Speakers:
Ben McCoy, DFA Chair, Moderator
Charles Nash, CUCFA Rep. (CUCFA co-sponsored AB 1773)
Leslie Kurtz , UCD Law Prof. & copyright specialist
Kim Mueller, Private Intellectual Property Attorney
Alan Elms , DFA member and Forum organizer
A new state law increases protections for the intellectual
property rights of college and university faculty members. The
law originated in a legislative bill co-sponsored by the
systemwide Council of UC Faculty Associations. Implications of
this and other laws dealing with intellectual property rights
will be explored at a public forum sponsored by the Davis Faculty
Association. The forum is scheduled
for January 16 from 12:10 to 1:30 p.m.in the Cabernet Room of the
Silo. All UCD faculty members and other interested parties are
invited.
The 1999-2000 academic year saw the explosive growth of
commercial web sites posting what were alleged to be
contemporaneous class notes for college courses given all over
the United States. During the Spring quarter of 2000, one such
site posted notes for more than 200 courses offered on six UC
campuses, along with many others from campuses of the California
State University system and private institutions in the state,
including Stanford and the University of Santa Clara. Most of
these notes were initially posted without the knowledge or
consent of the course instructors. Faculty members who eventually
learned of and reviewed "their" notes often
characterized them as incomplete and inaccurate descriptions of
what was actually presented in the classroom.
On January 20, 2000, Assemblymember Gloria Romero (who is on
leave from her appointment as a Professor of Psychology at
CSU-Los Angeles while she serves as a legislator) introduced AB
1773, legislation intended to curb unauthorized commercial note
taking in California. This was the bill cosponsored by the
Council of UC Faculty Associations, along with the California
Faculty Association (the CSU Faculty Union). As amended, the bill
passed the Legislature, was signed by the Governor, and entered
state law as Sec. 66450 et seq. of the California State Education
Code.
According to the new law, effective on January 1, 2001, any
business, agency, or person will be prohibited from preparing,
causing to be prepared, giving, selling, transferring or
otherwise distributing or publishing for any commercial purpose,
any contemporaneous recording of an academic presentation in any
California higher educational institution, public or private.
(Contemporaneous recordings include written transcriptions as
well as sound recordings, films,and videotapes.) Actions alleging
violations of the statute may be brought by the Attorney General
of California, by a District Attorney, or by other specified
public agencies "in the name of the people of the State of
California upon their own complaint, or upon the complaint of any
board, officer, corporation or association or by any
person..." Courts are empowered to grant injunctive relief,
and persons injured by violations of the statute may recover
damages, court costs, etc. from "any person who is not a
student enrolled at the institution at which the instructor makes
his/her academic presentation..." The statutory damages
begin at $1,000 for the first offense and can go as high as
$25,000 for a third one.
AB 1773 builds upon California Civil Code Section 980, which was
amended in 1982 to recognize an important 1976 change in the
federal copyright act. The operant part of Section 980 reads:
"The author of any original work of authorship that is not
fixed in any tangible medium of expression has an exclusive
ownership in the representation or expression thereof as against
all persons except one who originally and independently creates
the same or similar work." Prior to passage of the new law
AB 1773, according to the Legislative Counsel, existing
California case law already provided "that in the absence of
evidence to the contrary, a teacher, rather than the institutions
for which he or she teaches, owns the common law copyright to his
or her lectures." AB 1773 states explicitly, "Nothing
in this chapter is intended to change existing law as it pertains
to the ownership of academic presentations."
As a practical matter, the previous body of case law meant that a
faculty member whose unauthorized course notes showed up on a web
site or in print would have to initiate costly personal legal
action against every transgressor who surfaced. Events last May,
while AB 1773 was still a work in progress, showed that taking
such a step could be highly effective, though at significant
expense in money and time. With the financial support of the
Davis Faculty Association and the intervention of a private
practice attorney specializing in intellectual property matters,
a Davis faculty member whose notes were posted on a web site
threatened the site operator with a lawsuit based on Civil Code
Section 980. The offending notes were almost immediately removed
from the web site, and in addition, no new notes were posted for
any UC Davis course for the rest of the quarter. The new law
should make even more clear to potential commercial note-takers
that legal remedies against such theft of intellectual property
are readily available, and should make it easier for faculty
members to initiate such legal action.
AB 1773 does recognize that campuses may want to allow
noncommercial student note-taking services to operate. It calls
upon the administrations of the various higher-educational
sectors, in consultation with their faculties, to adopt
regulations governing the conduct of students in this context,
and to inform the students of such regulations. It also calls
upon the institutions to specify penalties for student
violations, and otherwise to "develop policies to prohibit
the unauthorized recording, dissemination and publication of
academic presentations for commercial purposes."
The January 16 forum scheduled by the DFA will discuss in more
detail the background of the new law and the steps faculty may
take under AB 1773 to protect their original course material from
unauthorized commercial use. Other points for discussion will
include ambiguities in federal copyright laws applicable to
faculty, and the extent to which universities may use
faculty-generated course materials for distance learning without
authorization by individual faculty members. The forum will begin
at 12:10 p.m. in the Cabernet Room of the Silo. We would
appreciate your letting us know whether you plan to attend, by
sending an email reply to this message. Brown-baggers are
welcome.
Home | Current Activities | Newsletters | Members
| Join | Contact
| Links
All contents copyright 2001 The Davis Faculty
Association.