[game_edu] Student IP Ownership

[Jose P. Zagal]

Hi Gregory,

Your email also asked for the rationale for allowing students to own 
their work:

(a) Encourages (student) entrepreneurship

ex: Students can form their own companies and develop games based on 
their school work.

(b) Reduces liability to the institution

ex: Student project (inadvertently?) infringes on someone's copyright. 
If the institution claims ownership, it could be liable for the 
infringement.

(c) Facilitates inter-departmental collaboration

ex: Students from the art department are working with engineering 
students. A less restrictive policy makes things easier, especially when 
different units have different policies in place.

(d) Good PR

ex: There are a few (recent) examples where a student project won a 
significant award only to then discover that they couldn't develop it 
commercially. These cases have resulted in a fair amount of negative 
press for the institution.

(e) Encourages better student work (greater motivation to be more 
creative when they have a stake in what they make)


In addition to having this policy it is important to educate and inform 
students of it! We've (at DePaul) also found it useful to have students 
sign a special agreement giving us (the university) the non-exclusive 
right to use their material for promotional use (brochures, demos, 
screenshots for our websites, that sort of thing).


Jose Zagal



On 7/14/2010 1:59 PM, Roberts, Scott wrote:

> Hi Gregory,

>

> At DePaul all students (or faculty) retain full IP rights, regardless

> of whether they're working on a class or club project.  This can

> cause some complications when you have a large team negotiating with

> a publisher.   The students who created Devil's Tuning Fork signed an

> IP agreement (created by Joe Linhoff) amongst themselves to pool

> their negotiating rights prior to forming a company.  Let me know if

> you want any further details.

>

> Scott

>

> Scott Roberts Associate Professor School of Cinema&  Interactive

> Media DePaul University SRoberts at CIM.DePaul.edu

>

> http://GameDev.DePaul.edu/

>

>

> -----Original Message----- From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org

> [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Gregory Walek Sent:

> Wednesday, July 14, 2010 10:27 AM To: IGDA Game Education Listserv

> Subject: Re: [game_edu] Student IP Ownership

>

> I'm working on establishing IP rules regarding student work created

> in our department.

>

> What I'm looking for: * Examples where students retain rights to

> monetize their work. * Examples on how to deal with IP ownership when

> work is created in team.

>

> This is what I'm not looking for: * A discussion of who retains

> rights and why. I've already have a goal and trying to target it. *

> Examples of where the school retains all rights on the work. (As

> most graduate schools do.) * Art school examples (such as studio

> commission policies) do not help me.

>

>

> A tangent of this issue, has the Education Sig worked on any of

> these issues yet? Do we have a collection of policies \ types of

> policies that exist.

>

>

> Gregory Walek NHTI AGGP

>

>

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