The legal system is entering a period of profound transformation brought on by new technologies and alternative business models. Legal innovation backed by new technologies can drive down costs, make the delivery of legal services more productive, and facilitate better access to justice for citizens. As AI and other digital technologies permeate more of our lives, they increasingly become the source of legally significant events. This means that those who study and/or practice law increasingly need to understand the digital context. At the same time, those who develop software increasingly need to understand potential legal consequences of design choices.

As information technology rapidly advances, the laws governing the digital realm must evolve in response. This seminar critically examines legislators', judges', and scholars' recent efforts to tackle the unique challenges posed by the increasingly complex digital landscape.

The course delves into the impact of AI technologies, such as generative AI, on society, and investigates the role of platform governance in shaping public discourse. Students will engage in critical analysis of contemporary legislation, judicial decisions, and scholarly insights to deepen their understanding of the dynamic nature of internet regulation in the digital age. Emphasizing the need for adaptable legal responses to rapidly evolving technologies, this seminar fosters a comprehensive appreciation of the ever-changing terrain of internet governance.

我们目前所处的时代被成为数字化时代，数字科技已经改变了我们生活的方方面面，重塑了商业模式和经济结构，带来了生产力和生产关系方面的重大变化。法律是一门保守的学科，其中的许多基本概念和原理起源于农业时代，无论是亨利二世时代的英格兰还是查士丁尼时代的古罗马，其中体现的核心价值是矫正正义，即救济被有过错的个人行为损害的权益，恢复秩序的原来状态。这种传统的法律构型面对数字科技所带来的一系列新问题，从大规模个人信息处理、网络安全到行为诱导和行为操纵，已经捉襟见肘。本课程旨在从数字技术的普遍应用带来的基本社会关系变化（比如电商与消费者关系、平台与零工关系、社交网络与用户关系）入手，讨论其中的法律关系和法律问题。通过学习这门课程，学生将理解数字技术应用的基本社会、文化、政治和商业场景，在了解基本社会和行业事实的基础上进行相应的法律分析，从而为未来从事相关职业（比如数据保护官、隐私专员、律师以及智慧法院、智慧检务和智慧公安环境中的公共服务职业）或进行相关学术研究打下基础。

This course examines the interplay between intellectual property law, innovation and economic development. It focuses on cutting-edge technologies including information technology, biotechnology, green technology, 3-D printing, AI, and Blockchain/NFT, among others, to assess how these technologies have changed the landscape of IP law on the one hand, and how IP law have affected the development of these technologies on the other hand. Specifically, this course uses judicial cases and practical examples to illustrate how IP (patent in particular) for aforementioned technological inventions have affected the dissemination and access to technologies and essential medicines, and how IP regime has been employed to protect genetic resources/traditional knowledge and green technologies, and whether such protection promotes or impedes innovation and technology transfer in these industries, and how IP protection has affected social and economic development of developing countries and least-developed countries. Last but not the least, the course investigates IP-related antitrust issues, and discusses how to strike a balance between IP and competition for the benefit of technology innovation and economic development.

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, and collective enforcement of consumer protection in the context of digital economy. 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.

As we begin the second decade of the twentieth century, there are few fields of law more immediately pressing than information privacy law. The amount of personal information businesses and governments collect about people, and how these actors use and share people’s personal information, are rapidly expanding. New technologies raise far-reaching questions about our society’s privacy expectations and cultural values. Questions that the law plays a crucial role in answering.

While the privacy challenges posed by emerging technologies involving big data, artificial intelligence, facial recognition, biometrics, and more are indeed cutting-edge, in some respects, they are nothing new. The law has been grappling with balancing the tension between one person’s right to be let alone and another’s right to know for over a century. The legal principles developed in response to earlier privacy threats find continued relevance as lawmakers and courts decide how to respond to the privacy threats of our day. This course will accordingly span foundational privacy issues in tort and consumer protection law; laws regarding the collection, use, storage, and transfer of personal information; and emerging issues in privacy law. While most of the course will focus on US law, we will seriously engage with EU and Chinese data protection.

本课程为个人数据保护法的入门课程。本课程将从比较法视角探讨个人数据保护法，侧重于比较欧盟的《通用数据保护条例（GDPR）》和中国的《个人信息保护法》，亦会涉及部分美国数据保护法律法规，特别是《加州消费者隐私法案(CCPA)》。

课程的教学目标有三方面：1.通过对个人数据保护法的历史沿革、国际发展趋势、立法目的，数据保护与隐私保护的区别与联系等方面的学习，使学生能够从宏观视角认识个人数据保护法作为信息社会基础性法律制度的重要性。2. 通过了解世界主要国家和地区在个人数据保护的基本理念和法律框架、原则和概念等方面的异同，培养学生的国际视野和处理跨国界数据保护问题的能力。3. 作为个人数据保护法的入门课程，本课程也希望为学生未来更深入细致地学习和在实践中运用特定法域的数据保护法奠定良好基础。

The purpose of the course is to critically address the regulatory challenges that are brought about by big data, algorithms and Artificial Intelligence and the answers that governments – particularly in Europe – are providing. After providing a general overview of the relevant policies on data, the course covers selected issues, such as data protection, competition, data ownership, algorithmic society, and, finally, civil liability arising from the use of emerging digital technologies.