The Entertainment, Media, and Intellectual Property Law Program’s J.D. curriculum involves completion of seven courses arranged in three tiers.  While the tiers are roughly progressive (in that, for example, basic copyright and entertainment law are helpful for the more advanced courses), generally the courses below may be taken concurrently (subject to a given instructor’s prerequisite requirements in specific instances).  It is strongly recommended, however, that students in the Program complete the Introductory A-Tier in the second year of law school.  These mandatory courses are intended to present the fundamental principles and practices of contemporary entertainment law, and they cover copyright protection, various transactional doctrines, and media law.  The array of courses in the middle tier offer choices of subject areas that establish the foundation of entertainment law as a form of business practice encompassing certain routinely encountered law and doctrines.  Taken together, the A-Tier and B-Tier courses tend to act as a gateway to the more specialized electives that populate the C-Tier, where students may choose to focus more narrowly on their particular professional interests in entertainment law.
 
A.  THREE Foundational ("A-Tier") Core Courses:

1.         REQUIRED:

           Copyright Law (Law 302)  or
           Intellectual Property Law (Law 307)

2.         REQUIRED:

           Entertainment Law (Law 305)

3.         REQUIRED:

           Communications Law and Policy (Law 327)

B.  TWO Supplementary ("B-Tier") Courses:

1.          Constitutional Law II (First Amendment) (Law 201)
2.          Introduction to Federal Income Taxation (Law 220)
3.          Business Associations (Law 230)
4.          Accounting for Lawyers (Law 234)
5.          Business Bankruptcy (Law 248)
6.          Secured Transactions (Law 250)

C.  TWO Specialized Elective ("C-Tier") Courses:

1.        Business Torts (Law 252)
2.        Music Industry Law (Law 303)                                                                                          
3.        International Intellectual Property (Law 304)
4.        Patent Law (Law 306)
5.        Sports and the Law (Law 328)
6.        Law and Practice with the Hollywood Guilds (Law 357)                                                                        7.        Motion Picture Distribution (Law 364)
8.        Intellectual Property: Law and Strategy (Law 407)                                                                          Note: Law 407 may not be taken by students who take Law 307
9.        Income Taxation of Entertainers, Athletes, and Artists (Law 433)  
10.      Cultural Property Law (Law M514)
11.      Seminar: Patent Intensive (Law 525)                                                                                              12.      Seminar: Entertainment, Media, and Intellectual Property Colloquium (Law 546A and B)
13.      Seminar: Entertainment Law Research and Writing (Law 547)
14.      Seminar: Digital Wars (Law 578)
15.      Clinical: Negotiation Theory and Practice (Law 709)

IF NOT TAKEN AS A-TIER COURSES:

16.        Copyright Law (Law 302)
17.        Intellectual Property Law (Law 307)


D.  Research Paper:

A faculty-supervised research paper which meets the Law School’s writing requirement, subject to the prior written approval by the Executive Director of its relevancy and appropriateness to the Program. The research paper may be written as part of an approved seminar course, an individual Law 340 course, or as a supervised law review comment.


PROGRAM CURRICULUM NOTES:

            1.  While at present, law students are allowed the opportunity to take two approved courses outside the Law School, only one such outside course will apply against Program requirements in the C-Tier, subject to the prior written approval of the Assistant Dean for Students and the Executive Director of the Program.  As examples, both the graduate division of the School of Theater, Film and Television and the Anderson School’s Entertainment and Media Management Institute offer an academically worthy array of courses suitable as a complement to the Program.  Students should be cautioned, however, that enrollment in courses outside the Law School is generally by petition and subject to availability only after the respective school’s students have first been accommodated, and that many of the outside courses may be offered only irregularly.

            2.  An approved full-time, semester-long externship, or an approved part-time school-year externship (of at least two-units), will count as one C-Tier course, subject to the prior written approval by the Executive Director of its relevancy and appropriateness to the Program.  Please note that a student who takes a part-time externship will not be eligible for a full-time externship, and a student who has taken a full-time externship is not eligible for a part-time externship.

            3.  A minimum average GPA not lower than a B- will be required in Program courses for final transcript certification of satisfactory Program completion.

            4.  Students should declare their intention to complete the Program so as to be given preference in the A-Tier and C-Tier courses above (subject to instructor approval), and the Declaration form is available from the Records Office or online here: http://cdn.law.ucla.edu/SiteCollectionDocuments/Entertainment%20Law/Declaration_041812_v7.pdf.

            5.  Students who have completed the Program requirements may elect, at their option, to have the certification noted on their transcript.  That election cannot be changed after the student has been graduated.

            6.  Note also that, while specific course offerings vary from year to year, all courses taken on the approved curriculum of a given year of law school will apply toward the Program.  Thus, third-year students who have taken approved courses in their second year may assume that such courses have been appropriately credited to completion of the Program.

Updated: 3/4/13