Certificate in Entertainment Law
Starting in Fall 2010, students will be able to earn a certificate in Entertainment Law. This certificate will make graduates more attractive to employers by signaling that students have the knowledge and skills to be top-notch entertainment lawyers. All L.L.M and J.D. students are eligible for this certificate, including those who will be graduating in 2011.
To obtain a Certificate in Entertainment Law, J.D. students must take a total of at least 21 units of the mandatory and elective Entertainment Law Courses listed below.
To obtain a Certificate in Entertainment Law, L.L.M. students must take a total of at least 14 units of the mandatory and elective Entertainment Law courses listed below.
The mandatory Entertainment Law Courses are
- Intellectual Property
- Entertainment Law
- Business Organizations
- Taxation (not required for L.L.M. students)
- Topics in Entertainment Law (at least 2 units for J.D. students; at least 1 unit for L.L.M. students)
The elective Entertainment Law Courses at the law school are:
- Advanced Intellectual Property
- Antitrust Law and Intellectual Property
- Antitrust Law
- Art Law
- Copyright
- Copyright and Fictional Characters
- Entertainment Practicum
- First Amendment
- Hero or Villain
- Intellectual Property and Technology Clinic
- Legal Issues in the Music Industry
- Legal Issues in Television
- Secured Transactions
- Sports Law
- Topics in Amateur Sports Law
- Topics in Entertainment Law
- Trademark
For J.D. students, the following courses at the USC School of Cinematic Arts also count as elective Entertainment Law Courses:
- CNTV 521 The World of the Producer (4)
- CNTV 522 The Television Industry: Networks, Cable and the Internet (4)
- CNTV 523 Feature Film Financing and the Studio System (4)
- CNTV 524 Digital Technologies and the Entertainment Industry (4)
- CNTV 525 Entertainment Marketing in Today's Environment (4)
- CTPR 562 Seminar in Motion Picture Business (4)
- CTPR 563 The Business of Representation (4)
Students must take all of the mandatory Entertainment Law Courses.
No more than 4 units of the mandatory or elective Entertainment Law Courses may be taken CR/D/F. Courses which are only offered on a CR/D/F basis, such as the Entertainment Law Practicum and the Topics in Entertainment Law seminar, do not count against this 4-unit limit.
Other courses at the Law School or at other parts of the University or at other universities may count as elective Entertainment Law Courses or may substitute for mandatory Entertainment Law Courses with the approval of the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
If students take more than the required number of units of Topics in Entertainment Law, those units count as units of elective Entertainment Law courses.
2Ls planning to complete the Entertainment Law Certificate are encouraged to take both Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law in the Fall, because these courses are prerequisites to many other Entertainment Law courses.
Students may earn certificates in both Business Law and Entertainment Law. Courses, such as Business Organization, Taxation, and Entertainment Law, may count toward both certificates.
Classes taken at other schools count toward the units required for the certificate, even if the student chooses not to have those units count toward the J.D.
