[game_edu] Student IP Ownership - Example Documents

[Dan Rosenthal]

Here's how I read the SCAD policy - a little more complex than Ian's version, but still generally short form:

Situations where copyright will vest in SCAD

1) If there is an express agreement saying so.
2) Created by an employee within course and scope of his employment.
3) Created by an independent contractor when specially commissioned along with an express work-for-hire agreement.
4) Work was created with "substantial use of university resources, funds, space, or facilities". Examples given are: funded by SCAD, sponsored research grant, professor temporarily released from teaching responsibilities to work on this. However the clause giving rise to this is very ambiguous and I don't think very well written.
5) Work was created by a student assisting an employee of the university and the employee was performing services within the scope of his employment.
6) Student is hired to perform specific tasks contributing to a copyrightable work.

Situations where copyright will vest in a student

1) If there is an express agreement saying so.
2) Student is an independent contractor, and created work without BOTH special commission and an express work-for-hire agreement.
3) Student is an employee acting outside of course and scope of his employment and the work created was not both specially commissioned and with express work-for-hire agreement.
4) Any other situation not listed here, where the copyright would normally vest in the student by law.

Situations where some right other than copyright vests with SCAD (generally, license for university to use)

1) Employee creates a derivative work of university copyright.
2) Student creates a work using university resources in furtherance of class project while enrolled. 

All in all, it's fairly standard and pretty much follows the defaults of copyright law, with the major exception of that "substantial use" clause which is vague (despite having a definitions section, which has its own problems).

-Dan
On Jul 20, 2010, at 2:55 PM, Ian Schreiber wrote:


> The complete IP ownership policy for SCAD is here:

> https://www.scad.edu/programs/intellectual-property.cfm

> 

> It's written in legalese, but the short version is:

> * If you do paid work for the school to create stuff using school funds and resources, the school owns it.

> * Otherwise, if you're just a student doing original work for a class, you own it. You grant the school a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use the work to promote itself (this is the way for us to say "hey, look at the cool stuff our students can do" without stepping on copyright).

> 

> In some other schools I've worked for, there was no IP policy at all that I knew of. Presumably this would mean that IP created by students (except as work-for-hire by the university) would remain with them, since that's the default legal condition. That said, even in those cases I could see the use for having an official policy, if only to use as a selling point for student recruitment.

> 

> Hope that helps,

> - Ian

> 

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