Dr. Bill Vicars Lifeprint.com

"Thriving as Faculty via Creator/Owner Copyright of Your Lectures and Materials"

December 9th The administration at CSU Sacramento asked an instructor to remove the “donate” button from his personal Youtube channel. On December 8th at 4:30pm I met with a CSU Sacramento administrator at the administrator’s request.  The administrator asked me a lot of questions about my Youtube channel and the creation process of various videos I had posted there.

The next day, the university requested that donate buttons be removed from ALL of the instructor’s personal website pages displaying any videos created by the instructor as part of his instructional duties at the University. On December 8th at 4:30pm I met with a CSU Sacramento administrator at the administrator’s request.  The administrator asked me a lot of questions about my Youtube channel and the creation process of various videos I had posted there.

The next day, the university requested that donate buttons be removed from ALL of the instructor’s personal website pages displaying any videos created by the instructor as part of his instructional duties at the University. On December 8th at 4:30pm I met with a CSU Sacramento administrator at the administrator’s request.  The administrator asked me a lot of questions about my Youtube channel and the creation process of various videos I had posted there.

Such an action is creates what is known as “a chilling effect” in regard to “creator owner” incentive to continue creating.

Question: Is a university in the California State University system legally able to prevent an instructor from making use of or profiting from materials created as part of his or her instructional duties? Another question: Is it in the best interests of society for universities to attempt to prevent instructors from profiting from their creations?

Consider: http://www. csus. edu/umanual/acad/umc02750. htm http://www

 In the "Guidance for CSU Policies on Intellectual Property" document, on page 99 we read..."A professor has created a set of instructional materials that has the potential to be reused by other instructors who might teach the same course. The materials might be a set of videotaped lectures..."

The guidelines go on to state, " The guidelines go on to state, "...Under the principles in this publication, the professor ordinarily would hold the copyright to the expressions of the substantive content of the course, and the university would not be able to use the materials without permission from the professor. Thus, if the professor retires, resigns, dies, or leaves for any reason, the university’s right to continue using the materials would terminate."

On page 100 we read, "The professor may create other works – such as textbooks, articles, videotapes, CD-ROMs, etc. – based on the copyrighted materials. The professor may sell them to third parties."

On page 101 we read, "The professor should not be restricted from utilizing the substantive content in future work, which could result if the university claimed full ownership."  

On page 13 we read: "In all cases, matters of ownership of intellectual  property – and subsequent licensing of intellectual  property rights, and the allocation of revenues (if any) – shall be decided in a fair and equitable manner."

 On page 78 it states:  "To avoid chilling the creative efforts that are essential to the mission of higher education, the new university policies required by the California Education Code must clearly state that the authorizing agent for any such recording is the author(s) or creator(s) of the instructional material in question."  

This type of thing (Intellectual Property Rights and Copyright Ownership) is very clearly covered in the Collective Bargaining Agreement / California Faculty Association (CFA) - Unit 3 in article 39.    "39.3 Faculty bargaining unit employees may use for non-CSU purposes materials created by them without extraordinary University support, if in the past the CSU has never disputed the use of such materials by faculty bargaining unit employees for non-CSU purposes.

Article 39 goes on to state, “Such works may include, but shall not necessarily be limited to, lecture notes and materials, course syllabi, instructional text and manuscripts, software, or plans, patterns and works of art or design. Unless there is a separate individual agreement or past practice at a campus to the contrary, faculty bargaining unit employees shall be entitled to grant licenses or make assignments with respect to such materials to publishers and publishing agents, or any other third party."

Thus we see in the Collective Bargaining Agreement that it is perfectly alright for employees to make NORMAL use of NORMAL university resources in the NORMAL course of their employment (which includes teaching according to CBA Article 20) to produce "lecture materials," software, etc. and then use those materials for non-CSU Purposes.  

I wanted to make absolutely sure I understood this so I went and read multiple other sources.   Other CSU websites state it in very obvious terms.  For example at CSU Monterey Bay's site we read:

"Copyright and Work for Hire: Copyright law defines two types of work for hire: (1) work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; and (2) work that has been specifically ordered or commissioned by contract. 1. Copyright and Work for Hire and Faculty: Article 39 of the CFA/CSU Collective Bargaining Agreement states that works created by bargaining unit employees in the course of normal faculty bargaining unit work (as defined in Article 20 of the CBA) without “extraordinary university support” (see below), shall not constitute “works made for hire”, and the faculty creator shall retain sole ownership." https://csumb.edu/sites/default/files/images/st-block-21-1428357988726-raw-511006aintellectualpropertypolicyfinal.pdf

What it comes down to is the phrase "without extraordinary University support." 

For a sample situation, see: http://www. calfac For a sample situation, see:  http://www.calfac.org/post/faculty-intellectual-property-rights-0 x

If a teacher creates something as part of his teaching duties and does so without extraordinary University support" that teacher OWNS the creation and can do with it what he/she wants -- including post it at a website and put a donate button on it.