- Do you think there are grounds for institutions to assert copyright over student work? If so, provide examples and justify your reasons.
Since the school is not considered the legal employer, that means any essay, painting, photograph, song, or other creative work made as part of the academic career is owned by the creator. This is true pretty much universally, including if the creator is a minor or even if he uses school equipment. - How do you feel about others sharing copyright and/or intellectual property rights over your creative work as a learner?
The creation by a student has to be credited to the students, not to the institution or the project guide whoever helps the student in his creation. - What are the impacts of ownership and copyright over learner work as they relate to the quality of learning?
Ownership of a creation and copyright provides the credit of creation to the creator.
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The exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material is called _____________
A) Copyright
B) Copyleft
C) Attribution
D) License -
A permit from an authority to own or use something, do a particular thing, or carry on a trade (especially in alcoholic drink) is called ________________
A) Copyright
B) License
C) Attribution
D) Creative Common
Trudi Jacobson has a good point on this forum that institutions should not have copyright of studentsâ works, since such works are the results of the very purpose for which the student is at the institution â âto learn and to grow intellectuallyâ. The institutions may provide facilities or funds but that should not be reason enough to own what is due to the students.
As for sharing copyright and/or intellectual property rights with others, it could make learners feel uneasy unless there had been prior negotiation before the work is created about who contributes what.
Regarding the impact on the quality of learning from ownership and copyright over learner work, it is plausible that the learner will be more reserved about investing energy and creativity in something which will be owned by someone else.
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I agree and I think you have made some very good points here, especially about students feeling uneasy.
Students should automatically hold the copyright to their work unless it has been produced specifically for a funded project in which case presumably there would be a prior agreement about who owned the work. For example, if a cancer charity approached a University lab to conduct experiments in pursuit of a cure for a certain cancer. You wouldnât want the student to be able to use that money and the resources and equipment from the University to discover a cure only for them to then turn around and sell it to a big a pharmaceutical company instead.
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The example you contributed is a clearer way to frame the issue. Examples always add a bit more clarity to discussions.
It is my understanding at this point in this course that copyright resides with the author - the person who created the work. Therefore, if a student, who is not being paid by the institution and in fact has paid tuition to attend the institution, creates original work, it stands that the student owns the copyright. Furthermore, what if the institutionâs copyright position extends beyond the national copyright laws? Can the institution create its own copyright beyond that of the national identity? Apparently yes.
This raises interesting questions, such as: if institutions can create its own copyright beyond that of the national copyright laws, students and employees can no longer count on national copyright laws for legal support/redress but are subject to arbitrary contracts of institutions/employers.
I agree, based upon my own experiences at different institutions in the US. In the Code of Conduct, Student Handbook, Syllabi, Media release agreements, and especially the use of on-line publisher / 3rd party course applications (TurnItIn, Grammarly) : there are assertions to copyright ownership that increasingly weigh on student exclusive copyright ownership of their creative work.
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Very good question.
When assessing copyright restrictions internationally, you need to look at the national Copyright Act of where the works are being used. If the usage takes place in a country that is a signatory of the Berne convention, a copyright holder in the original source country cannot apply stricter copyright provisions (eg duration) than the provisions of the national copyright act where the materials are being used.
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I agree, practical examples are valuable. Bear in mind your example potentially covers two separate areas of intellectual property, i.e.
- Patents (protection of inventions)
- Copyright (restriction on copying of creative works.)
This course focuses on copyright - not patents, which is a different area of IP law ;-).
Do you think there are grounds for institutions to assert copyright over student work? If so, provide examples and justify your reasons
I like to look at the level of the âstudentâ, for undergrads all the work will come under strict supervision of academics hence student may not enjoy any ownership. For postgraduates: masters and doctorates it should be allowed partially. Their research publications will be authored by students and immediate supervisors,
My institution has this phrase in the Intellectual property policy: â âŚ. recognizes employee ownership as long as it was not done with substantial use of university resources, financial support or university personnel beyond the level of common resources provided to staffâŚâ
- Do you think there are grounds for institutions to assert copyright over student work? If so, provide examples and justify your reasons.
It seems that level and type of knowledge transfer plays a role. If a student is an âapprenticeâ and has absorbed rather than formulated his/her own knowledge before producing something, the institution may have a case. If the student is quite knowledgeable about something specific and finds him/herself giving away a lot of this knowledge to the university, he or she should own the copyright, in my opinion. Students are not simple âcommoditiesâ for universities to exploit. - How do you feel about others sharing copyright and/or intellectual property rights over your creative work as a learner?
It really depends. There is no blanket answer to this question, I would say. - What are the impacts of ownership and copyright over learner work as they relate to the quality of learning?
It could certainly be demotivating. I dropped out of a PhD program in which I had a supervisor who wanted to skim my articles very briefly and then slap her name onto it as a co-author. Students deserve as much respect as their mentors; without the former, the latter wouldnât have a job.
Outputs â Copyright MCQ challenge: For this task, my comments after reading the following blog posts for this Activity are:
- MCQs provided me with additional knowledge on copyright.
- I learned that it is permissible to adapt a copyrighted work for the purpose of creating a parody, if indeed it is correct that the copyrighted work (an original video) can be allowed to be transformed into a new work (parody) under fair use exceptions.
- The second question seems a bit tricky to me as there are two images involved: blog header used a copy of image from a website in addition to the use of another photo from the same website (this one credited).
