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The study of copyright law is important not only for legal practitioners, but also authors, artists, musicians, educators, students, researchers, software developers, visually impaired people and internet users. Technological advances and the advent of the Internet allow the creation, use and dissemination of copyright works that present challenges to basic copyright principles, and many countries made extensive changes and adaptions to their existing national copyright regimes to fit the digital environment in copyright and related rights. Copyright is largely influenced by trade agreements and international litigation that increasingly require an understanding of foreign copyright laws. This course is suitable for graduate law students who want to specialise in intellectual property and commercial law, and conduct complex research in this dynamic and constantly changing area of law.

This course addresses the fundamental principles of copyright law. It examines copyright legislation in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, and international instruments, free trade agreements, and treaties: the Berne Convention, the TRIPS Agreement, the Rome Convention, the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT), the WIPO Performance and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) and the Marrakesh Treaty. It considers copyright challenges in the networked digital environment; particularly the protection of digital works, limitations and exceptions, liability of intermediaries and online service providers (OSPs) and internet users, digital rights management (DRM), anti-circumvention rules and novel developments related to data mining and block-chain technologies. It also considers contemporary debates relating to access to knowledge (A2K), WIPO Development Agenda, creative commons (CC), protection of traditional knowledge (TK) and cultural expressions, relationship with human rights and sustainable development.

Introductory materials and classes will be available for students who have not previously studied intellectual property law.

On successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

1. evaluate developments in chosen areas of international and comparative copyright law, and critically examine the relationship between those developments and contemporary theory or practice in copyright and authors’ rights systems (PO 1);
2. demonstrate [explain and apply] advanced knowledge of the impact of international treaties or other legal systems on the substance, theory and practice of Australian copyright law (PO 2);
3. undertake, interpret and evaluate research in international and comparative copyright law using advanced legal research methodologies and techniques (PO 3); and
4. articulate advanced knowledge of international and comparative copyright law in written presentations (PO 4).