So you know where I'm coming from--my main experience in grad school was in English,
but I recently completed a grad degree in library science at the University of South
Carolina (which I'm referring to when I say USC).
UMI sells theses and dissertations for authentically scholarly purposes--or at least, they did until they made them available on this commercial site. I do think the practice of a
university selling its theses is technically illegal, but practically a necessity.
I found West Virginia's statement on ownership of scholarly products (http://www.wvu.edu/~osp/copyright.html), which is probably pretty typical. It says
(section D) the university owns any thesis whose writer received any kind of monetary
support (wages, salaries, stipend, or grant), which would include almost anyone who
made it through grad school. Since the document's pretty comprehensive and doesn't
mention dissertations, I'm guessing it's calling them theses.
However, it's more generous to faculty--it says (par. 2 of section B) as long as they
weren't receiving funds specifically to produce what they produced, they get copyright,
even though they're getting regular pay and use of facilities.
(I'm talking mostly about written products (rather than research), meaning particularly
people in English departments--scientific and technical faculty are getting paid to do
specific things--for instance, USC got a huge grant from the U.S. Navy to work
on electric batteries, and even if the Navy didn't have an agreement in writing which says
they get rights to any valuable research, the Navy would still get it because they're giving
money specifically to have it done. In that case, the lines between scholarly and business
activity become blurred. In essence, the Navy's opening up a research lab at USC using
USC's people. It may not be fair for the Navy to get everything (the university's getting a
new building and lots of money out of it), but it's consistent with copyright law, which
favors employers and corporations. In principle, students could go elsewhere for their
education. But given a student's relatively innocent and servile state, I think a student
who (individually) produced something really valuable under those circumstances might
have a valid legal argument to get more than a few dollars and an education.)
So why does the WVU statement include the "scholarly exception" for faculty and staff
but not students? WVU may have some legal right to claim ownership to theses because
they're paying the producers, but as far a copyright rulings go, once you make exceptions for an individual or group, you generally have to make the exceptions for everybody. I'm guessing that (1) universities' claims in regard to students' work have never been seriously challenged in court and that (2) WVU claims ownership of theses because they know they're going to send them to UMI,and they want to make their claim to do so as strong as possible. At least up until now, the only real value of a university's theses has been as a unit of exchange with UMI--in exchange for making their theses part of the UMI database (well known in academia as "Dissertation Abstracts"), WVU will get access to all the other theses that are in the database. That may be their only compensation, as that access is worth a lot to researchers (the USC library pays a couple
thousand dollars for a year's access to significantly large databases--some are in the tens of thousands), though the balance of access and cash probably varies according to size
and quality of university.
So yes, those theses are valuable to universities, but in the form of access to research rather than cash. On the other hand, someone (UMI) is making cash from them, but
chiefly as a publisher of scholarly material. It's not an ideal arrangement, but it's the only
one that works right now--the service that UMI provides is a very useful one for
universities.
If theses do start being a source of significant commercial revenue (that's a big if), I'd bet
that authors will eventually be compensated and share in the copyright (maybe something
along the lines of WVU's 50-30-10-10 rule--see the WVU site under "Copyright
Royalties"), but individual shares would be pretty small if they're sold as a body.
About theses that turn into books: A very high percentage of professors at the better
universities have sold their dissertations, often only slightly revised, to publishers, and
were not asked to share the royalties. Whatever universities put in their legal documents,
they wouldn't dare start claiming copyright and royalty rights to the few student works
that do make money (beyond their value in exchange with UMI--and I'm talking only
about the written works themselves, not research and any proceeds from research). For
one thing, it would be seen as stifling the academic freedom that's clearly recognized for
faculty, and it really would put a chill on student production. It would also almost
certainly cause the issue to be brought before the courts, where the university would
probably lose--mainly because a judge would say that academic freedom is for everybody.
Scholarship and capitalism are strange bedfellows (think of the problems with athletics), and universities generally do what they have to to get by.