- Also interesting as it is relevant to those of us who have been involved in documentation, and often wondered about the implications of making a trailer.
- I wonder whether a) adding information on how the trailer is intended to be distributed or for personal use, and b) feedback for the answers may spice up the scenario.
@mackiwg
Hei Wayne, thanks to OERU, I am very much enjoying the gaining of knowledge provided in this course, especially as I develop a better understanding of the Creative Commons. I would contribute a comment regarding my curiosity about the task at the end of the Copyright pathway. The MCQ entails applying CC licenses to the blog assignment. The learner who has no knowledge of Creative Commons will need to advance to the next pathway on Creative Commons to browse through and learn how to use the licenses in order to return to the previous pathway on Copyright to complete the MCQ â this requires a nimble move in terms of sequence (I did just that, and completed MCQ). Perhaps I missed the instruction (that would be helpful) to refer to the Creative Commons pathway for assistance in completing the MCQ assignment.
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Thatâs a good point. The instructions suggest âwhere possibleâ rather than a requirement, but your point is well made. If you have no knowledge of CC licensing, this would be hard to do.
One refinement we can consider is to recommend learners to experiment with Chooinge a license and then coming back to the post to apply one after completing the CC learning pathway.
What do you think?
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Your suggestion to recommend that learners try out choosing a license on the CC site at that juncture will certainly direct the learner to a place for help with applying CC licenses to the work generated in the MCQ, I would reckon (learners may feel that the value of their work in this particular assignment should be shared and built on).
Wayne, I have another enquiry while reading the Legal Code https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode. My understanding of the statement âCreative Commons gives no warranties regarding its licensesâ and that the licenses carry a disclaimer of warranties (Creative Commons FAQ) is that parties in conflict over interpretation and use of the licenses do not have recourse to any jurisdiction (having to resolve the matter themselves privately?). I donât think my understanding is correct since it appears irreconcilable with the statement âThe ported licenses and the international licenses are all intended to be legally effective everywhereâ and the fact that they terminate automatically upon non-compliance by licensee in https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Considerations_for_licensors_and_licensees#Considerations_for_licensors which means that adjudication is possible in a national or international court of law or both.
Its refreshing to see learners diving into the detail of the legal code.
The disclaimer of warranties applies to Creative Commons (the organization) who develop and maintain the CC licenses. It means that the parties of the license cannot claim damages from Creative Commons (the organization) arising from use of the licenses.
CC licenses are enforceable in a court of law (see for example the list of case decisions).
Prior to Version 4.0 of the Creative Commons licenses, it was common practice to adapt the licenses for local copyright law (called porting) of different jurisdictions. With Version 4.0 of the licenses, they have focused on improving the licenses so they are ready to use globally without the need to port the license for the local Copyright Act.
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Hi Wayne, thank you for the explanation on the disclaimer of warranties, and the clarification on 4.0 version of Creative Commons. I also appreciate very much the case decisions (useful indications of some of the actions taken on points of law) that you shared with me.
Do I think there are grounds for institutions to assert copyright over student work? If so, provide examples and justify your reasons.
And then to release as All Rights Reserved? Or to release under open access licence? Assuming the student retains copyright over their work, that is no guarantee that their work will be any more accessible than if copyright is owned by the institution, be that publicly or privately funded. So, is the purpose to ensure that the research is as openly accessible as possible or is it to assert some level of control over it? Or is the purpose to obtain a return on investment? This last purpose would seem slightly iniquitous if the investment for which the return is claimed is derived from the public purse. Or if the purpose is to minimise the impact of potential conflicts arising from having copyright shared between multiple authors and institutions, which may result in an invention, for example, not being commercialised for the public good, perhaps there is some merit in copyright being vested in a body which can exercise those rights for a public benefit.
At my place of work, students retain copyright in their theses and work they submit for assessment purposes but an Agreement is required where research is heavily reliant on University infrastructure, finances and other resources.
How do you feel about others sharing copyright and/or intellectual property rights over your creative work as a learner?
Understanding creative work in this context to be contributions - creative or otherwise - I view them as simply part of a shared knowledge bank in the same way that I consider my knowledge and tangible outputs as an employee provide a platform upon which others can develop new resources, re-educate me and educate others. Isnât that the whole purpose of being part of the community of learning?
What are the impacts of ownership and copyright over learner work as they relate to the quality of learning?
I would argue that in todayâs University and School systems, the real impact on student learning has less to do with copyright and ownership than the dictates of models which control resource accessibility. Learning can only be set free when we are not beholden to any one special interest group.
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A university institution will not usually claim copyright to the thesis until you sign your rights away thanks to the Berne Convention. Depositing your thesis within your institution library does not waive any of your rights. There are obviously some exceptions to this rule where universities will hold rights to copyright to works of authorship that are created at the university by faculty and research staff, and which are supported by a direct allocation of university funding.
Personally speaking I would be flattered that someone would want to expand upon my chosen area of research.If someone else could identify an âinformation gapâ in my research that I hadnât developed or there was room to explore further avenues that had not initially been thought about.
Sharing information is knowledge for learners and is imperative to discovering key findings from previous areas of research.Think of areas in the medical field where specific areas of research need to be studied, and expanded upon, if we are discover ground breaking medical advances. This is an essential part of the learning cycle.
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