Competition, IP and Contractual Issues in the Media Industry: Law and Practice 

The media industry is fast-moving and undergoing a process of development during the digital age. The objective of this course is to introduce the key features of the media industry and the significant issues arising from the application of competition and IP laws, as well as explaining the typical contractual structures in the industry.

In particular, the course will cover:

• relevant market definitions in the media industry;
• analysis of recent case-law on anti-competitive agreements, abuse of market power, horizontal and vertical mergers; 
• digital rights management; and 
• key contractual points relating to production, rights acquisitions, licensing and distribution agreements.

Course schedule:

• Seminar 1: 27 January 2010
  The media industry: key features and market definitions; sport rights (joint selling and access to sports content).
  
  
• Seminar 2. 3 February 2010
  Music: rights-holders, collecting societies and online distribution
  
  
• Seminar 3. 10 February 2010
  Music: industry consolidation. Digital Rights Management
  
  
• Seminar 4. 17 February 2010
  Movies: industry features, theatrical distribution, pay TV, video and online distribution. Copyright issues in the digital world.
  
  
• Seminar 5. 24 February 2010
  Broadcasting: Pay-TV.
  
  
• Seminar 6. 3 March 2010
  Broadcasting: mergers and alliances.
  
  
• Seminar 7. 10 March 2010
  Publishing, Multi-media and High-Tech mergers.
  
  
• Seminar 8. 17 March 2010
  VOD, recent policy developments and challenges/opportunities going forward
  
  

The teaching method will include case-studies. 

About the lecturer
Andrea Appella is currently Director of Legal, Competition & Regulatory Affairs at News Corp, Europe & Asia,  Senior Research Fellow at UCL, and an officer of the IBA Antitrust Committee. He was previously the OFT Director of International.  Andrea has significant and broad experience of the media industry and knowledge of the competition/regulatory landscape within it.  From 2003 - 2008, Andrea was Vice President & Associate General Counsel at Time Warner Europe, where he was responsible for the broad range of international competition matters for Time Warner Corporate and its divisions (Warner Bros., AOL, Turner, Time, IPC and HBO) in Europe and non-US countries and was involved in the issues arising from the digital distribution of content.  Between 1998 to 2002 he was Director of Legal & Business Affairs for Europe at Warner Bros., where he had experience of IPRs protection; licensing and distribution deals; and production deals.He was previously Counsel and Business Affairs Manager at MTV Europe where he was responsible for all business activities of MTV ITALY. He is qualified as a solicitor (he practiced at Herbert Smith LLP for a number of years) and an Avvocato.   He is a graduate of Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli (magna cum laude) and has an LLM (with Merit) the London School of Economics & Political Science.

Materials
The course syllabus and core materials will be provided to participants at the beginning of this course. The course will also be supported by a secure access website where further materials will be posted.  

When is it held
This course will be held on Wednesdays over a 8 week period, between 27 January and 17 March, with 2 hours of tuition per week from 6-8pm.

Where is it held
UCL Law Faculty, Bentham House, Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0EG 
View a map of our location at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/location

Payment
You can pay for this course using your credit card via Google Checkout
OR you can click on the other payment option and selection to be invoiced for the fee.

Accreditation
This course is accredited with the full years worth of 16 CPD hours by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA - our course provider reference is IU/UCL) 

Queries?
Contact Lisa Penfold at UCL Law Faculty on 020 7679 1514 or email lisa.penfold@ucl.ac.uk