January 23, 2018 

Allard School of Law, UBC LAW 424-001

Communications Law 

Course Information (Spring 2018)

Time and Location of Classes: Wednesdays 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM, Room 335

Instructor: Jon Festinger, Q.C.

Allard Office: 413

CDM Office Phone: 604-568-9192

Cell: 604-837-6426

Email: jon@fblawstrategy.com or jfestinger@telus.net

Twitter: @jonfestinger

Skype: jon.festinger

PSN: cdmjon

Office Hours: Generally after class, Wednesdays but am available by appointment or Skype. Please email anytime, even on short notice, to confirm availability.

1. Course Description and Purpose

This course covers the legal and regulatory aspects of telecommunications, broadcasting and the Internet. It is intended as the post-millennial successor to telecommunications and media law courses that have been standard fare for decades. In addition to dealing with the legal and regulatory aspects of statutorily determined quasi-monopoly business environments regulated by the CRTC and subject to administrative law oversight, the course encompasses the digital age of emergent technologies that provide a significant degree of freedom and control to individual users.

This course begins from the reality that telecommunications remains the essential backbone for the carriage of content and data (through the internet or otherwise). From this starting point we will examine the common legal framework for all communications in Canada (including statutory provisions and regulatory policies relating to telecommunications, broadcasting, copyright, privacy, competition law, and free trade). We will then apply that framework to analyze issues as diverse as net neutrality; personal privacy; government and corporate surveillance; cultural and industrial protectionism including ownership restrictions; wireless regulation and oversight; the implications of international laws, treaties and accords; political and economic regulation and policing of the internet; journalism in the post-Snowden age; as well as the future of freedoms of creative and political expression in all of these emergent contexts.

2. LEARNING OUTCOMES

After taking this course you will not be magically transformed into a seasoned communications law lawyer. However you should be able to confidently identify and explore the legal issues arising and evolving in the communications landscape, as well as understand the societal tensions and compromises that inevitably arise. To practice effectively in the area you will need to be able to think critically and through an ethical lens about the rights and responsibilities of all the legal actors in the ongoing drama of our media landscape and the creative, political and human forces that shape it.

3. PEDAGOGY

The world is ensuring that the nature, meaning and application of “communications” itself is changing and morphing every day. The scope of disruption appears to be massive and the legal questions being put into play never ending. Most important for our purposes is that the sheer amount of change coupled with it’s extraordinary pace allows us the possibility of using real world events as a living lab for emerging legal issues impacting creativity and media generally. As such the pedagogy of this course is to facilitate engagement with real world issues, while identifying their legal background and antecedents.

The design of this course is predicated on the idea that what is being taught and the tools it is being taught with are in dialogue. In other words how a course is taught can be an example of what is being taught. Lectures, guided subject dialogues, student presentations, “news of the week”, guest speakers and even group exercises may all be used to promote engagement with the subject. The course is itself meant to be part of a creative dialectic.

You are expected to arrive on time and be prepared to discuss the subjects at hand.

4. RULES

All students at the Allard School of Law are subject to the University’s rules on Academic Misconduct (http://vpacademic.ubc.ca/integrity/ubc-regulation-on-plagiarism/), and are expected to act with academic integrity at all times. Students should be especially aware of the University’s rules in relation to plagiarism. Plagiarism includes: copying the work of another student; copying or paraphrasing from a textbook or reference book, journal article, case or electronic source without proper footnoting; copying your own work that has already been submitted for another course in this degree or another degree, passing off the ideas of another person as your own. If you plagiarize, you will be subject to penalties set out in the UBC calendar. (http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/vancouver/index.cfm?tree=3,54,111,959)

In this class: 1) everyone is allowed to feel they can learn in a safe and caring environment; 2) everyone learns about, understands, appreciates, and respects varied races, classes, genders, physical and mental abilities, and sexualities; 3) everyone matters; 4) all individuals are to be respected and treated with dignity and civility; and 5) everyone shares the responsibility for making the class, and the Academy, a positive and better place to live, work, and learn. (Source: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/creating-respectful-classroom-environment/)

5. COURSE WEBSITE

https://commlaw.allard.ubc.ca/

1. Please create an account at https://cms.ubc.ca/using your CWL.
2. Once you create an account and sign in at https://cms.ubc.ca/you can click your name in the top right. Half way down the following page will be your WordPress email address.
3. Send me your WordPress email address at jfestinger@telus.net or at jon@fblawstrategy.com
4. Then, I will invite you to participate with authoring privileges via your WordPress email address.

COURSE MATERIALS

On Reserve:

10 x McCarthy Tétrault LLP Red, Blue, & Black books (Thank You McCarthy Tétrault LLP )

RESOURCE MATERIALS:

James Grimmelmann, Internet Law: Cases and Problems 6^th Edition (Semaphore Press) http://internetcasebook.com

James Boyle & Jennifer Jenkins, Intellectual Property: Law & The Information Society Cases and Materials 3^rdEdition (An Open Course Book) http://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/openip

Lessig, L. CODE 2.0. (Basic Books) http://codev2.cc/download+remix/

OTHER:

In preparation for the weekly discussions, the class will read the discussion outlines prepared by their fellow students.

