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Lecture Notes Considered Infringement
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "According to a new lawsuit, taking notes in class is copyright infringement. Of course, it's not quite that simple. The professor is partnered with an E-book maker that wants to sell the material themselves, and the people taking notes pay students to take good ones, then sell copies to everyone else. But that just means that the case will hinge upon whether or not lecture notes are fair use. Either way, I wonder how long it will be before you will have to sign a EULA whenever you walk into class"
Obligatory: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Taking lecture notes isn't what's claimed to be copyright infringement, only re-selling the notes for a profit. Fair use does not provide for commercial reproduction.
The students have fair use because they are using it for educational purposes. The companies re-selling the notes, however, are not using it for educational purposes but for profit-making.
Last time I checked, the point of going to class is to get notes and learn new material. If you are forbidden to take notes, why go? All the material from any class can be found in a textbook somewhere--and most college students can read on their own. Basically, the professor is telling you "Just buy my book," at which point the lectures themselves become almost pointless--one can stay home and just read the book, since you can't write anything down on your own, your lecture notes are the book. Furthermore, if you can't take your own notes, why pay for the class? Textbooks are cheap. Just buy it and read it.
This professor is probably tenured, which is fortunate for him, since pulling a stunt like this is probably a one-way track to getting denied tenure.
If I remember correctly, facts can not be copyrighted. Copyright implies that there is some creative work being done that should be compensated. Just as a list of telephone numbers can not be copyrighted, so shouldn't a list of facts.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
. . . when you enroll in your institution. The question should be, rather, when universities will put these absurd provisions in your contract before even allowing you to sign up for classes.
My favorite quote from TFA is But James Sullivan, Faulkner Press' attorney, says the suit isn't about money for the professors, it's about protecting its intellectual property. followed at the end of the article by The lawsuit seeks any profits made off of the Moulton study guides.
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No. You're paying the university, which has the right to accept or reject you and limit your behavior in various ways or for various reasons having to do with its overarching education mission. Don't like it? Try hiring a professor all on your lonesome.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Why does a professor have a copyright on his lectures, anyway?
When I was working for a software developer and wrote code, I didn't get a copyright on the code. My employer owns the code the code that I wrote.
The same way my employer paid me to create code, the school pays the professor to create and deliver lectures.
If anybody owns a copyright on those lectures, shouldn't it be the school?
Lecture (noun) : The process by which the notes of the teacher are transformed into the notes of the student without passing through the brain of either.
I don't think the case'll turn on whether taking notes is fair use as on whether or not the student's notes constituted a copy of a protected work. Facts, remember, can't be copyrighted. I can write down stock market quotes and republish them in my own format all day and the source I get them from can't (absent some contract with me) touch me. The prices are facts, not expression. I can't copy their layout and formatting, but the numbers themselves are fine. So the question would be, are a student's notes recording, in their own words with their own formatting and layout having nothing to do with the professor's written lecture papers, the lecture a copy of the professor's work, as opposed to a wholy new work embodying the facts the professor used in his work? I think the simple analogy should convince the judge: "Is a movie review, summarizing the movie in the reviewer's own words and without copying any footage or exact lines from the movie itself, a copy of the movie?". The likely answer to that question is "No.", and the same for the notes.
Helping your fellow students and asking for compensation for the work you did and they couldn't be bothered to do is immoral? Man, what a fucked up world you live in.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I get the impression that the professor wants to penalise those who couldn't make his lecture (and therefore understand his slant). So instead of having a purer skill-based outcome (since all are clued up as to the professor's outlook), insiders are to be preferred over outsiders.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Defense #1: The work must be fixed for this dude to claim copyright. 17 USC 102(a) - "Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression . .
17 USC 101 - ". . . A work is âoecreatedâ when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time . . .
A work is âoefixedâ in a tangible medium of expression when its embodiment in a copy or phonorecord, by or under the authority of the author, is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration. . . " So. . . If the professor is not either reading from a pre-prepared script or recording his lecture, he cannot claim copyright in it in the first place. This is pretty basic copyright law that students learn in the first day of a copyright course. I'm sure that his lecture is read from his notes but it is unlikely that it is read directly from it and I highly doubt he is recording it (which could be a way of fixing it that would give him copyright in it, assuming that it is copyrightable material.).
Defense #2: Dude probably owns no copyright even if it is fixed.
Facts are not copyrightable. This is even more basic shit that has been said by many courts including the Supreme Court. Assuming this guy is teaching a standard subject, the things he teaches are not owned by him. He cannot seriously try to claim copyright in the history of the United States or the Pythagorean Theorem (I haven't RTFA so I don't know what he teaches). The only possibility for a copyright here is what is called a "thin copyright" which would be in his "organization of the facts." So he's gotta prove that the notes taken by these students are organized EXACTLY as he organized them. And that may not even work. If it is some basic subject where the organization of teaching it is basic, (such as any professor teaching history would start from early then move to later, or any math professor starts at 1+1 then moves to 1+2) then the organization would be so basic as to not warrant any copyright.
So my point is: defendant's motion for summary judgment that cites heavily to Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service is hereby granted.
