If your company or your clients have any presence on the Internet, Digital Communications Law (Revised Edition of former Law and the Information Superhighway) is a must-have resource. This complete compendium helps you handle all Internet-related legal issuesand—from questions of liability connected to sales and communications on the Web, to issues of taxation, to problems that you never thought youand’d faceand—until youand’re faced with them! Digital Communications Law is the single, thorough reference that covers all the various laws that affect sales and communications on the Web, including: Liability for harmful communication Taxation Privacy Copyright Trademark Patent Civil litigation Criminal prosecution Constitutional considerations Legal issues in international communication and cross-border commerce As technology advances, Digital Communications Law will keep you current with the laws that arise out of and affect new developments, including disputes and liability connected with: Texting Tweeting Facebook and other social networking sites Net neutrality Dissemination of commercial music and video Advertising Consumer fraud Interoperability and compatibility Accessibility of public information And more!

Covering the latest legal updates and rulings, the second edition of Digital Media Law presents a comprehensive introduction to all the critical issues surrounding media law. Provides a solid foundation in media law Illustrates how digitization and globalization are constantly shifting the legal landscape Utilizes current and relevant examples to illustrate key concepts Revised section on legal research covers how and where to find the law Updated with new rulings relating to corporate political speech, student speech, indecency and Net neutrality, restrictions on libel tourism, cases filed against U.S. information providers, WikiLeaks and shield laws, file sharing, privacy issues, sexting, cyber-stalking, and many others

This fully revised third edition brings a fresh approach to the fundamentals of mass media and communication law in a presentation that undergraduate students find engaging and accessible. Communication Law serves as a core textbook for undergraduate courses in communication and mass media law.

The marketplace and technological changes that have occurred since the last major revision of the Communications Act in 1996 have rendered existing law and policy woefully outdated, if not obsolete. In the past fifteen years there has been a switch from analog to digital services, from narrowband to broadband networks, and, most importantly, from a mostly monopolistic to a generally competitive environment. In Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age: The Next Five Years, some of the nation's most eminent scholars explain why communications law and policy should be changed in response to these profound marketplace transitions. And, as importantly, the contributors explain how law and policy should be changed. There are many specific reform proposals offered in this collection of essays. Given the competition that has developed across most communications markets, the recommendations generally call for less government regulation and more marketplace freedom. With its forward-looking proposals, the book should be particularly valuable not only for academics and students, but for policymakers and law practitioners as well. Topics covered in the chapters include broadband and Internet policy, net neutrality regulation, spectrum policy and spectrum auctions, wireless regulation, universal service reform, public media reform, a new Digital Age Communications Act, and the political economy of communications reform. The contributors, each of whom is a recognized expert on the subjects they address, are: Representative Marsha Blackburn, Michelle Connolly, Seth Cooper, Ellen Goodman, Daniel Lyons, Randolph May, Bruce Owen, James Speta, and Christopher Yoo.

The growing presence of digital technologies has caused significant changes in the protection of digital rights. With the ubiquity of these modern technologies, there is an increasing need for advanced media and rights protection. Media Law, Ethics, and Policy in the Digital Age is a key resource on the challenges, opportunities, issues, controversies, and contradictions of digital technologies in relation to media law and ethics and examines occurrences in different socio-political and economic realities. Highlighting multidisciplinary studies on cybercrime, invasion of privacy, and muckraking, this publication is an ideal reference source for policymakers, academicians, researchers, advanced-level students, government officials, and active media practitioners.

The world of law is a world of information. Rules, judgments, decisions, interpretations, and agreements all involve using and communicating information. Today, we are experiencing a significant transition, from letters fixed on paper to information stored electronically. The digital era, where information is created, stored, and communicated electronically, is quickly approaching, if not already here. The future of law will no longer be found in impressive buildings and leather-bound books, but in small pieces of silicon, in streams of light, and in millions of miles of wires and cable. It will be a world of new relationships and greater possibilities for individual and group communication, an environment where the value of information increases as it is shared. In Law in a Digital world, M. Ethan Katsh explores how these new technologies will alter one of our most central institutions. He considers the different ways in which people will not only electronically read and write, but also interact with our vast storehouses of legal knowledge and information. He envisions how sounds and pictures will play into the largely imageless print world of law, and looks at the future importance of graphic and nontextual communication. He explores how the flexible, personalized organization of data will transform the way we gather information, and whether information can or cannot be contained, raising questions of copyright and privacy. What happens to the law when information is more plentiful and accessible? What happens to those people who suddenly have access to information never before available? Does the use of information in a new form change the institution, the user, and those who come in contact with the user? And, what role does the lawyer play in all of this? For citizens, for lawyers, for all those who will be part of the digital world rushing toward us, Katsh answers these questions while considering the implications of this new era.

