The development of the Internet and, more recently, Internet-based applications such as Facebook, Kaixin Wang, Weibo, Twitter, Whatsapp, Wechat, Spotify, Uber, Didi Taxi, Airbnb have generated new types of communications between individuals across the globe. The rise of the internet has disrupted many aspects of our society, including law. Courts, policymakers, and law enforcement officials around the globe are struggling to resolve the clashes, both by adapting existing legal remedies and by developing new ones. 

This course will examine the effect of the internet on varied areas of legal doctrine, including intellectual property, technology related ethics, privacy, jurisdiction, contract, collective enforcement of consumer protection in the context of digital economy, Internet and manipulation of public opinion, information cocoon and national education. It also considers specialized internet regulation such as intermediary liability regimes, platform regulation, new challenges for the policymaking regarding the sharing economy. This course will explore how China (and for a comparative law analysis also the United States, European Union, and other countries) are currently responding to the new challenges and are likely to respond in the coming years. 

The broad topics we’ll be examining will include:

Introduction: Overview of IT Law

Session 1: Personal data protection and privacy

Session 2: Market regulation and labor protection problems brought about by the rise of the sharing economy

Session 3: The internet and technology related ethics problems

Session 4: Internet, Entertainment and Sports Law  

Session 5: Google’s challenge to the existing law regime 

Session 6: Empirical research on statutory damage, the IP enforcement and the trade war

Session 7: The right to be forgotten

Session 8: The problem of the emerging social credit system in China

Session 9: AI and the Law

Session 10: Illegal Cyber Attacks, Cyber Violence and Cyber Fraud

Session 11: Legal Issues Related to Cross-border Data Transmission

Session 12: Internet and the Protection of Minors

Session 13: The impact of Internet on the System of Copyright Law and its Countermeasures

Through the introduction, discussion and research of current problems arising from the collision of information technology and existing law systems, students who have successfully completed this subject will have:

1. strengthened understanding and application of SDGs, such as innovation, peace and justice;
2. enhanced ability to read the language of law, to explore new problems and solve new problems;
3. better professional skills in the new relevant law markets of information and technology law;
4. systematic knowledge of law in this emerging field, broader horizons for research in these new fields.

Mode of Teaching: Synchronous

Type: Lecture + Discussion

Class participation (group discussion and questioning): 30%;

Presentation (analyzing selected cases from perspectives of Rechtsdogmatik and comparative law): 70%.

Have at least basic knowledge in law.

Date: 21st, 23rd, 28th, and 30th June, and 4th-5th July in 2022 (13:00-18:00, GMT+8) Click here to view World Clock Meeting Planner

Contact Day(s) and Time(s): 3-4 hours in the afternoon. (The exact time will be based on the time zones where the students are in, and will be scheduled for the most convenience of the majority.)

Chenguo Zhang: zhangcg25@sjtu.edu.cn.
Yiwei Ge: geyiwei@sjtu.edu.cn