Description: Lecture, three hours. Focus on sample of most important intersections between law and communication: copyright, trademarks, freedom of speech, privacy, secrecy, surveillance, and publicity rights. Law and communication have been intertwined since introduction of book censorship and licensing in late 16th century, and blasphemy laws before that. That relationship has grown increasingly complex in time in response to technological changes in communication media, evolution of modern state forms, and changing expectations about freedom of and responsibility for both communication and information gathering. From music piracy, knock-offs of famous brands, ubiquitous presence of closed-circuit television, facial recognition software, global tracking systems, biosensors, and data mining practices, intersection between communication, media, and law has become part of our life, on scale and to extent that would have been unthinkable few years ago. Letter grading.

Units: 4.0