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Entertainment and Law in the Digital Age (LAWS30031)

Undergraduate level 3Points: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)

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Overview

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Entertainment adds amusement, diversion and enlightenment to the everyday lives of multiple individuals, groups and societies around the world. Law underpins its existence, and seek to balance interests between creators, investors, celebrities, fans, consumers and wider publics. Yet it faces severe disruption from new digital technologies, business models and social practices. Can entertainment survive in its current forms? Is law reform urgently needed? After an introductory review, we will move on to explore these questions in more detail through a series of case studies, focussing especially (but not exclusively) on the position in the US and Australia. In turn, students will develop their own case studies in guided workshops in the teaching week and subsequent research essays submitted for assessment after teaching is over.

Topics and case studies will include:

  • Entertainment today
  • Performing live
  • Celebrities and fans
  • The art of appropriation
  • Music sharing
  • Amateur production
  • Imagining the future

Intended learning outcomes

On completion of this subject students should:

  • Recognise how existing relations of entertainment and law are being challenged and reshaped by the digital environment;
  • Appreciate the multiple ways in which entertainment may be facilitated and constrained by law, including in the digital environment;
  • Understand the basic features of the legal treatment of entertainment specifically in the context of the digital environment;
  • Have in depth knowledge of at least one case study as a result of the subject and their research.

Generic skills

  • Capacity for self-directed learning, specifically the ability to plan work and use time effectively;
  • Cognitive and analytical skills;
  • Ability to speak about complex ideas in a clear and cogent manner;
  • An awareness of diversity and plurality;
  • Experience in writing essays which develop structured argumentation; and
  • Capacity to judge the worth of their own arguments.

Last updated: 15 February 2024