In 99% of the cases, professors do not teach anything original or new in the class. Whatever they say is usually already included in scientific papers or books. When taking lecture notes you do not need to record everything the professor says, you only need to capture their references to concepts, ideas, discoveries, research, studies, or other identifiable things so that you can know what your professor wants you to know. You then just open your books or search the academic literature and learn what you need to know (and at a much higher level than your classmates, I would say). For example, if during the lecture the professor refers to the OSI model, you write down in your notes "OSI" and then you open Andrew S. Tanenbaum's "Computer Networks" book at your home and find the relevant pages either by memory (if you had previously read the whole book) or the index (under the term OSI, it's actually pages 37-48 in the 4th edition). As simple as that!
"If not then what exactly are your tuition bills paying for"
What you always paid for... getting a diploma. Yes, sure, there is an element of learning, but most of the information that you learn in life will not come about from those 4 years at a university. You may not even learn to think clearly at a university.
Unless your whole rant is about those few masters students - maybe 3-5% of the student body - you simply have no idea what you're talking about.
I've known plenty of professors who got plenty of research grants based on work they did themselves. Indeed, fewer students = more time to do research personally. Since most professors are talented researchers (otherwise they wouldn't have been hired), it can actually be more efficient for them to spend their time researching directly rather than advising students who research for them, depending on the quality and seniority of the students.
Besides, if you think it's "free labour", you've never seen the budget part of a grant. Each grad student will typically cost $40-80k for their advisor, even though the student only sees $20k of that.
And it's easier yet for professors to find new students who won't throw a hissy fit and quit halfway through.
At least years "invested" in a company will usually get you a better job if you move to a new company; years invested in a thesis don't transfer as well to a new advisor at a new university. For any grad student past their first couple years, moving to a new advisor at a new university is very rare.
Solutions that work only for people who are better than average won't work for most people, by definition.
Maybe you're a l33t uber-hacker who can order companies around, in which case that's very handy for you. Most people aren't, and can't. That doesn't mean they should take whatever they're given, but it does mean that their situations may be a little more complex than the simplistic answers you're pushing.
Indeed true, but what does that have to do with TFA?
The prof isn't being an ogre or beating his students; he's just saying "you aren't allowed to sell my lectures". How is that so different from selling bootlegs of a concert?
(It's all a little silly in my opinion anyway; the trend I've seen in the universities I've been at has been for the lectures to be made more and more available, to the extent that a number of places are videotaping them and putting them online. Given the general attitudes of the profs I've known, this trend is likely to spread fairly rapidly, at least among tech faculties.)
Firstly, I believe Faulkner is one of the seediest text companies in existence. They're very cheaply produced, and usually not text at all, but a CD with the class information on it.
I've had two classes like that: a basic computer skills course (taught by the business college), and another course titled Age of the Dinosaurs - which I took to complete Florida's General Education requirement for Science.
Professors at the University of Florida are supposed to publish their required and recommended textbooks on UF's ISIS, to allow all the area bookstores the ability to order and stock the book (nearly all college book stores orders materials on the shelf by the course number). None of the Faulkner Press-related professors ever do this, they'll directly inform one bookstore of the requirement, and inform students they can only purchase the text at said store.
Faulkner Press materials are rarely, if ever, re-usable. Any Faulkner Press text includes a CD with some kind of online component to it, with a one-time-use code, which you need to complete in order to participate in the class (Age of the Dinosaurs used online tests). While it's common for most textbooks to include some kind of online component with a one-time use code, most publishers will also sell you just the code, so students can purchase the textbooks used (if they so wish).
The software on the disc is absolutely horrible. It'll run on Mac or Windows, with an interface that doesn't fit in either environment. It's amazingly difficult to navigate, I went through a whole month in the Age of the Dinosaurs class without knowing the "Notes" component was actually the class text! The documentation is next-to-none, covering only how to install it. On install, it copies nearly all the contents of the CD to the hard drive, and requires you have the CD in the drive to run the software.
The only professors that use any materials from Faulkner are the professors published by Faulkner.
The Age of the Dinosaurs professor stated he wanted to write a textbook, and wanted to include lots of pictures and sounds. He loved the idea of distributing it on CD, since the costs for that are significantly lower that a book with all those colors from the pictures.
I'm not even going to delve into how the text materials were horribly written, contained glaring typos (both spelling and graphical errors), etc. It's a poor-quality product.
I would have accepted that in 1995. All UF students either have, or have free access to high-speed internet, and UF provides all professors with access to WebCT, which provides hosting, discussion, tests/quizzes, etc. All of the contents and features of a Faulkner Press text could be easily implemented in an online system, which lowers the costs (I imagine UF could provide the bandwidth and storage for the professor) of publishing, and includes the added benefit of things like, encrypted sessions, students being able to use the OS/Browser of their choice, etc.
The immediate benefit for all parties is cost. It could be, I dunno, free, as opposed to 90 bucks.
The only professors that use Faulkner are either a) idiots or b) sleazeballs, and I say fuck any class that requires a Faulkner text, and fuck any professor that uses them.