Christopher T. Bavitz | Spring 2024 | Monday 3:45p - 5:45p | 2 Credits

This course explores a variety of legal issues relating to the creation, exploitation, and protection of music and other content. The course focuses on traditional legal regimes and business models and the ways in which new technologies (particularly the evolution of digital media and the Internet) have affected legal and business strategies involved in the making and distribution of content. The course’s primary emphases are music and the ways in which legal principles manifest themselves in practice in the music industry. The course builds off a discussion of music rights to address issues surrounding content rights in other contexts, and it reviews the ways in which traditional concepts and practices in this area are challenged by and evolving in the digital world. The course balances discussions of big-picture doctrinal, policy, and theoretical considerations with a focus on day-to-day legal and business practices and specific skills (transactional, client counseling, and litigation) that are relevant to practitioners in this area.