College: ‘Don’t you dare sell those online!’
February 16, 2012 by Jake SimmsPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Legal News
Can a student sell his notes online – or are they the intellectual property of the college?
Don’t be surprised if the courts end up settling this dispute.
A California State University (CSU) student thought he was in the right when he posted his class notes online and made a little profit off them. CSU’s student code prohibits selling notes.
But some legal experts question whether schools can claim class notes as copyrighted property of the instructor/college. For one thing, the student didn’t sell the instructor’s lesson plans.
And one student’s notes are just an interpretation of what’s being taught and which points are valuable. The market determined this student’s notes were of value and could help secure a better grade.
What do you think: Are colleges’ policies against selling class notes valid? Share your opinion below.
Tags: Cal Berkeley, california state, class notes, intellectual property, selling class notes
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February 17th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
Notes belong to the student. If he keeps them, sells them or reads them to someone else the university should not be allowed to interfere
February 17th, 2012 at 4:20 pm
If the student goes to a band performance and records the music, and wants to sell that recording – should the band be allowed to interfere?
February 17th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Ditto. Notes belong to the student. Period. So I can’t sell them online … I’ll give them away “for free”, wink, wink. Ridiculous attempt at control on the part of higher ed institutions. If the schools own them, they force all students to turn in their notebooks and electronic notes at the end of the semester and store them in a huge building with all the other antiquated higher ed “stuff”.
February 17th, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Just because the notes belong to the student does not imply that he can sell them. If I buy a book, I am not free to reproduce it and sell the copies. If I give a lecture and a student writes my words, they do not own those words and cannot sell them. The matter relates to ownership of content and if the course material is copyright protected? It may or may not be. I suspect that if colleges wanted to copyright protect all lectures, they could easily. Afterall, baseball games that have not yet been played are all copyright protected.
I do not know the answer in this case. Much of what is covered in college courses can be found in numerous different published materials. Discussion and limited reproduction is allowed for education non-profit purposes. Sharing notes is common among students. But when the student charged for a profit, it changes what is allowable. Even if the lecture is not protected by copyright, his notes may contain reproductions of text or graphs from copyrighted materials. This would be a real problem for the student and potentially the school. If this becomes a real problem ( I doubt it) institutions will push to have all lectures copyright protected.
On another note: why would one student pay for another student’s notes? Just go to class!!!
February 17th, 2012 at 10:33 pm
More importantly, such notes could be considered “derivative works” under US copyright law as a translation or abridgement. Unless the student can show that they have significantly improved upon the information provided within the class (or provided insight that was not available in the original lecture), they’re going to be hard pressed to show that the selling of such notes is covered by the Fair Use doctrine in a court of law. In effect, it doesn’t matter if the material is widely available; the notes represent a record of the instructor’s “performance”, for which the university draws income (part of which then goes to the instructor).
To put it another way, suppose you are tutoring someone on a difficult subject for pay. This student records (in their own words) what you’ve said, then turns around and sells it (or disseminates it for free). Would you consider that a fair use of your work?
February 17th, 2012 at 11:49 pm
Copyright issues or no, I feel like the school is in the wrong in prohibiting this. I’m talking about the deepest principles in operation here. The whole idea that a college education gives value to the student would seem to imply he should be able to use his notes as his own for the rest of his life, in whatever way he sees fit (assuming that act is not immoral on its own).
I realize my opinion could be a bit askew of the current legality of copyright, depending on the details of the content. So note well that I’m not arguing legality, but right and wrong, and that merely in my opinion.
February 26th, 2012 at 8:50 am
Depending on what the content of the lecture is, it may not be copyrightable. For example, facts are not copyrightable. A student couldn’t copy and sell my lecture slides (because the formatting is copyrightable), but the student could copy the facts from those slides and sell them.