[LAD] students and copyright

[Arnout Engelen]

On Sun, Aug 02, 2009 at 12:48:45PM +0200, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> Prof. Keller writes 'We employ the students ...'.
> 
> [This] is certainly not correct for any normal student
> who would actually be paying the institute instead
> of the reverse. (..) it would seem morally wrong (to me) 
> if the institute 'grabs' his copyright.

While I'd tend to agree the institute 'grabbing' students'
copyright seems like a morally questionable affair, i believe
it is quite common for universities to have students sign a
document saying the copyright to anything they do for their 
university work belongs to the university. Afaik this is 
both legally and morally shakey, and institutions don't try 
to enforce it. 

Of course, it's quite possible that the students in Prof.
Keller's case were actually paid or otherwise compensated
for this work.

> And what would be the situation of (again, just an
> example) Prof. Keller himself ? Certainly he is an
> employee of his educational institute. 

Right - copyrights to the work would 'by default' belong 
to the institution, but you could of course make other
arrangements to reward the copyrights back to the author,
or get permission to release them under the GPL.


Arnout