 

7. METHOD OF EVALUATION

 Term paper accounts for 60% of the final grade.

1. A minimum 5000 word paper is expected. The word requirement is inclusive of footnotes or endnotes but exclusive of the bibliography.
2. The paper is due on the last day of the exam period at 4:00 p.m.
3. Papers must be handed in at the Reception Desk in paper format, and e-mailed to the Instructor in Word format.

Class Participation accounts for 40% of the final grade

• 25% of the mark will be based on group preparation of a Discussion Outline that must be created and handed out to the class—preferably by posting on the course website—at least a week before your particular discussion takes place, and leading the discussion for that week.
• 15% for student participation in the other course seminar discussions.

 

8. SYLLABUS

Class 1: January 3, 2018

• Overview of 1st class
• Objectives of the course
• Evaluation
• Role of “News of the Week”
• Discussion Hour structure; Formation of Student Discussion Topic Groups, Distribution of Materials
• Syllabus/topic input/comments/reactions

 

Class 2: January 10, 2018

News of the Week Discussions

Student Bio’s, interests, biases & objectives

• Why are you taking this course?
• What do you hope to get out of it?

Jon’s Talk: “Mapping Communications Law 1.0 & 2.0: A Topology Part A”

Materials:

John Milton – “Areopagitica” https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/areopagitica/text.html

                      

Class 3: January 17, 2018

News of the Week Discussions 

Jon’s Talk: “Mapping Communications Law 1.0 & 2.0: A Topology Part B”

Materials:

The MacTaggart Lecture 2016: Shane Smith, Founder & CEO of Vice (Edinburgh International Television Festival) https://youtu.be/ZSdkxXGQAPA

Class 4: January 24, 2018

News of the Week Discussions 

Jon’s Talk: “Roles of Sovereignty & Culture in the Communications Landscape” 

Materials: UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, October 20, 2005 (Paris: UNESCO) http://en.unesco.org/creativity/sites/creativity/files/passeport-convention2005-web2.pdf       

Collaborative Event: Invent a media technology that will impact the world (brainstorming session)

Class 5: January 31, 2018 

News of the Week Discussions 

Jon’s Talk:“Telecommunications Policy: Origins & Regulation” 

Materials: Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2016-496 http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2016/2016-496.htm 

Class 6: February 7, 2018

News of the Week Discussions

Jon’s Talk: “Broadcasting Policy: Origins, Regulation & Cases”

Materials: Capital Cities Communications Inc. v. CRTC. [1978] 2 S.C.R. 141 https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/2586/index.do

Student Discussant: Charlotte Chamberlain

Class 7: February 14, 2018

News of the Week Discussions

Jon’s Talk: “A History of Cultural Policy: Regulated, Unregulated & Self Regulated Industries”

Materials: Reference re Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2010-167 and Broadcasting Order CRTC 2010-168, [2012] 3 S.C.R. 489 https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/12767/1/document.do

Student Discussants: Geeth Makepeace & Rasmeet Mohar

[READING WEEK]

Class 8: February 28, 2018

News of the Week Discussions

Jon’s Talk: “Consumer/User/Creator Challenges: Cost, Copyright & Mass Contracts in the Digital World “

Materials: Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism – Dallas W. Smythe https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/ctheory/article/download/13715/4463

Student Discussants: Laura Courdi & Claudio Storelli

Class 9: March 7, 2018

News of the Week Discussions

Jon’s Talk: “Net Neutrality”    “Internet Regulation, International Data Transmission & Jurisdiction in the Cloud“

Materials: Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination Tim Wu https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=388863

Student Discussants: Peter Coady & Lee Dorner

Class 10: March 14, 2018 

News of the Week Discussions

Jon’s Talk: “Corporate & Governmental Surveillance”

Materials: “The Two Western Cultures of Privacy: Dignity versus Liberty” – J.Q. Whitmanhttp://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1647&context=fss_papers

Student Discussants:  Jas Dhaliwal, Uzair Patel & Stephanie Willsey

Class 11: March 21, 2018

News of the Week Discussions

Jon’s Talk: “Freedom of Expression 2.0: Journalism in the Post Snowden Post Trump World “

Materials: Gay Alliance Toward Equality v. Vancouver Sun, [1979] 2 S.C.R. 435 https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/6182/index.do

Student Discussant: Julian Caldwell

Class 12: March 28, 2018

News of the Week Discussions

Jon’s Talk: “Brain Games & The Future of MEdia”

Materials: Tessling on My Brain: The Future of Lie Detection and Brain Privacy in the Criminal Justice System – Ian Kerr, Max Binnie, Cynthia Aoki

Student Discussant: Rahman Nayil

Collaborative Event: Designing a “Communications Act” for today: Setting policy priorities (brainstorming session)https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1299291 

Class 13: April 4, 2018

Papers (Review, Discussion etc.)

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR PAPERS & EXAMS.