Ally Farnhill, CopyrightX: Glasgow Assistant Teaching Fellow, writes about the Glasgow CopyrightX course, currently underway at CREATe.
The CopyrightX: Glasgow course, organised by the University of Glasgow Law school and CREATe in collaboration with Harvard Law School, has opened its doors for a second year, offering a selection of IP LLM students the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of US copyright law and enjoy the benefit of in-depth, small group discussion.
CopyrightX, an intensive twelve week networked course, has been offered annually since 2013 under the auspices of Harvard Law School, the HarvardX distance-learning initiative and the Berkman Klein Centre for Internet and Society, although made its highly successful debut in Glasgow in 2017. As the course website explains, the course is run in a variety of formats: the residential course, an online course and several affiliated courses. As part of the affiliate course community, CopyrightX: Glasgow, joins around 20 other countries, in offering the course, which harnesses the knowledge of copyright experts across the world.
Through a series of 12 lectures, delivered by CopyrightX creator and supervisor, HLS professor William Fisher, students are offered a comprehensive tour of copyright law. While the focus is certainly on US copyright law, the course also covers theories of copyright justification and naturally touches on other jurisdictions along the way. These lectures, combined with prescribed reading, make for a course which is demanding and certainly not for the fainthearted although, that said, the benefits by far outweigh the effort required. Not only do students receive teaching from an internationally recognised and deeply respected copyright scholar, and the regular supervision of their own local copyright expert, they also get the benefit of meeting together in a small group of like-minded students. In these weekly sessions discussion is key, and the value of having a small, safe group to share your opinions with, to challenge your peers and to flex your fledgling copyright muscles, can’t be overstated.
CopyrightX: Glasgow is coordinated by Dr Thomas Margoni, Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property and Internet Law and Convenor of the LLM IP Programme in Intellectual Property and the Digital Environment. At Glasgow Law School and CREATe Centre. Thomas is assisted by Ally Farnhill, former IP LLM student at Glasgow and former CopyrightX: Glasgow student who is acting as assistant teaching fellow on this year’s course.
Of course, hard work is rewarded with the promise of shared success and the pleasure of meeting together with scholars and fellow students from the countries represented, at the annual CopyrightX Summit. This event has come to represent a highlight in the CopyrightX community’s diary and the previous two meetings have been hosted by Monash University and Harvard Law School. Follow the updates to discover where you will be traveling to this year!