Digital Media Law »

Ashley Packard is associate professor of communication and digital media at University of Houston – Clear Lake, where she has chaired the communication program for the last five years. Beginning in the fall of 2007, she will give that up to chair the university’s new graduate program in Digital Media Studies, which is the first of its kind in Texas. She teaches Media Law, Communication Ethics, and Mass Media and Society in the undergraduate Communication Program, and will teach a graduate seminar in Digital Media Law and Ethics in the Digital Media Studies program. She has recently completed an entry on Conflict of Laws for Blackwell’s International Encyclopedia of Communication, and a chapter on Internet Law in the book Newspaper Competition in the Millennium, published in 2006. She publishes widely in journals such as the Journal of International Media and Entertainment, Communication Law and Policy, Journalism & Communication Monographs, Law/Technology, Legal Studies Forum, Communications and the Law and the Journal of Intellectual Property Law. This is her first book.

In a world where anyone can become a media producer, everyone should know something about media law – both to protect their own rights and to avoid violating the rights of others.  Digital Media Law is the first media law text to respond to digitalization and globalization--the two most significant agents of change in the 21st century. 

The first book to explain how media law has evolved to meet the challenges posed by digital media, providing an introduction to all areas of digital media law and its overlap with traditional media law 
Covers areas such as Internet publishing, file sharing, satellite radio and cellular phone broadcasts
Features explanations of traditional communication law concepts, illustrated with modern cases related to digital media that students know and use
Expanded treatments are given to particularly interesting issues, cases, law projects, treaties, and litigants, etc.
Accompanying website with ancillaries and updates on legal topics related to digital media

Preface vii

Acknowledgments xi

1 Introduction to the Legal System 1

2 Freedom of Expression 20

3 Telecommunications Regulation 39

4 Internet Regulation 63

5 Conflict of Laws 82

6 Information Access and Protection 103

7 Intellectual Property: Copyright 127

8 Intellectual Property: Patents, Trademarks, and Trade Secrets 156

9 Defamation 179

10 Invasion of Privacy 202

11 Sex and Violence 230

12 Commercial Speech and Antitrust Law 252

Table of Cases 279

Glossary 291

Notes 295

Index 331