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iPods Valuable in the College Classroom?
Infonaut writes "The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article called When iPod goes collegiate, examining the iPods for students program at Duke University. It seems that while many students and professors find them valuable for classwork, this is America, so questions about intellectual property rear their ugly head: "Do they have permission from the person who wrote the lectures to share it?" asks one IP attorney, referring to lectures recorded on iPods."
I have the right to make a copy to listen to it later (or to share with other students).
Some of the most popular student uses included recording lectures, taking oral notes, and even using the devices to create electronic flash cards.
Professors reported that students seemed more engaged in classes where they could use the iPods. They also cited strong student use of the audio capabilities of the iPod in their presentations, and more accuracy in quoting from interviews they did using the iPods.
How long will this last? If a new device comes out, an iPod-killer so to speak, will students require those to succeed in school? If so, this says more about students and the education system than about iPods and their perceived educational benefits.
iPods, without a $30 add-on, can't record. What else are non-music students doing academically with the iPods?
For $10,000 a year in tuition, yes, I do own the lectures!
"Hey, Taco, let's post yet another story about something that's been done for decades with tape recorders...only now it's with IPODS!!!!!"
Yeah, amazing. How is using a modded iPod (they can't record out of the box) different from using a tape recorder? The hard disk? Whoop-dee-fuckin'-do.
Who owns the IP on the lecture? The professor, or maybe it's the university who paid for it... Seems that a simple university policy could deal with this...
Why would doing this with an ipod as opposed to a tape recorder be any different?
Because it mentions the ipod. Dispite the fact that other brands of MP3 players can do this and have a recording feature built in, that ipod brand name alone is enough to report about it!
Well, people generally get freaked out about the fact that, with digital recording, material can be shared with a huge number of people in a really short time.
Imagine how long it would take to copy & distribute those little microcassettes to as many people as you could reach via P2P.
So that's the justification behind some people's paranoia. But in reality, who the hell would want to "steal" some apathetic professor's boring-ass lecture on organic chemistry anyway?
Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.'
It's different because it generates publicity. Looks like their plan to dominate the media with iPod stories is working. Speaking of a generic recording device is completely uninteresting... but an iPod? Start the hype engine! Create controversy where none exists! Get it posted on slashdot! This is the Marketing 202 course that Apple and other media outlets excel in. How many people would click through to a Christian Science Monitor (hah, what an oxymoron) article about analog tape recorders? But if CSM spins it as an "iPod against the machine" story, it gets impressions which generates ad revenues for them.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Because they're already spending the tuition they collect on other things. If you want to add some new bells and whistles, but still want to keep all the things you're already spending money on, you need more money.
(Well, assuming that you're not wasting money to begin with, which we all know that fine educational institutions never do.)
P.S. This lecture, "Stuff Costs Money", is copyrighted 2005 by Anonymous Coward as my own intellectual property.
>this is America
No it's frigging not. I'm not in America.
Please repeat after me: "Other countries than America exist."
... from handwritten lecture notes?
Unless you're really fast at shorthand and are taking dictation, handwritten notes aren't a verbatim copy of what was said but rather the important points that you think you ought to remember.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Just record audiobooks, and buy some cheaper iPod so the school can afford it. 20GB version of the iPod is obviously a bit too expensive, and the people at Duke who took the initiative to buy those iPods should have thought of cheaper models... even the iPod Mini.
:-/
I highly doubt one lecture will take more than 200MB? Unless... nah, no professor can be THAT boring...
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
It's different for the same reason that tape-trading wasn't a cause for an RIAA manhunt in the 80s. Copying a tape takes effort and time, while copying an mp3 takes neither. I'd LOVE to be redoing my undergraduate education now. Remember all the lecture-hall classes? Now everybody's got recorders that speak the same format -- and instead of having to borrow the tape from my pal, copy it, keep up with it, and give it back, I just ask him to IM it to me. Ten minutes later I have the entire hour-and-a-half long lecture (no more flipping tapes or keeping up with labels!).
It's different because it's easy enough for lazy students to do.
Duke either has an IP lawyer with too much time on his/her hands (probably) or a few professors who took way too many drugs as undergraduates and forget the nuances of the experience (probably)
"All successful systems accumulate parasites" -- Hal Hixon
- They've got lots of middle-to-upper-middle class students with parents that are paying for college. The students often have a large part of the decision power.
- Duke offers the students iPods to buy their vote of approval, then simply tacks on a few hundred to the bill. (and don't give me any crap about it not adding to the bill. It's someones money spent on something that could have been spent somewhere else. That's that)
- Students go to Duke
- Profit
Being a high school, senior fresh out (almost) of the application process, I see that this fits Duke's reputation among high school students extremely well. Duke is very popular among the jock/suburban/upper middle class kid kinda person. People who've got life going pretty easily and all that really matters is the schools good sports teams and the "cool" factor.Hmm... I think it is because it is in a digital format that potentially can be distributed to millions of people.
