Stay close, but keep your distance? No paradox really ...

King's College, London: putting an interesting
slant on the teaching of copyright ...

It's no secret that this Kat has a soft spot for the King's College, London, Distance Learning programmes for copyright, programmes to which he has alluded from time to time on this weblog and elsewhere. Is it because he doesn't have to teach it? No. And it's not because of his initial cynicism, as a traditional hands-on, face-to-face IP teacher, as to whether any distance learning course might succeed at all. No, it's because he has had an opportunity to speak to some of the good folk who, through no fault of their own, have actually chosen to study copyright through an eight-month distance programme and who have come out at the other end of it not only unscathed but, as far as can be ascertained, as happy, contented, well-adjusted individuals who have even enjoyed and benefited from it.

Pub-goers experience a distant footie match

It seems quite appropriate that, of all subjects, knowledge of copyright should be distributed at a distance. Some things can only be enjoyed at close quarters: a good whisky (or, if you prefer, whiskey); the subtle fragrance of an exotic scent; and other things that are best not mentioned on a weblog read by the young and innocent.  Copyright however is the legal right that imbues its subject matter with the facility of being experienced at a distance.  We can experience the chill of the Arctic in movie classics like the soon-to-be-remade thriller Ice Station Zebra without having to visit the Arctic; we can watch broadcasts of football matches from the comfort of our favourite, doubtless licensed, pubs; we can curl up with a good story to read without having to curl up with the author too. And, if we are naughty, we can infringe other people's copyright at a not inconsiderable distance by file-sharing or by making endless perfect digital reproductions on our PCs and other copy-friendly devices.  So, if you want to get to grips with copyright, just like the works protected by it, you don't have to get too close in order to do so.

Cosy consumption -- at a distance

What, then, is King's offering? There's a choice of postgraduate Diploma or Masters courses in UK, EU & US Copyright Law (and there's even some French and German law thrown in for good measure). The faculty consists of a number of Katfriends, led by Tanya Aplin (Professor of Intellectual Property Law, King's College London).  Other contributors are the legendary Adrian Sterling (Professorial Fellow, Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute and Visiting Professor, King’s College London), Trevor Cook (WilmerHale, New York), Robert Burrell (Professor of Law, The University of Sheffield and Winthrop Professor of Law, University of Western Australia), Brigitte Lindner (Serle Court,  London), Pascal Kamina (Professor of Law, University of Franche-Comté), William McGrath (Davis McGrath LLC) and Makeen Makeen (Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London).

If you want to know more, here's where you click.

The course, which commences on 1 October 2014, is handled by IBC, who can't offer a discount to IPKat readers since the course belongs to King's, but who promise to be extra nice to anyone who quotes VIP Katcode FKW12324IPKL when applying.