Slashdot Mirror
So you know where I'm coming from--my main experience in grad school was in English, but I recently completed a grad degree in library science at the University of South Carolina (which I'm referring to when I say USC).
UMI sells theses and dissertations for authentically scholarly purposes--or at least, they did until they made them available on this commercial site. I do think the practice of a university selling its theses is technically illegal, but practically a necessity.
I found West Virginia's statement on ownership of scholarly products (http://www.wvu.edu/~osp/copyright.html), which is probably pretty typical. It says (section D) the university owns any thesis whose writer received any kind of monetary support (wages, salaries, stipend, or grant), which would include almost anyone who made it through grad school. Since the document's pretty comprehensive and doesn't mention dissertations, I'm guessing it's calling them theses.
However, it's more generous to faculty--it says (par. 2 of section B) as long as they weren't receiving funds specifically to produce what they produced, they get copyright, even though they're getting regular pay and use of facilities.
(I'm talking mostly about written products (rather than research), meaning particularly people in English departments--scientific and technical faculty are getting paid to do specific things--for instance, USC got a huge grant from the U.S. Navy to work on electric batteries, and even if the Navy didn't have an agreement in writing which says they get rights to any valuable research, the Navy would still get it because they're giving money specifically to have it done. In that case, the lines between scholarly and business activity become blurred. In essence, the Navy's opening up a research lab at USC using USC's people. It may not be fair for the Navy to get everything (the university's getting a new building and lots of money out of it), but it's consistent with copyright law, which favors employers and corporations. In principle, students could go elsewhere for their education. But given a student's relatively innocent and servile state, I think a student who (individually) produced something really valuable under those circumstances might have a valid legal argument to get more than a few dollars and an education.)
So why does the WVU statement include the "scholarly exception" for faculty and staff but not students? WVU may have some legal right to claim ownership to theses because they're paying the producers, but as far a copyright rulings go, once you make exceptions for an individual or group, you generally have to make the exceptions for everybody. I'm guessing that (1) universities' claims in regard to students' work have never been seriously challenged in court and that (2) WVU claims ownership of theses because they know they're going to send them to UMI,and they want to make their claim to do so as strong as possible. At least up until now, the only real value of a university's theses has been as a unit of exchange with UMI--in exchange for making their theses part of the UMI database (well known in academia as "Dissertation Abstracts"), WVU will get access to all the other theses that are in the database. That may be their only compensation, as that access is worth a lot to researchers (the USC library pays a couple thousand dollars for a year's access to significantly large databases--some are in the tens of thousands), though the balance of access and cash probably varies according to size and quality of university.
So yes, those theses are valuable to universities, but in the form of access to research rather than cash. On the other hand, someone (UMI) is making cash from them, but chiefly as a publisher of scholarly material. It's not an ideal arrangement, but it's the only one that works right now--the service that UMI provides is a very useful one for universities.
If theses do start being a source of significant commercial revenue (that's a big if), I'd bet that authors will eventually be compensated and share in the copyright (maybe something along the lines of WVU's 50-30-10-10 rule--see the WVU site under "Copyright Royalties"), but individual shares would be pretty small if they're sold as a body.
About theses that turn into books: A very high percentage of professors at the better universities have sold their dissertations, often only slightly revised, to publishers, and were not asked to share the royalties. Whatever universities put in their legal documents, they wouldn't dare start claiming copyright and royalty rights to the few student works that do make money (beyond their value in exchange with UMI--and I'm talking only about the written works themselves, not research and any proceeds from research). For one thing, it would be seen as stifling the academic freedom that's clearly recognized for faculty, and it really would put a chill on student production. It would also almost certainly cause the issue to be brought before the courts, where the university would probably lose--mainly because a judge would say that academic freedom is for everybody.
Scholarship and capitalism are strange bedfellows (think of the problems with athletics), and universities generally do what they have to to get by.