Digital Media Law. Packard, Ashley (2010). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 352.
The Internet is a predominant “change agent” in the continually evolving communication law. Professor W. Wat Hopkins at Virginia Tech prefaced the 2011 edition of Communication and the Law: “The Internet is having an increased impact on regulation of expression, and that impact is addressed in this edition” (p. v). (Disclosure: The reviewer has contributed the “Defamation” chapter to Hopkins’s book since 1998.)
Digital Media Law by Ashley Packard, a professor of communication and digital media studies at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, is a commendable effort to place media law and regulations in the context of Internet-driven media. The book’s underlying theme is that “[o]ur global shift to digital media has precipitated a shift in information control and thus “[w]hen anyone can become a media producer, everyone should know something about media law—both to protect their own rights and to avoid violating the right of others” (p. vii).
The rights and liabilities for the production and use of digital media are informatively examined in the twelve-chapter book. Some chapters are more sharply focused on cyber issues than others. The “Internet Regulation” chapter is a case in point in that it centers on Internet governance, net neutrality, virtual law, and cybercrimes.
Like other books that are designed primarily for undergraduate American college students, Digital Media Law covers nearly all the usual subjects: free expression as a right, defamation, privacy, obscenity, advertising, intellectual property, access to information, journalistic source protection, and broadcasting and Internet regulation.
Meanwhile, the substance and structure of Digital Media Law make the book distinct from other U.S. media law texts. Its “Conflict of Laws” chapter sets the book apart from others because it addresses the rarely discussed but increasingly important area of international media law. The author correctly observes: “One might assume that nations and states have no recourse to battle content that is published elsewhere in the world—particularly through a medium like the Internet that goes everywhere. But it does occur and with greater frequency” (p. 82).
In “Conflict of Laws,” Packard, who has published about the conflict of laws and related issues (see The Borders of Free Expression, 2009), explains how jurisdiction, choice of law, and enforcement of foreign judgments play out in transnational media law litigation. Several key cases of U.S. and foreign courts, including Dow Jones & Co. v. Gutnick (2002) of the Australian High Court, are duly noted. Her in-depth discussion of the conflict of the laws is readable, although some readers will find it rather challenging.
Another strength of the book is the author’s international and global outlook on freedom of speech and the press. Many readers most likely will learn a lot from her judicious reference to international and foreign law. Illustrative are her comments on the EU Data Protection Directive and on access to government records as a widely accepted right overseas.
On the other hand, Packard devotes far more space to intellectual property than any other topic. Two chapters revolve around copyright, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. There is no doubt that digital media have impacted on IP and that IP law affects digital media, especially in recent years. But some discerning readers might wonder about the author’s seemingly excessive emphasis on IP. The fifty-two-page treatment of IP stands in contrast with little or no attention to access to government meetings and court proceedings that remain important to media law.
Packard discusses the Freedom of Information Act, the OPEN Government Act, and other access-related statutes. However, her discussion forgoes open meetings law such as the Sunshine Act, which is closely connected with FOI. Further, the book rarely analyzes access to court proceedings or lack thereof as a right for the press. The unending free press-fair trial confrontation (see Lyle Denniston’s SCOTUS blog, “Prop. 8: New plea to release video of trial,” at http://bit.ly/l0bQS2) should have been explored, albeit selectively. Significantly, Brigham Young University plans a multidisciplinary symposium, “The Press, the Public, and the U.S. Supreme Court,” in January 2012. The event will explore how to “improve public understanding of the Supreme Court and its work.”
Each chapter of the book ends with four discussion questions about the chapter topic. The questions are probing and analytical. Three of the questions for the “Defamation” chapter, for instance, are:
• How does the American concept of libel law differ from other common law and civil law countries?
• How does knowledge of falsity differ from reckless disregard of the truth?
• Why have ISPs been given immunity from their subscribers’ libelous posts?
In order to keep up with the rapidly changing digital media law, the book has a companion website, “What’s New” (www.DigitalMediaLaw.us). Although it needs to be more frequently updated, it is a useful supplement to the book. It updates cases and statutes discussed in the book while noting new developments in American and foreign law.
The website supplement to “Conflict of Laws” discusses the SPEECH Act that President Obama signed into law in August 2010, and it provides a link to the Act. The “Information Access & Protection” page features the author’s summary of the U.S. Supreme Court case in FCC v. AT&T (2011), along with the full text of the court decision in PDF. (The reviewer last visited the “What’s New” website on May 15, 2011.)
Digital Media Law is the latest welcome addition to the shelves of twenty-plus media law books in the United States, especially for American students and teachers who are keen to expand their horizons in the global twenty-first century. The reviewer, who has used the book as the main text for his communication law class, has also found it to be valuable as a sourcebook. The book’s extensive source documentation and comprehensive index, together with its table of cases, are certain to enhance its scholarly value.
KYU HO YOUM
University of Oregon