2023 Syllabus
Media & Entertainment Law (Spring 2023)
{Please note that this is a “live” syllabus. There will be rolling changes, especially with respect to scheduling groups etc. but also occasionally in other ways.}
Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia
LAW 449-001 & 573-001 Media & Entertainment Law
Spring 2023: Tuesdays, 9:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. Room B101
3 Credits
Jon Festinger, K.C.
Adjunct Professor, Allard School of Law
Faculty in Residence, UBC Emerging Media Lab
Honorary Industry Professor, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London School of Law
Professor of Professional Practice (SFU) & Faculty, Centre for Digital Media
Of Counsel, Whiteboard Law
Allard Office: 449
Cell: 604-837-6426
E-mail: jon.festinger@ubc.ca; jfestinger@telus.net
Office Hours: By appointment. Generally, after class, Tuesdays but am available by appointment or via Zoom. Please email anytime, even on short notice, to confirm availability.
Technical Resources for Badges & Website:
Richard Tape, UBC CTLT – richard.tape@ubc.ca
Course Website: https://melaw.allard.ubc.ca/
(Thanks to UBC Centre for Teaching, Learning & Technology for design, implementation, and continuing support)
- Course Description and Purpose
This course covers the legal and regulatory aspects of media & entertainment law. It is intended as the post-millennial successor to entertainment law courses that have been standard fare for decades. The course encompasses the digital age of both traditional and emergent “entertainment” mediums that seem to provide significant degrees of freedom and control to individual users.
This course begins from the reality that today, the essential backbone of “Media & Entertainment” is content and data (provided through mostly digital means or with digital accompaniments). From this starting point we will examine the common legal framework for all media and entertainment in Canada and extending beyond our borders (including statutory provisions and regulatory policies relating to broadcasting, copyright, privacy, competition law, influencers & advertising). We will then apply that framework to analyze issues as diverse as cultural policies; personal privacy; media monopolies and industrial protectionism including ownership restrictions; censorship of content; the implications of international laws, treaties and accords; political and economic regulation and policing of the internet; journalism in the post-Snowden age; as well as the future of freedoms of creative and political expression in all of these emergent contexts.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
After taking this course you will not be magically transformed into a seasoned communications law lawyer. However, you should be able to confidently identify and explore the legal issues arising and evolving in the communications landscape, as well as understand the societal tensions and compromises that inevitably arise. To practice effectively in the area you will need to be able to think critically and through an ethical lens about the rights and responsibilities of all the legal actors in the ongoing drama of our media landscape and the creative, political and human forces that shape it.
PEDAGOGY
The world is ensuring that the nature, meaning and application of “communications” itself is changing and morphing every day. The scope of disruption appears to be massive, and the legal questions being put into play never ending. Most important for our purposes is that the sheer amount of change coupled with its extraordinary pace allows us the possibility of using real world events as a living lab for emerging legal issues impacting creativity and media generally. As such the pedagogy of this course is to facilitate engagement with real world issues, while identifying their legal background and antecedents.
The design of this course is predicated on the idea that what is being taught and the tools it is being taught with are in dialogue. In other words, how a course is taught can be an example of what is being taught. Lectures, guided subject dialogues, student presentations, “news of the week”, guest speakers and even group exercises may all be used to promote engagement with the subject. The course is itself meant to be part of a creative dialectic.
You are expected to arrive on time and be prepared to discuss the subjects at hand.
RULES
All students at the Allard School of Law are subject to the University’s rules on Academic Misconduct (http://vpacademic.ubc.ca/integrity/ubc-regulation-on-plagiarism/), and are expected to act with academic integrity at all times. Students should be especially aware of the University’s rules in relation to plagiarism. Plagiarism includes copying the work of another student; copying or paraphrasing from a textbook or reference book, journal article, case or electronic source without proper footnoting; copying your own work that has already been submitted for another course in this degree or another degree, passing off the ideas of another person as your own. If you plagiarize, you will be subject to penalties set out in the UBC calendar. (http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/vancouver/index.cfm?tree=3,54,111,959)
In this class: 1) everyone is allowed to feel they can learn in a safe and caring environment; 2) everyone learns about, understands, appreciates, and respects varied races, classes, genders, physical and mental abilities, and sexualities; 3) everyone matters; 4) all individuals are to be respected and treated with dignity and civility; and 5) everyone shares the responsibility for making the class, and the Academy, a positive and better place to live, work, and learn. (Source: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/creating-respectful-classroom-environment/)
COURSE WEBSITE
- Please create an account at https://cms.ubc.ca/using your CWL.
- Once you create an account and sign in at https://cms.ubc.ca/you can click your name in the top right. Halfway down the following page will be your WordPress email address.
- Send me your WordPress email address at jfestinger@telus.net or at jon@fblawstrategy.com
- Then, I will invite you to participate with authoring privileges via your WordPress email address.
COURSE MATERIALS
In preparation for the weekly discussions, the class will read the discussion outlines prepared by their fellow students.
METHOD OF EVALUATION
Term paper accounts for 50% of the final grade.
- A minimum 5000-word paper is expected. The word requirement is inclusive of footnotes or endnotes but exclusive of the bibliography.
- The paper is due on the last day of the exam period at 4:00 p.m.
