. (Some students might appreciate a tutorial on Copyright law.)
READING: Software and Internet Law is the casebook in which many readings for the course can be found. Supplemental readings are available in photocopied readers.
GRADING: Grades for the course will be based on a take home exam. Follow this link to
get last year's take home exam. http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/%7Epam/courses/cyberlaw02/cybexam01.pdf
August 19 Introduction to the Course
August 21 Exercise of Jurisdiction in Commercial Disputes
Recommended:
August 26 Jurisdiction As to Tortious or Criminal Acts on the Internet
August 28 Jurisdictional Conflicts When National Laws Differ
Recommended:
September 4 Legal Regulation of "Indecent" Speech in Cyberspace
Recommended:
September 9 Virtual Sex and Virtual Violence on the Internet
September 11 More on Virtual Sex and Virtual Violence on the Internet
September 16 Legal Ramifications of Filtering Technologies
Recommended:
September 18 Government Mandates of Filtering Software
Recommended:
September 23 Intermediary Liability for Harmful Speech on the Internet
Recommended:
September 25 Unmasking Anonymous Speech on the Internet
September 30 Limitations of existing legal protections
for online privacy
Class on Sep 30 is cancelled, but will be made up
on Oct 2: 1:55p-3:10p
Recommended:
October 2 (2
class sessions are scheduled for this day)
1:55p-3:10p room
140 Sep 30 readings will be covered:
Limitations of existing legal protections for online privacy
4:30p-5:45p
room 110 Oct 2 readings will be covered:
Various Ways to Protect Privacy on the Internet
Recommended:
October 7 Why Regulating Spam is Difficult
October 9 Trespass As a Way to Control Unwanted Activities on the Internet
Recommended:
October 14 Copyright in Cyberspace: Why Digital Makes a Difference
Recommended:
October 16 Liability of Intermediaries for Copyright Infringement
Recommended:
October 21 & October 23 This is "flyback week" at the law school, so we will not meet.
October 28 Liability of Search Engines for Copyright Infringement
October 30 Peer to Peer File Sharing of Digital Music in Cyberspace
Recommended:
November 4 Response To Peer to Peer File Sharing of Digital Music in Cyberspace
Recommended:
November 6 Challenging Technology Providers Who Enable Private Copying and Sharing of Television Programming
Recommended:
November 11 Challenging Technology Providers Who Enable Private Game-Playing
November 13 The Rising Use of Technical Measures to Protect Digital Content
November 18 Legal Rules to Protect Technical Measures for Digital Content
Recommended:
November 20 Legislative Proposals To Mandate Technical Measures to Protect Digital Content
November 25 The Collision of Trademarks and Domain Names in Cyberspace
December 2 Further Collisions of Trademarks and Domain Names in Cyberspace
December 4 ICANN and the UDRP
Recommended:
American Civil Liberties Union, http://www.aclu.org
Center For Democracy and Technology, http://www.cdt.org
Chilling Effects Project, http://www.chillingeffects.org
Creative Commons, http://www.creativecommons.org
Cyberspacelaw, http://www.cyberspacelaw.org
DigitalConsumer.org, http://www.digitalconsumer.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation, http://www.eff.org
Electronic Privacy Information Center, http://www.epic.org
European Commission Information Society Project Office, http://www.ispo.cec.be
Global Internet Liberty Campaign, http://www.gilc.org/
Information Technology Association of America, http://www.itaa.org
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names And Numbers, http://www.icann.org
ICANN Watch, http://www.icannwatch.org
Junkbusters, http://www.junkbusters.com
Politechbot, http://www.politechbot.com/
Progressive Policy Institute, http://www.ppionline.org/
Public Knowledge, http://www.publicknowledge.org
Recording Industry Association of America, http://www.riaa.org
Tech Law Journal, http://techlawjournal.com/
World Wide Web Consortium, http://www.w3c.org