The virtual course "Internet Giants: the law and the economy of media platforms - Virtual Course - Coursera", is a course with different contents and that offers video classes of Approx. 60 hours to complete. Explore its essential features, and click the orange button to get detailed information on the Coursera e-Learning platform
This seven-week course will explore the relationship between law and technology with a strong focus on United States law with some comparisons to law from around the world, especially Europe.
Technological progress is a major source of economic growth and raises broader questions about the human condition, including how culture evolves and who controls that evolution.
Technology matters in myriad other ways as well, often setting the framework within which governments interact with their citizens, both to allow and block speech and to establish exactly what the boundaries are between private life and government.
And the technology itself is powerfully shaped by the laws that apply in areas as diverse as copyright, antitrust, patents, privacy, speech laws, and network regulation.
The course will explore seven topics: 1.
Microsoft: the desktop in front of the Internet.
We'll start with a look at the technological path that led to the first personal computer in early 1975, the Altair 8800.
That path starts with the vacuum tube, moves on to transistors, then to integrated circuits, and finally to the microprocessor.
We will look at the early days of software on the personal computer and the competition between software selling and open source approaches, as well as the problem of software piracy.
We will discuss the public good nature of software.
The 1981 release of the IBM PC revolutionized the personal computer market and paved the way for Microsoft's powerful position and eventual monopoly in that market with the selection of MS-DOS.
We then turn to four antitrust cases against Microsoft: (1) the US case.
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of 1994 relating to MS-DOS licensing practices; (2) the US
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antitrust middleware case over Microsoft's response to Netscape Navigator; (3) the case of the European Union regarding Windows Media Player; and (4) the case of the EU browser over Internet Explorer.
These disputes arose at the height of the competition between the stand-alone personal computer and the Internet world to come, and we may now know enough to assess how these cases influenced that competition.
2.
Google emerges (and the world responds).
Google has become one of the dominant platforms of the Internet age and that has led to corresponding scrutiny from regulators around the world.
The decisions Google makes about its algorithm can be life changing.
People find it harder to let go of past mistakes, as Google never forgets, and businesses may find their sales plummet if Google moves them from the first page of search results to a later page.
With great power comes scrutiny and we'll see how government regulators have assessed how Google has wielded its power.
Both the US Federal Trade Commission
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and the European Union have conducted substantial investigations into Google's practices, and we'll look at both.
3.
Smart phones.
The internet started on the desktop, but the internet is becoming more mobile and people are seemingly tied to their smartphones and tablets.
And we've seen an interesting shift in that market from Nokia and Blackberry phones to Apple's iPhone and its iOS platform and to the Android platform.
The legal infrastructure for smartphones and tablets is extraordinarily complex.
We'll start by looking at the US.
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spectrum policy and the effort to free up 500 megahertz of spectrum.
We will look at the activities of standard setting organizations including the IEEE and the creation of the 802 standard.
11 and Wi-Fi (or, if you prefer, Wi-Fi), the creation of patent pools, and the regulation of essential standard patents.
We'll examine the FTC's action against Google/Motorola Mobility and Apple's lawsuit against Samsung over iPhone-related utility and design patents.
Finally, we will take a brief look at the European Commission's investigation into the Android platform.
4.
Non-discrimination and Net Neutrality.
Facebook has more than 1.
000 million users and compares to a world population of approximately 7.
000 million and a total number of Internet users of approximately 2.
500 million.
A course on law and technology simply has to deal with the basic framework for regulating the Internet and a key idea there is the notion of net neutrality.
Non-discrimination obligations are prevalent in regulated network industries, but at the same time, discrimination can be an important design tool for communication networks.
We'll begin our look at the Internet by looking at America's first great communications network, the Post Office, and we'll look in particular at the Post Office Act of 1845.
We will then move to modern times and consider the efforts of the US Federal Communications Commission.
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to produce sensible and sustainable non-discrimination conditions for the Internet and will touch briefly on comparisons from around the world.
5.
The Day The Music Died? In many ways, the Internet got to music first with the rise of peer-to-peer (p2p) music sharing through Napster and its successors.
We start with a look at the history of the music platform and the devices that brought recorded music into the home: the phonograph and player piano.
We turn to radio and the legal regime that puts music on the airwaves, the performing rights organizations like ASCAP and BMI.
We discuss the antitrust issues associated with the general license.
We consider a failed music platform, digital audio tape, and the complicated legal regime associated with it, the Home Audio Recording Act of 1992.
We will consider the copyright issues raised by the creation and distribution of music and the litigation over p2p technologies such as Napster and Grokster.
The music industry responded to p2p technology by adding digital rights management tools to CDs.
As music distribution moved from physical media to digital distribution, we entered the world of Apple, the iPod, and iTunes.
We consider the DRM issues associated with Apple's music platform seen by Steve Jobs.
We conclude by looking at emerging subscription services like Spotify and the service that Apple is building out of its Beats purchase.
6.
Video: Listen and See.
Images are some of the most powerful ways ideas and discourse are communicated, and video has long been regulated by the state.
That begins as a matter of communications law with government regulation of the radio spectrum, but also leads to the design of the television system with the assignment of channels and, finally, the definition of digital television.
And with the rise of first cable television and later VCRs, critical copyright hurdles had to be overcome for new distribution technologies to emerge.
We will consider the legal engineering that led to the DVD platform, which was an exercise in creating pools of patents and trademarks.
We will review the creation of the digital television platform and also look at the basics of Netflix copyright.
And we will consider the issue of technological neutrality in the content of the copyright fight over a new entrant in video distribution, Aereo.
Finally, we close the week with a brief overview of incentive spectrum auctions and the possible end of broadcast television.
7.
The Middle Book.
Gutenberg revolutionized books with his printing press and for academics, books are sacred objects.
But the printed book is booming and with the rise of the electronic book, we are entering a new era, the era of the media book.
This is more than just a change in technology.
We will look at the problems created by the rise of the electronic book, problems about control over content and licenses, and the privacy of thought itself.
We'll also see the legal skirmishes over this space, including the copyright fair use litigation over Google Books, Apple's e-book antitrust case.
And we'll look at the Amazon Kindle platform.
including copyright fair use litigation over Google Books, Apple e-book antitrust case.
And we'll look at the Amazon Kindle platform.
including copyright fair use litigation over Google Books, Apple e-book antitrust case.
And we'll look at the Amazon Kindle platform.
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University of Chicago
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