[game_edu] Student IP

[Lewis Pulsipher]

While I advise any prospective student to avoid any school that asserts
ownership of the student's IP, which students immediately have by law for
any work they create, there is a reason for a school to be cautious.
Publishers routinely require creators, who pitch a game to the publisher, to
sign an agreement protecting the publisher if the publisher should later
publish a game that might be construed as similar in any way.  This protects
the publisher from frivolous lawsuits by game creators who don't understand
that game ideas cannot be protected by copyright in any case.   (
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html)   While a school doesn't publish
games, there might be occasions when a student or former student would sue a
school for use of his or her game for other purposes.  So the school would
be wise to require students to sign a document equivalent in some ways to
the document creators must sign before submitting a game/game concept to a
publisher.


Lewis Pulsipher, Ph.D.
Simulation and Game Development
Fayetteville Technical Community College
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