Friday, February 15, 2013
Campaign Launched To Stop School From Claiming Copyright On Student Work
Techdirt: We recently wrote about how the school board for Prince George County, Maryland, was considering a policy that would claim the copyright of everything produced by both students and faculty at the various schools in the district. That seemed extreme in so many ways. Some folks have set up a site called Don't Copyright Me, in which they're asking people to sign a petition to be sent to the school board, telling them not to take the copyrights from students and teachers.
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11 comments:
This is atrocious. How could a school claim ideas which absolutely don't belong to them? It is understand that a company can claim the ideas of its workers, as these workers have been hired for the purpose of coming up with these ideas, and get paid because of that. Students, on the other hand, either attend school for free or pay for their education, and the ideas they develop belong to them. A science fair project does not belong to the school principal or to the district administration, which in all likelihood have no idea it exists until it starts picking up fame, but instead it belongs to the student who came up with it and worked on it. I sure hope this school district comes to its senses quickly.
http://coursecatalog.web.cmu.edu/servicesandoptions/universitypolicies/#intellectualpropertypolicy
you might be surprised
This is why I dislike being part of a university. I pay $50,000 a year to attend, not including a number of other outrageous fees, and yet they still write a ton of policies basically putting claim on my soul until graduation. I want to come here, I want to learn here, but I don't want my own thoughts and ideas to be able to be claimed as someone else's property. They didn't "make me," or cause me to have the idea. So, yes, it would be nice for the school to come to its senses, as April suggested, but really they're just in it for the money. And if they're going to get a good sum out of claiming that these students ideas belong to them, then they won't give up.
No. That's ridiculous, the school has no right to a student's work! I don't know how the school board can feel in any way that they have rights to student's or teacher's work! I guess the reason they could put forth would be that it was what...their prompts? Their environment? That's just sick. And I think it applies to universities too. They provide a place for learning, a physical place where people can come together and learn from each other. Where does a university, or high school, have any rights to the videos I make? I hope this is smashed down.
I don't understand how a school can claim owner ship to products/idea/works of art/writing that another person make. This just seems ridiculous! The school did not make them, the student did and even if it was an assignment for school, the school did not spend the time and effort to create that thing. School should be environments where students learn and create works of art without fear that they will be stolen. They should be places where we as students can explore ourselves without the pressure of people trying to steal our ideas otherwise it seems to me there wouldn't be much of a reason to go to school.
First off this is just stupid. Why does the school want the copy rights to all that stuff anyway? On one hand it's mostly just going to be junk that get's created and on the off chance that anything good gets created the school is going to get in a giant legal battle over it. And although schools need money I don't think that most schools want to get in to the R&D/copyright sales world. Copy right was started in an attempt to strengthen the incentive to create in things that might help the economy and the citizens. If the school takes all the incentives for it's self then the draw to invent and create new things will drop. That is clearly a bad thing. I know that many companys and universitys have polices like this already. And although that is a slightly different situation I don't like that ether. But a regular school district has a goal to teach young minds about the world not to steal new ideas to turn a profit.
For a public school, in which education is required and financed by public money, this is a ridiculous requirement. This means that the public schools will benefit from the mandatory attendance of the pupils, and it is very unlikely that the school will actually benefit (i.e. license the information) from this requirement.
However, at a college level it can be completely understood. Sure, we pay to be here, but the idea is that we don't pay the amount that fully provides for our education- instead, in most places, the school can further benefit from our work while we're here. One of the most surprising things about CMU is its Intellectual Property Policy (different than most institutions of higher education. Essentailly, it says that unless significant university resources (appx. $10,000 or more) is used in creating a product or ideas, the intellectual property belongs to the creator- student or faculty. . So, except for some aspects of main stage shows, all of our work here continues to belong to us- the students and creators.
This is terrible, but only because it is about primary schools. (which I am using to refer to all education before college) I think that it's completely different in terms of universities where it gets significantly more complicated. And in response to that link posted by Anonymous, CMU lets us as students or teachers retain the copyright on anything we make that doesn't make significant use of CMU facilities. Which does not include something like using the shop in Purnell. But back to the issue at hand, it seems that they are going to lose more in a legal battle over this then anything they will gain by claiming copyright over students in primary education. I also just don't see any reason they have that right. This is in reference to public schools so there are kids being forced to attend these schools. It can;t be possible that kids being forced to attend certain institutions could lose copyright on anything they make. I could maybe see this at a private school where as a requirement for attendance they ask you to sign away your copyright, as a private institution it would be their right. But again students at public school aren't exactly there by choice.
Brian makes an excellent point about school attendance being mandatory and how this new law would essentially mean that the school board was benefiting from the federally mandated attendance of its students.
I am not sure that this would be legal at all. Those who live in Prince George County, Maryland are guaranteed free public education, but it seems like this law would mean that they would have to choose between the "free" public school and an expensive private school, one of which would take away the right to their creative property and the other of which may cost a large amount of money. Furthermore, would the students' parents have to sign away the rights to their children's creations, and if they refused, would their child not be allowed to attend the public school? I obviously don't know the ins and outs of the copyright legal system, but this just seems like it wouldn't hold up in a court.
Constantly school's must face the challenge not to start conducting themselves as a business, but if they wish to prosper financially and continue to offer opportunities to their students then it sometimes becomes necessary. And what is the product that the business makes, well that's us. It's our ideas, it's our way of thinking, it's what we create with WHAT THE SCHOOL HAS GIVEN US. It is not entirely unjust for the institution to retain some ownership of what comes from it's halls. Not all control, but just like we have devoted time and money into the school to create our work, the school has put their faith in us when they accepted us and opened its doors to the boundless resources withing, they deserve something in return.
Constantly school's must face the challenge not to start conducting themselves as a business, but if they wish to prosper financially and continue to offer opportunities to their students then it sometimes becomes necessary. And what is the product that the business makes, well that's us. It's our ideas, it's our way of thinking, it's what we create with WHAT THE SCHOOL HAS GIVEN US. It is not entirely unjust for the institution to retain some ownership of what comes from it's halls. Not all control, but just like we have devoted time and money into the school to create our work, the school has put their faith in us when they accepted us and opened its doors to the boundless resources withing, they deserve something in return.
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