I am not going to let you make sweeping statements about ongoing (and interesting!) copyright litigation without at least giving me a link to wherever you read the story. Ideally, though, I'd like a proper citation to the case, as I'd like to read it
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i am not a lawyer, and i'm not familiar with copyright or education law in general or with the case you're describing in particular, but, uh, have you considered just ignoring the rules? these things are usually enforced only if somebody has something to gain from it and is paying enough attention to care. i realize this involves assuming a lot of personal risk that you shouldn't have to assume, but constant minor infraction against rules people only irregularly care about is the normal condition of human life in modern regulated societies.
My dad *owns* copyright (IN NY no less) to various things he created in a cross district (BOCES sponsered, i think) group years ago.
Plus, he's done curriculum development and training for years. And he worked for 7(?) districts during his tenure, and I *Know* he took his stuff with him. Unless this law is *very* new..... (Like in the last year since he retired????)
Sounds similar to what happened with my dad. He wrote a program for the government under similar circumstances, and it ended up being widely used. A "success" some might say. Except he never saw a dime off of it, because it wasn't technically "his."
Work product of a government employee is public domain--which is the public's way of saying that well, if public investment went into it, then it should be disseminated to the public as widely as possible.
Yeah, it's a policy decision. But it's not as if direct employees of the government in other countries own copyright on the works they produce in the scope of their governmental action anyway. In Britain and Canada, such works are "Crown copyright,"--and can be (and if I'm not mistaken, are) exploited as a source of revenue to the Crown at no additional remuneration to the original author.
Note that this doctrine doesn't seem to extend to the work product of private entities that are contracted by the government.
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Plus, he's done curriculum development and training for years. And he worked for 7(?) districts during his tenure, and I *Know* he took his stuff with him. Unless this law is *very* new..... (Like in the last year since he retired????)
Do you want me to ask him about this?
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Yeah, it's a policy decision. But it's not as if direct employees of the government in other countries own copyright on the works they produce in the scope of their governmental action anyway. In Britain and Canada, such works are "Crown copyright,"--and can be (and if I'm not mistaken, are) exploited as a source of revenue to the Crown at no additional remuneration to the original author.
Note that this doctrine doesn't seem to extend to the work product of private entities that are contracted by the government.
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