Lawsuit Claim: Students' Lecture Notes Infringe on Professor's Copyright | Threat Level from Wired.com
Lawsuit Claim: Students' Lecture Notes Infringe on Professor's Copyright | Threat Level from Wired.com
This is an interesting article about a copyright case. Think about how it relates to the whole open course / open content movement.
Do you think the professor has a worthwhile case? Or should the student be allowed to sell the lecture notes?
Would you feel differently if this were some sort of media derivative (which may or may not include directly media developed for the course by the instructor)?
posted by Vanessa @ 2:37 PM
4 Comments:
Mmmm ... tricky. I have no idea about the legalities of it, but for my mind there are a few major conflicting issues. The Professor has formally copyrighted his stuff, so that would imply rights to what he says in his classes. However, he said the stuff in a relatively public place, so if he is acknowledged as the originator of the material in the 'cheat sheets', is that sufficient? After all, aren't people quoted in newspaper articles and TV news shows all the time, without receiving any portion of the profits? In my humble opinion, it's a bit of a storm in a teacup - would the Professor have the same gripe if he saw a student's lecture notes in a blog, or if he knew that the students from a previous class were comparing/swapping notes with the current class, or is it just because a profit (and I imagine it would be a pretty small one) is being made from the process that he is concerned?
Interesting I also found this article in a magazine i get at work called Edutopia. www.edutopia.org/copyright
It discusses the copyright laws for teaches. I think it goes along with this topic.
Oops, I sent that before I finished. As for the professor... I wonder if it's truly possible to copyright what was said in a lecture since the students are paying for the class shouldn't they have the right to take notes and use a forum to swap with other students in the class? Could his thoughts be that profound that they need to be copyrighted?
I don't know much about legal stuffs. But if you are prepared to put things in the public, you need to (1) be prepared that they will be shared and even copied, and (2) see other people stealing and modify your ideas.
From the personal note, it is painful to see your own work being 'stolen', especially for $$$. However, from a universal view that more brains are better than one, you may actually be allowing other people to expand and build upon your work for the better of the world. This is organizational learning ... if you view the world as one large organization!
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