Visual and multimedia digital technologies are transforming the practice of law: how lawyers construct and argue their cases, present evidence to juries, and communicate with each other. They are also changing how law is disseminated throughout and used by the general public. What are these technologies, how are they used and perceived in the courtroom and in wider culture, and how do they affect legal decision making? In this comprehensive survey and analysis of how new visual technologies are transforming both the practice and culture of American law, Neal Feigenson and Christina Spiesel explain how, when, and why legal practice moved from a largely words-only environment to one more dependent on and driven by images, and how rapidly developing technologies have further accelerated this change. They discuss older visual technologies, such as videotape evidence, and then current and future uses of visual and multimedia digital technologies, including trial presentation software and interactive multimedia. They also describe how law itself is going online, in the form of virtual courts, cyberjuries, and more, and explore the implications of law’s movement to computer screens. Throughout Law on Display, the authors illustrate their analysis with examples from a wide range of actual trials.

This volume explores the sameness and difference between the United States and France in the matters of freedom of expression on the Internet. The United States and France are liberal democracies that are part of the Western family of nations. However, despite their many similarities, they have a number of cultural and ideological differences. The United States is generally France’s ally in time of war and its cultural nemesis in time of peace. One of the reasons for this unusual relationship is that the United States and France are self-described “exceptional” countries. The United States and France are therefore two Western countries separated by different exceptionalist logics. Lyombe Eko uses this concept of exceptionalism as a theoretical framework for the analysis of American and French resolution of problems of human rights and freedom of expression in the traditional media and on the Internet. This book therefore analyzes how each county applies rules and regulations designed to manage a number of issues of media communication in real space, to the realities and specificities of cyberspace, within the framework of their respective exceptionalist logics. The fundamental question addressed concerns what happens when rules and regulations designed to regulate the media in clearly defined, national and regional geographic spaces, are suddenly confronted with the new realities and multi-communication platforms of the interconnected virtual sphere of cyberspace.

Digital Media Law offers a practical guide to the law of media and communication, focusing on digital channels, models, and technologies. It draws together the aspects of media law that are most critical for those engaged in the production and distribution of digital media, from traditional broadcasters and internet-based services to major internet platforms. As an expert scholar and educator in media law, Christopher S. Reed brings considerable experience as an in-house lawyer for a U.S.-based media company with extensive news, sports, and entertainment operations. This blend of practical and scholarly insight delivers a textbook which packs foundational principles and concepts into the context of the digital environment, focusing on how those doctrines are applied in the face of rapidly evolving newsgathering, production, and distribution technologies. Key features include: "In the News" sections that tie the legal principles to real-world events or situations An integrated fictional case study of a media enterprise Insights into digital media policy This accessible textbook is the ideal companion for advanced undergraduate and graduate students as well as practitioners interested in law, journalism, and media studies.

Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this analysis of media law in New Zealand surveys the massively altered and enlarged legal landscape traditionally encompassed in laws pertaining to freedom of expression and regulation of communications. Everywhere, a shift from mass media to mass self-communication has put enormous pressure on traditional law models. An introduction describing the main actors and salient aspects of media markets is followed by in-depth analyses of print media, radio and television broadcasting, the Internet, commercial communications, political advertising, concentration in media markets, and media regulation. Among the topics that arise for discussion are privacy, cultural policy, protection of minors, competition policy, access to digital gateways, protection of journalists’ sources, standardization and interoperability, and liability of intermediaries. Relevant case law is considered throughout, as are various ethical codes. A clear, comprehensive overview of media legislation, case law, and doctrine, presented from the practitioner’s point of view, this book is a valuable time-saving resource for all concerned with media and communication freedom. Lawyers representing parties with interests in New Zealand will welcome this very useful guide, and academics and researchers will appreciate its value in the study of comparative media law.