[game_edu] inquiry from the press

[Wortman, Dana]

>From what I understand, much of the debate/legalities regarding IP is centered around "Who paid for the equipment and skill development?".  In a classroom environment, while the students are paying tuition, if the school's resources were used "substantially" in the creation of the product, then the school has the right to claim some ownership of that product (if not all).  As for developing skills - I don't think you can avoid the fact that students acquire their skills directly from the school, therefore, without the school's intervention, the IP might never have been created.  For Faculty, most Universities retain some partial or full rights to the product when the product was developed using University resources.  There is also usually some clause about publishing or producing IP that is directly related to your job responsibilities - this is also usually shared IP, even if developed solely on the Professor's home machine and during his/her free time.  This can also be the case with publishing books and collecting royalties - I've known of several schools that collected some of the royalties when a professor published a book.  I think in the case of schools, usually somewhere buried in the handbook is the IP policy.  Students usually sign a contract before starting at any school that says something like "I will obey all the policies in the student handbook" just like faculty sign the same type of thing.  Historically, that has been enough to cover schools in many of these situations.  However, I agree that students should research the school they will be attending if this is a significant concern for them.


These IP policies are governed by some of the same regulations that govern companies.  If you were to develop (and perhaps patent) a new device while working at a company, you and the company usually share the IP.  If you leave the company, they will either get all the rights or they will share the rights with you - depending on the contract you signed when you joined the company.  However, from the legal side, I do not believe that there are any government regulation requiring the company to give/keep/share IP - each company can decide how much they want to retain.  I know that I've personally worked for all three types of companies - the ones who made me sign my life away, the ones who shared everything, and the ones who kept nothing.  In my experience, it had more to do with what type of IP I would likely generate for the company.  Patents were usually kept by the company, but I got some type of share in it (but usually no money), books were usually mine but a percentage of the royalties usually went to the University, papers were mine but could be advertised by the school, grants were of course kept by the University, and software developed was shared.  In one or two cases, if I could prove that I didn't use anything from my job in development of the IP, then I could keep it all myself.  I imagine this would prove to be very difficult in many situations since proving that your job teaching Game Development did not help you prepare to develop a game.

Thanks,
Dana Wortman
Department Chair, GAD, WDIM, VGP
danwortman at aii.edu, 703-247-2695
Walk-in Hours: Mon - Thurs 1:00-2:00pm
** or by appointment, room 816 (820 suite)
Students - Include your student email and 
student number on all correspondence.


-----Original Message-----
From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Mark Baldwin
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 11:57 AM
To: 'IGDA Game Education Listserv'
Subject: Re: [game_edu] inquiry from the press

I'm curious.  What is the legal basis a school can claim IP ownership?  Do
the students sign a contract (which begs the question of consideration) or
are there specific laws out there that cover this situation?

Mark

******************************************
 Mark Lewis Baldwin
 Associate Professor
 Game Design and Development
 University of Advancing Technology
 303-526-9169
 mbaldwin at uat.edu
 http://baldwinconsulting.org
 mar80401 (YIM, AIM, Skype)
******************************************

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