- Papers must be e-mailed to the Instructor in Word format. They can also be handed in at the Reception Desk in paper format.
Class Participation accounts for 50% of the final grade
- 30% of the mark will be based on group preparation and presentation of a relevant topic. Please post on the course website—at least a week before your group-led discussion takes place – one article, video, or podcast that you would like the class to have read, watched or listened to.
- 20% for student participation in the other course activities including seminar discussions, posts to the course website etc.
SYLLABUS
Class 1: January 10, 2023
Jon’s Talk: “Introducing the Course”
- Objectives of the course
- Evaluation
- Role of “News of the Week”
- Discussion Hour structure; Formation of Student Discussion Topic Groups, Distribution of Materials
Class 2: January 17, 2023
News of the Week Discussions
Student Bio’s, interests, biases & objectives
- Why are you taking this course?
- What do you hope to get out of it?
- Syllabus/topic input/comments/reactions
Jon’s Talk: “Mapping Media & Entertainment Law 1.0 & 2.0: A Topology”
Materials:
John Milton – “Areopagitica” https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/areopagitica/text.html
Class 3: January 24, 2023
News of the Week Discussions
Jon’s Talk: “The Roles of Media, Entertainment & Content in Justice, Sovereignty & Culture”
Materials: UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, October 20, 2005 (Paris: UNESCO) http://en.unesco.org/creativity/sites/creativity/files/passeport-convention2005-web2.pdf
Class 4: January 31, 2023
News of the Week Discussions
Jon’s Talk: “The Many Meanings of Broadcasting”
Materials:
Capital Cities Communications Inc. v. CRTC. [1978] 2 S.C.R. 141 https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/2586/index.do
Bill C-11 https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/44-1/c-11
Collaborative Event: Invent a media technology that will impact the world (brainstorming session)
Student Discussants: Stephanie Frankel, Lauren Sansregret, Nicole Sapieha
Class 5: February 7, 2023
News of the Week Discussions
Jon’s Talk: “Broadcasting Policy: Origins, Regulation & Cases”
Materials: Reference re Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2010-167 and Broadcasting Order CRTC 2010-168, [2012] 3 S.C.R. 489 https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/12767/1/document.do
Student Discussants:
Class 6: February 14. 2023
News of the Week Discussions
Jon’s Talk: “Net Neutrality, Internet Regulation, International Data Transmission & Jurisdiction in the Cloud“
Materials: Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination Tim Wu https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=388863
Student Discussants: 1. Louisa Ledesma, Jade Windsant, Sigrid Poulsen; 2. Nicole Propp, Alexa Redford, Joanna Tu
[READING WEEK]
Class 7: February 28, 2023
News of the Week Discussions
Jon’s Talk: “A.I. Virtual Reality MEdia & the Rule of Law”
Materials: Tessling on My Brain: The Future of Lie Detection and Brain Privacy in the Criminal Justice System – Ian Kerr, Max Binnie, Cynthia Aoki https://papers.ssrn.com/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1299291
Student Discussants:
Class 8: March 7, 2023
Jon’s Talk: “Consumer/User/Creator Challenges: Streaming Media – Whatever Happened to Film, TV & Live Performance”
Materials:
Student Discussants: 1. Laura Danton, Chris Hart; 2. Nicklas Harkins, Jordan Hayward; 3. Corrigan Goodwin, Eibadat Hansi
Class 9: March 14, 2023
Jon’s Talk: “Consumer/User/Creator Challenges: Copyright & Social Media”
Materials:
Student Discussants: 1. Corrigan Goodwin, Eibadat Hansi (continued); 2. Cassandra Federico, Kaylie Hanna, Hyojung Kim;
Class 10: March 21, 2023
Jon’s Talk: “The Cult of Celebrity”
Materials:
Student Discussants: 1. Alexander Khamdamov, Calvin Li, Grace Lindsay, Kyle Rehdner, Trevor Roemer; 2. Zach Ingram
Class 11: March 28, 2023
News of the Week Discussions
Jon’s Talk: “Freedom of Thought, Dark Patterns & Censorship”
Materials: “The Two Western Cultures of Privacy: Dignity versus Liberty” – J.Q. Whitman http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1647&context=fss_papers
Student Discussants: 1. Aki Kamoshida, Chris LeSage, Brittney MacBean, Erik Tristan, Melodie Ureten
Class 12: April 4, 2023
News of the Week Discussions
Jon’s Talk: “Freedom of Expression 2.0: Journalism in a Post-Structural World”
Materials: Gay Alliance Toward Equality v. Vancouver Sun, [1979] 2 S.C.R. 435 https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/6182/index.do
Collaborative Event: Designing a “Content Act” for today: Setting policy priorities (brainstorming session)
Student Discussants: 1. Whitney Morrison; 2. Charis Liu, Stephanie Lee; 3. Sara Biegel Evans, Brandon Cormier, Faustine Ganem 4. Samuel Honer
Class 13: April 11, 2023
News of the Week Discussions
Jon’s Talk: “The Future of Entertainment (Law)”
Student Discussants: 1. Danny Park 2. Maria Tavares
GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR PAPERS, EXAMS & EVERYTHING ELSE…
Top of Form