> >
>
> I think that it is very important when discussing copyright issues to
> not get hung up on the fact that materials are produced/distributed
> electronically. All of the complications you wrote of here actually
> applied to the univeristy even 15 years ago, if not 100 years ago. For
> example, a professor authors a textbook, writes it in his office, uses
> the typewriter purchased by the university. He then sells the book to a
> publisher. Who gets the royalties? - the author alone, no share to the
> university. Who owns the copyright? - the publisher, having had it
> transferred from the author, with no input from the university.
The question that the technology begs, in my mind, is that of publication and
distribution. Since the school owns the web server on which the documents reside,
they are technically the "publisher" of that document, right?
A case in point:
NIU newsgroups (at least those through the ACS server) are private; you have to be
a member of the university AND on university grounds (at least virtually) to be
able to access this information. Isn't this effectively charging people for the
right to read these documents, regardless of the author? This seems to be an
exercise of the universities claim to hold some copyright as to the distribution of
those materials.
-Eric Hoffman