Copyright makes you go hmm

[zvi_likes_tv]

Lawsuit Claim: Students’ Lecture Notes Infringe on Professor’s Copyright

These lecture notes are being re-sold, which creates a different case from fanfiction, but the professor’s publisher argues, worryingly, that if a student simply posted their own lecture notes on the Internet, that would be infringing, too.

Comments

[jlh]

There's a LOT of buzz in academia right now about copyright to lectures. I have profs who refuse to put materials on Blackboard because then those materials become the property of the university; they use other means to get things to students. I know profs who refuse to allow audiotaping of their lectures for the same reasons-they worry about their lectures ending up as an mp3 online, for rights reasons, and I've actually been counseled by my department that I don't have to allow audio taping of my lectures under any circumstances (there's a note-taking service at the college).

Certainly a lot of professors work on their books in classes, so their ideas might appear in someone's notes before they have been published. I'm not sure if notes from a lecture are really transformative the way that fanfiction is, though.

[zvi_likes_tv]

Except that their ideas have never been copyright-able. Trademarkable or patentable, maybe, and in the science courses patenting might be important, but ...

I'm not sure if notes from a lecture are really transformative the way that fanfiction is, though. I've never heard a good argument for what's transformative as opposed to what's derivative. I'm pretty sure that in those cases where you're switching the medium (audio to text) you've got a derivative work.

Also, I think a lot depends on the format of the classes. I went to a small liberal arts class, so the only courses I took that weren't heavily discussion-oriented were calculus. In high school, I had a history teacher whose lectures were organized in such a way that everyone's notes would have been substantially similar, but, in college, class notes would have been a unique creation each time, because the content of the discussion would have been based on who showed up and where the conversation went.

[cathexys]

Yes, I was wondering about the same thing. I've had issues with students audiotaping my lectures, less for copyright reasons and more for infringing privacy ones. Do they have the right? Do they need to get permission? From me? From everyone who contributes to class. I've asked a student before to delete their taping casual conversation before the official class started.

Otoh, taking notes and sharing them with your friends was one of the corner stones of uni for me. The one taking notes couldn't really pay attention, so we'd take turns. I do wonder whether bringing money into it changes everything....

[cidercupcakes]

I realize that this has serious implications, but my brain is so fried from study that at the moment all I can think is "I am totally going to use this as a backup if I end up with nothing to talk about for the essay question on my computer ethics final: 'for my own protection (see Michael Moulton's case against his students), I have opted not to answer this question.'"