From: technews <technews@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Action Against Sites That Publish Lecture Notes? (Chron o
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 12:15:30 -0600
Colleges Weigh Legal Action Against Web Sites That Publish Lecture Notes
By FLORENCE OLSEN
Professors and administrators were not overly concerned when Web sites that
publish lecture notes from college courses first appeared on the Internet.
But evidence of at least 10 such sites, most of them new within the past
six months, has prompted some universities to consider taking legal action
against the companies behind the sites.
So far, however, it's not clear to university officials what the most
effective legal strategy is. And the companies say they're operating within
their rights.
Officials of the University of California's Berkeley and Los Angeles
campuses recently mailed cease-and-desist letters to two companies that are
publishing lecture notes from the two institutions on sites supported by
advertising directed at college students.
The letter sent out by Berkeley's Office of Technology Licensing informed
the companies that their activities violated the university's policies
against the unauthorized commercial use of its facilities and institutional
name. Mike Smith, assistant chancellor for legal affairs at Berkeley, says
it's too early to tell whether the letters will have the desired effect.
One Internet company has asked to meet with Berkeley officials to discuss
the matter, a request the university most likely will grant, he says.
So far, no Berkeley students have been disciplined for violating the
university's student-conduct rules, which prohibit the selling of lecture
notes. But in several cases, Mr. Smith says, university officials have
identified students who were apparently selling their notes for on-line
publication and have given them a warning. The students have stopped
providing the notes, he says.
"The problem here is that, particularly in large classes, all students are
taking notes, and the faculty member has no idea which of those students is
the one selling his or her notes," Mr. Smith says.
At U.C.L.A., meanwhile, an assistant provost went to a class for which notes
were being published on the Web and gave students a talk about the possible
consequences to the student supplying them. The notes stopped appearing on
line after that.
"While it's not one of the most important issues facing higher education,
it's of increasing concern," says Mr. Smith. But the university has not
considered prosecuting the companies for copyright violations, he says.
"We consider the copyright question to be a distinct and separate question,"
Mr. Smith says. It's not clear, for example, how or if copyright law
protects lectures. "There's really no good case law on this," he says.
In the absence of clear-cut legal protections for lectures, universities may
be able to protect themselves by writing explicit policies that can be
tested in court, says Mathieu Deflem, an assistant professor of sociology at
Purdue University. Mr. Deflem, who has written about lawsuits related to
college teaching, says that universities should consider legal means to
resist what he views as an invasion by on-line notes companies. He has
posted a paper about the topic on line.
John R. Sandbrook, an assistant provost in U.C.L.A.'s College of Letters and
Science, says the publishing of lecture notes without the permission of the
professor or the university is not -- as some of the companies claim -- a
free-speech issue. "A classroom," he says, "is not a public park."
Mr. Sandbrook says a university has the right to control, on behalf of its
faculty members, what goes on in its classrooms. In conversations he has had
with the entrepreneurs who are publishing lecture notes without permission,
the assistant provost says, he has scolded them for using the notes "as
bait" for their commercial sites.
A company that operates one of the sites says publishing lecture notes on
the Internet is legal because the notes are a student's "interpretation" of
the lectures, rather than the lectures themselves. Craig Green, a founder
and chief executive officer of Study24-7.com, says he interprets copyright
law to mean that the students themselves own the copyright to the notes they
take in class.
Neither Mr. Green nor his business partner, Brian Maser, says he spends much
time worrying about being sued by a university or a professor. "We're a
peer-to-peer, interactive site that allows students to communicate and study
together, which is what students want," Mr. Maser says.
Study24-7 has not been threatened with a lawsuit. But in June, the
University of California system's Board of Regents filed a lawsuit against a
traditional note-taking company that produces, prints, and sells lecture
notes without university permission. "We're already suing one company, and
whether we choose to sue others is a decision we might consider down the
line," says Mr. Smith, the assistant chancellor for legal affairs.
Berkeley's chancellor has authorized one service, Black Lightning Lecture
Notes, to sell notes on its campus, but only under special conditions.
According to Mr. Smith, the lecturer must approve of the note-taking, must
have the right to review the notes for accuracy, and must be able to
negotiate royalty payments for use of the notes.
Boston University, which has taken on-line term-paper mills to court, has so
far not taken action against the two Web companies that have published notes
from the lectures of two of its professors, says Peter Wood, an associate
provost and professor of anthropology.
He says that initially he viewed the notes sites as unlikely to succeed, but
that now he's not so sure.
"If they can draw in substantial numbers of people, the advertisers will be
there," he says. "It doesn't really matter whether the product is
intrinsically worthwhile."
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Copyright 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education