Every great teacher is an actor at heart. So if a professor gives a rousing classroom performance -- and if the University records that performance for later use, perhaps on the Internet -- should the professor have legal rights to the audio- or videotape?
That's a question now facing Stanford. The preliminary answer: no. Under a newly proposed version of its copyright policy, the University would continue to have "first right of refusal" for ownership of all video and audio recordings made in its classrooms. But Stanford would forgo any copyright claims to faculty novels, textbooks, poems, unpatentable software or other works of artistic imagination -- so long as their creation involves no "significant use" of University resources.
Stanford is not the only university grappling with questions of intellectual property rights. In an age of online classes and faculty-authored databases, the lines of ownership have gotten fuzzy. Many institutions hope for future income from works created using university resources such as video cameras or computer programmers. "We are worried about the 'killer application'" -- for example, the calculus course of all calculus courses based on decades of curricular work and departmental collaboration, President Gerhard Casper told the Faculty Senate in November. Stanford, he said, must not be "left out there in the cold with some for-profit outfit plus a faculty member reaping the benefits."
Some professors at the Senate meeting expressed discomfort over the vague wording of the proposed policy. But Vice Provost and Dean of Research and Graduate Policy Charles Kruger noted that a similar policy on patent ownership has worked well. "There are questions about use [of University resources] that need to get resolved from time to time," he said. "But they are not overly burdensome and tend to be resolved on a departmental or school level." Professor Joseph Goodman, whose committee proposed the copyright changes, stressed that faculty who make ordinary use of University-owned personal computers and libraries -- and limited use of secretarial or administrative resources in their creative efforts -- need not fear losing their copyrights to the University. That seemed to satisfy most members of the Senate, who endorsed the proposed policy for a trial period of three years. In the meantime, a faculty committee will continue to examine the issues.
