Copyright to Class Notes: Do Students Own the Copyright to Their Notes?

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39 pointsreggiecasual19 comments

Property, in the legal sense of the word, refers not to a particular scarce resource, but rather to a state-acknowledged bundle of exclusive rights that an individual may be recognized to hold over said resource. State acknowledgement of real and personal property, <b>combined with the rule of law</b>, are the basis of the stability of, and therefore prosperity of, the so-called 'first world'. Trying to extend these metaphors to intellectual property, to build fences around knowledge, without seriously rethinking the fundamental differences between ideas and manifest things, quickly generates absurdity. Should every teacher that I've ever had be entitled to some portion of the value that I am able to create applying the ideas that they have imparted to me? Did they create those ideas in the first place?

I believe people should be able to make a living from their work. That said, copyright is not an incorruptible shield-maiden descended from the heavens to defend creators. Copyright, among other things, makes legal interest portable. This has many upsides for the clever and the brave, but it also allows the naive and unwary to be fleeced, as the depressing nursing homes full of dirt-poor hit song writers could attest.

To elaborate, copyright has always been primarily for the economic benefit of distributors, and only rationalized as a benefit for creators. Tolerating the occasional absurdity was understandable when distribution was capital-intensive and economic incentives were needed, but now that distribution is nearly free, our expanding copyright law only serves to incentivize marketing, an activity of questionable social benefit that hardly needs encouragement.

Copyright has always been primarily for the economic benefit of distributors, and only rationalized as a benefit for creators

This statement is sort of nonsense. Copyright has always been exploited by groups of people formed to exploit it. Yes. But its "purpose" is and was independent of such.[1] The problem is that these groups are now re-writing laws to entrench their business interests as public policy. The "purpose" needs to be seperated more clearly. (1)It is independent of "copyright" per se, as a strategy; and (2) it is independent of any particular implementation of that strategy via law or fiat. The point of noting these differences is that in order to solve these problems they need to be framed more pecisely and more clearly. That's not to say I agree or disagree with the direction you are proposing. And I think you are dimensionalizing the problem in useful ways and at the right level of abstraction.

Notes ______________

[1] As a point of history, copyright predates the industrial revolution. And thus predates widespread organizing economic actors as corporations. Authors and independent professionals were in a much different position in society, and corporations were relatively few, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law

Your Wikipedia reference begins with "The history of copyright law starts with early privileges and monopolies granted to printers of books." Not 'authors of books'. Printers. Why? Because printing books was expensive, and printers needed some assurance they were going to have a monopoly if they were going to invest the money. How is that in any way contradictory to my statement?

and only rationalized as a benefit for creators

The public policy goal is to spread knowledge. If the printing is a critical step, it needs to get done. You're conflating ends and means. It was eg the guttenburg bible that increased the spread of literacy and the use of vernacular language in european history, right?

Ergo Dante: Inferno etc.

In other words, this is constructive criticism. I'm not slighting your observations. The point is that the public policy goal which makes copyright "poltically correct", needs to be articulated clearly and benchmarked for performance. Even in your formulation, it is this what shields it from reform. That's the end [or not].

And so, then the question is: what means [x from the set X] do we pick? Well, we need to look at all the alternatives. The, its ends<=>means + some thought optimaztion or "natural selection" or whatever. Is a different framework.

Its a fair question to ask: Since the original dynamics were set in place, we don't need to print books, since we don't need capital to distribute recordings, etc should we re-evaluate in light of this.

> For copyright to even exist at all the work must be fixed in a tangible medium.

Examples of a "tangible medium" would include, of course, graphite markings, magnetic dust, or the strength of nodes in a neural network.

I like the neural networks piece ;-) That's funny.

What about my intangible spiritual soul? Is my whole life a lie? Which part of me will go to heaven? :o

You are born with the rights to your soul, otherwise you wouldn't be able to contractually give it up.

A lot of the argument seems to be based on the premise that a lecture is not copyrightable because it does not lie in tangible media.

This seems to ignore the common practice (at least at my University) of recording every lecture so as to make them available for students who could not attend them.

University degree programs come with some of the scariest shrink-wrap licenses I've ever seen. If colleges really thought this was a problem they wouldn't need copyright.

The public perception of universities as some kind of noble public service needs to end.

Can you give an example of one of those licenses?

They're usually not public, so finding one would take a lot of digging.

I had to sign (hit accept on a webform) an agreement when I started at my university that said the university would own any intellectual property I produced using university resources. Which I am to assume is just to cover them for anything I create for assignments.

I am not sure on exact details of the agreement, as this was just under a year ago now and having asked for the agreement since I haven't been provided with a copy of it.

I was never much of a note taker in class, however most students I observed who were tended to copy verbatim that which the lecturer was presenting, either in slides or on the board.

Rarely was there any use of "their own skill and knowledge to interpret what has been said" that allowed them to "claim ownership of them".

I agree that _some_ notes may be significantly original works, however the arguments made are somewhat incomplete and rather broad, to their detriment.

Copyrights for Back to School so as not to copyright infringe.

> Copyrights for Back to School so as not to copyright infringe.

Does this make any sense at all to anyone else?

I've read it several times and gave it a few minutes, and I've got nothing.

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