Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
Do universities have a claim on students' IP?
Renegade:
Nonetheless I take issue with the idea of professors being employees of the students. This is not the case, staff in a University are only answerable only to the administration.
-Eóin (January 25, 2011, 07:19 AM)
--- End quote ---
I think that's more metaphorical and not literal. They're no more "employees of students" than a waiter is an employee of a customer in a restaurant. Figuratively though, the educator is still supposed to be working for the benefit of the student, and the "employer / employee" analogy works.
40hz:
It's important to note the school in question withdrew it's claim.
I suspect an employee of the university, misunderstanding the legal concept of "work for hire" - and in a burst of excessive zeal - floated a trial balloon.
With the predictable results.
I think by now it's all over except for the inevitable hand-wringing and grandstanding after the fact. :)
40hz:
Nonetheless I take issue with the idea of professors being employees of the students. This is not the case, staff in a University are only answerable only to the administration.
-Eóin (January 25, 2011, 07:19 AM)
--- End quote ---
Exactly right. :Thmbsup:
In the US, school staff would not be considered employees of the students because the students do not direct the staff's actions - a key component in the criteria that determines the existence of an employer/employee relationship.
University professors are employees of the university.
Students are clients of the university. As such, they have legal rights under consumer protection and relevant laws which regulate commerce. But they do not exercise the rights of employers.
Gotta be careful with metaphor and analogy when dealing with legal issues. The law may deal with legal fictions. But it doesn't indulge in metaphor or analogy. Weird as it may seem to most people, legal theory is a very precise and specific thing based on existing case law rulings and legal concepts which themselves tend to have precise and specific definitions.
And it's also important to remember that courts are "courts of law." They're not debating societies or forums for public opinion.
In the US, that's the function of the legislature - not the judiciary.
:)
wraith808:
Sorry, 1st and 2nd level would bring you up to the end of Americian highschool. They are the levels everyone usually has an automatic right to. 3rd level is University education.
By 1st and 2nd, I guess I should have said primary and secondary education.
On the subject if IP, I do actually agree that students should retain ownership of ideas they come up with themselves while on campus. But I firmly believe something is fishy in this case. If it were just a random idea students came up with in class I fail to see how the university even got wind of it. I mean did the professor run telling tales to the Uni administrators? This story, as reported, sounds too suspicious to me.
-Eóin (January 25, 2011, 07:19 AM)
--- End quote ---
Ah... that being the case, then I still sort of disagree. I think that undergraduate students *are* more on the level of lower levels of education. A bit different, but not wholly. Especially given the nature of private schools in lower education. post-graduate work is a different issue. Undergraduate students do have more investment in making sure that the quality of their education is up to standards, but professors still retain some measure of responsibility in this process. For post-graduate work, I'd say this level of accountability is lessened, if not removed entirely. But at that point, for most students it is more of a partnership in education than a true student-teacher relationship, IMO; though elements of that still remain, they are definitely lessened.
zridling:
Since a state university -- as in this case -- is funded by the state's taxpayers, which the student is, shouldn't the school make public all its IT? Ah, that slippery slope.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version