Some of the 2014 Harvard Teaching Fellows

CopyrightX is a twelve-week networked course, offered from January to May each year under the auspices of Harvard Law School, the HarvardX distance-learning initiative, and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.  The course explores the current law of copyright; the impact of that law on art, entertainment, and industry; and the ongoing debates concerning how the law should be reformed. Through a combination of recorded lectures, assigned readings, weekly seminars, live interactive webcasts, and online discussions, participants in the course examine and assess the ways in which the copyright system seeks to stimulate and regulate creative expression.

One of the weekly seminars of CopyrightX: Kenya

Three types of courses make up the CopyrightX Community:
— a residential course on Copyright Law, taught by Prof. William Fisher to approximately 100 Harvard Law School students;
— an online course divided into sections of 25 students, each section taught by a Harvard Teaching Fellow;
— a set of affiliated courses based in countries other than the United States, each taught by an expert in copyright law.

Admission to the online sections is free and is open to anyone at least 13 years of age, but enrollment is limited.  For details concerning the application and admission processes for the online sections, see CopyrightX:Sections.  The criteria for admission to each of the affiliated courses are set by the course’s instructor.

The lectures, reading materials, maps, and recordings that have been developed for CopyrightX are also available for use by teachers and students in other settings. All of these materials are licensed under a Creative Commons License, the terms of which are available on the Permission page.

The CopyrightX community continues to grow.  The map set forth below indicates (in blue) the countries of residence of the students who have taken the online course and (in red) the countries in which the affiliated courses have been or are currently based.

A more detailed description of CopyrightX can be found in a forthcoming essay.

We are able to continue offering the course only because of generous financial support from Harvard University and from two law firms: