Copyright Law Class Sing-Along!

OK, it’s not really a sing-along. Because no one wants to hear me sing. Trust me on this.

But it is a copyright law class, and it is going to be here on this blog. Kind of, anyway.

This spring I will be teaching a course in copyright law* to law students, and I thought I would do a series of posts in conjunction with the course.  The class meets 14 times, each Thursday for 15 weeks with one week off for spring break, starting a week from today. In other words, January 16th.

So, what I am going to do is to post a summary of each class here on the blog along with links to the cases we read and talked about on that day. That way, any of you who want to can follow along. (And you can sing too, I guess, if that is what works for you.)

A few caveats:**

1. The course itself is not specific to the interests of writers. Copyright is much broader than that and the course reflects that. I will try to point how specific issues do and do not apply to writers where relevant, but most of the content will be general copyright.
2. This series will not duplicate the full law school course. Not even close. That is just not possible. However, that being said, I don’t think that will prevent the series from being interesting and informative.
3. Full understanding of the material really requires more general legal training of the sort one would receive during the first year or so of law school. A series of blog posts will not make you a copyright lawyer. The goal is not to make you able to evaluate and handle copyright law matters on your own.
4. The course will focus almost entirely on US copyright law. That’s just what the course is.

Posts will go up late afternoon or early evening each Thursday. So forget about going out on Thursday nights – it’s copyright time!

*I am also teaching a course on Real Property, but I presumed there would be less interest in equitable servitudes, adverse possession and the Rule Against Perpetuities. Though the Rule Against Perpetuities is pretty cool. I mean what else involves fertile octogenarians and unborn widows?

**I’m a lawyer. Of course there are going to be caveats.