Catalog

Introduction to Copyright Law

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science MIT CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 4 lectures

This course is an introduction to copyright law and American law in general. Topics covered include: structure of federal law; basics of legal research; legal citations; how to use LexisNexis®; the 1976 Copyright Act; copyright as applied to music, computers, broadcasting, and education; fair use; Napster®, Grokster®, and Peer-to-Peer file-sharing; Library Access to Music Project; The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act; DVDs and encryption; software licensing; the GNU® General Public License and free software.

Syllabus

  1. 1 Lecture 1: Introduction
  2. 2 Lecture 2: LexisNexis and 1976 Copyright Act
  3. 3 Lecture 3: Copyright Applied to Music
  4. 4 Lecture 4: Software Licensing

Course materials