A tape cassette doesn't inherently share that property.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Do they have permission from the person who wrote the lectures to share it?" asks one IP attorney, referring to lectures recorded on iPods.
This is almost funny, I thought that sharing knowledge is what learning is all about! Is there no limit to what these slimebag IP lawyers will try to profit from? What will these intrepid legal eagles tackle next? After all one might actually argue that the process of learning is coping, or downloading somebody elses IP into ones brain. Will students still have permission to record lectures with their brains or do his concerns with IP theft end with iPods and tape recorders?
One thing I am sure of, I wish digital voice recording had been this easy back when I was at Uni. If I was a Uni student today I would definetly record all key lectures with my iPod and store them on my Linux boxen and I could care less about IP.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
You're confusing the issue of the copyright on the recording of an audio work (P) vs. the copyright on the written version of the same work (C). While a recording of plain spoken word doesn't necessarily benefit from (P) protection (as you say, depends if it's original or not), the text conveyed by the word most certainly.
Put it another way, reading a piece of copyrighted text doesn't instantly make that text public domain.
First of all, I would like to state for the record that I am against all copyright law except insofar as it prevents fraud. (ie. You have no moral right to prevent me from doing whatever I wish with any work/idea I know/possess. However, I cannot claim that I created a work if I did not in fact do so)
That being said, in regards to copyright law as it stands (all Berne convention signatories) the parent is wrong. Speech may in fact be in-eligible for copyright. However, the prof most likely made notes, and otherwise prepared for his lecture. These are eligible for copyright and gain copyright protected status the momment they are created. The recording of the lecture could be considered a derivative work of the profs preparatory work. Thus both the recorder and the prof would have copy control over the recording and it would require both their consent to further distribute it.
IANAL. Any laywers or other IANAL's please correct me.
Sue me for sharing th enote I take, too. Forking morons. Mini-cassette has been doing this for forking years.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Well, it seems to me that you're over-generalizing a bit, and that this could be useful to some people. Of course, a university giving everyone an iPod might be over-generalizing in the other direction, but it makes for an interesting experiment.
Some people remember things better when they hear them. A lot of people are the opposite way. You could tell me your name 30 times before I remembered it. But if you're wearing a name tag and I read it once, I'll probably never forget it. The human brain is a strange thing.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
The spoken word is not a tangible medium of expression.
Sure, but the notes and outlines his lectures are based off of are a tangible medium of expression.
that copyright belongs to the person making the recording, not the person being recorded.
Copyright requires creative expression. Simply recording something does not a creative expression make. I've never seen anything that would indicate that this is true, and I have several books that were dictated to someone else, and the copyright was listed as the speaker, not the recorder.
Lectures are public domain just like free and open speech in a public arena.
Lectures held in a classroom at a university are not public domain. Your professor owns the copyright on them. The lectures of high-profile profs are in some cases recorded and broadcast or sold on tape for lots of money. Just because your prof isn't a celebrity doesn't mean his rights are reduced. Although the copyright resides with your professor, most universities also automatically have some claims to distribution rights. (This would be set by your prof's contract with the unversity.)
At my university, the official policy is that you may record lecture for your own personal use if the prof permits it. *Most* profs have no problem with this, but some do not permit it, and that is perfectly within their rights. (Note that "fair use" as applied to recordings means that, if the prof were to make a recording available to you, then you could copy it for personal use. It does not give you the right to make a recording of the lecture in the first place.) If the prof does not allow you record the lecture, you should take notes during the class. If you have a disability which makes it difficult for you to take notes, you can have a note-taker assigned from disability services. (My sister made use of that once instead of trying to record the lecture. She finds notes more useful than a verbatim recording.) In practice, though, even the profs who have a "no-record" policy will relent in that circumstance.
That doesn't explain why the intellectual property issues involving recording lectures would be different when an ipod is involved.
I sure hope some legislative genius figures out a way to clean up the mess that the content industry has made of the copyright system. I hate to think of the my grandkids living in a world where every transfer of information involves a constant stream of fees paid to people who create nothing. The metering and enforcement requirements will pretty much put an end to any present-day concept of privacy, and copyright infringement (oops sorry, I mean "theft") could rival drug abuse as a prison recruitment program.
The works of Bach are in the public domain, but a particular performance of a work by Bach can be copyrighted.
Consider history books. The events described may have occured a thousand years ago, but the book itself is still under copyright.
That's missing the point entirely.
It's the *presentation* of the information which is the professor's intellectual property.
Happily telling the world all the facts he told you isa legal.
Selling recordings of the lecture is not.
hawk