7 thoughts on “So much for Creative Commons”

  1. Miguel Guhlin

    Of course, consider that teachers employed by districts may face work for hire copyright infringement. According to Carol Mann Simpson, copyright guru….

    Just about anything that a teacher does within the context of his or her job could be claimed as the intellectual property of the school. A common question is to inquire if doing the work at home or on weekends or vacation makes any difference in the work for hire rules. Actually, no, it makes no difference. If the work was done “within the scope of employment” it matters little where or when the work was done.

    Excerpt from page 23, Carol Mann Simpson’s book entitled ” Copyright for Schools”, ISBN#1-58683-192-5

    So, the question is, what will districts choose to do, if they should find out? Will enterprising teachers be “outed” by their colleagues?

    Miguel

  2. Graham Wegner

    Dean, I’m not sure if you read my blog much but a post earlier in the year was a review from one of our Technology magazines here in Australia on the issues of copyright and teachers’ development of resources.
    Here’s a key quote from the article:

    Teachers, tutors and lecturers should particularly aware that all of the works that they write in the course of their employment are copyright material automatically owned by their employer.
    It is a question of degree as to whether a teacher owns the copyright and whether a teacher owns the copyright and where he simply developed ideas during the course of his employment and thereafter discretely and exclusively expressed those ideas in his private time using his own private capital. In this case he would be the true owner.

    My own question was do teachers have the right the alter the conditions of that copyright (i.e attach a CC license) and essentially share their own employer’s property beyond their school system? I’m pretty sure that selling it might be a breach as Miguel indicates. After reading the article and seeking clarification from the solicitor who wrote the article, I now do all my blogging out of school hours and not from work to try and make that IP difference.

  3. Quentin

    Thought you would like this in the TeacherPayTeacher’s site FAQ:

    “How do I protect my original copyrightable teaching materials?
    Read the Copyright FAQ and follow its suggestions. Or for a short cut, go tho this Creative Commons webpage: http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses, choose the particular license you would like to attach to your work, copy that license’s specific code (there are directions there to help you) and then, most importantly, after skipping a line, paste it below your description of your product (right in the description box) on your “Post Products” page. After you submit your product, the CC license and its explanatory link will magically appear on your product’s page.”

    So sell it – and attach a creative commons license to it too.

  4. Quentin

    Miguel,

    I appreciate the excerpt, but it seems non-sensical. How many teachers have written books, completed contracts with outside publishers, or worked with non-profit agencies to create materials. If this were the case then school boards should be cracking down and getting in on the monetary action.

    I would love to see the case law applied in a Canadian context on this issue.

    Quentin

  5. Stephen Downes

    I wouldn’t worry. The press has been running stories about teachers or others selling their content online once every few months for the last ten years.

    My view is that the press has a bit of a vested interest in running such stories. They certainly play them up.

    But what we haven’t seen is a story about someone doing this successfully. Even this story, so long after the start of the web, is only about a new site, where the teachers plan to sell stuff.

  6. Miguel Guhlin

    The force of law, Quentin, would be on the side of school districts that chose to crack down. I have heard ONE instance where the District chose to exert its rights, resulting in the dismissal/willful resignation of the teacher. Hearsay, of course.

    You may not be familiar with Carol Mann Simpson’s work in Canada, but in the U.S., it’s well-respected. Have you heard of “shop rights?” On doing a search of “shop rights” and Canada in Google, I stumbled across the following…

    #
    # Employers may not enjoy shop rights. Generally, an invention made by an employee while in the employ of the employer belongs to the employee and not the employer even if made on the employer’s time and using the employer’s resources unless there is an express contract to the contrary or the employee was employed to invent. In Canada, the term “work-for-hire” has no legal meaning.
    Source: Gowling Doing Business in Canada

    Perhaps that will lay fears to rest in Canada, but in the U.S., shop rights DO exist. I’m not an expert at all in this and encourage you to check things out.

    In the U.S., per the Intellectual Property Overview Section C of the U.S. Patent, you’ll find relevant info.

    With these points in mind, Carol’s point seems defensible.

    Too bad she doesn’t have a blog! sigh.

    In the meantime, a bit more conversation at:
    http://www.mguhlin.net/blog/archives/2006/06/entry_1708.htm

    Take care,
    Miguel

    P.S. Graham, not sure your working at home is covered unless it’s significantly different work. For example, if you teach 4th grade science and develop 4th grade science materials to sell, your materials are under work for hire. However, if you develop a college physics textbook, it’s not. (I stole this example, poorly paraphrased, from Carol’s book).

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