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From privacy to piracy and free speech to fair use, the digital world has upended legal issues in media and communication. This textbook explores the evolving legal landscape where digital media and AI intersect, offering crucial insights into copyright, data privacy, ethics, and regulatory frameworks shaping the media industry''s future. Covering everything from foundational newsgathering rights to the constraints and protections shaping professional reporting, Digital Media Law addresses the complexities facing today''s media in an era of rapid digital transformation. Readers examine landmark cases, real-world examples, and critical debates that underscore the most pressing issues, including freedom of expression, AI-driven decision-making, privacy concerns, and the legal implications of emerging technologies like deepfakes. The book also delves into the significant ethical failures that have marred media and journalism in the past, offering lessons for today''s professionals. As social media redefines the public square, this text examines the regulation of online speech, challenges to mental health, and global differences in speech regulation, highlighting the clash between U.S. free speech values and foreign controls. The book sheds light on the dual role of digital technology in promoting transparency and enhancing audience engagement while presenting new ethical challenges for decision-making. With thematic chapters on First Amendment rights, defamation, copyright and trademarks, and Section 230 of the Community Decency Act, Digital Media Law is structured for both academic and practical use, making it ideal for students, journalists, legal professionals, and media enthusiasts interested in the legal intricacies of the digital age.
About the author
Michael E. Jones, Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, has spent decades at the intersection of ethics, technology, law and the humanities, helping students and professionals alike explore a world increasingly shaped by rapid digital transformation. For more than forty years, he has taught university courses that probe the ethical boundaries of emerging technologies, governance rules, and intellectual property and how these forces are reshaping our understanding of creativity, law, sports, and the arts.
He has authored nine foundational books about sports law, entertainment law, and art law and has advised Olympic athletes, museums, and creative professionals at every level from PBS TV stars to street artists. But just as critically, he has pushed audiences to ask hard questions about fairness, authorship, and the human consequences of technological progress.
His latest book, soon to be published by Bloomsbury later this year, What Art Is Now: Creativity in the Age of AI, tackles one of the most urgent: What happens to human creativity when machines can mimic or even replace it?
Michael earned his undergraduate degree in Economics from Denison University, followed by an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He went on to receive his law degree from the University of Miami and pursued further graduate degree studies in law and art at Harvard University. He studied fine art at the Art Students League and the New Hampshire Institute of Art, co-edited with his wife, Christine, a book on legendary photo-journalist Rowland Scherman, co-produced with Christine a film documentary on esteemed painter Nancy Ellen Craig, and has served on boards from Provincetown to academia to the Olympics.
