(By Ovetta Wiggins,
Washington Post, 2 February 2013)
A proposal
by the Prince George’s County Board of Education to copyright work created by
staff and students for school could mean that a picture drawn by a
first-grader, a lesson plan developed by a teacher or an app created by a teen
would belong to the school system, not the individual. The measure has some worried that by the system claiming
ownership to the work of others, creativity could be stifled and there would be
little incentive to come up with innovative ways to educate students. Some have
questioned the legality of the proposal as it relates to students. “There is something inherently wrong with
that,” David Cahn, an education activist who regularly attends county school
board meetings, said before the board’s vote to consider the policy. “There are
better ways to do this than to take away a person’s rights.”
If the policy is approved, the county would become the only
jurisdiction in the Washington region where the school board assumes ownership
of work done by the school system’s staff and students. David Rein, a lawyer and adjunct law
professor who teaches intellectual property at the University of Missouri in
Kansas City, said he had never heard of a local school board enacting a policy
allowing it to hold the copyright for a student’s work. Universities generally have “sharing agreements”
for work created by professors and college students, Rein said. Under those
agreements, a university, professor and student typically would benefit from a
project, he said. “The way this policy
is written, it essentially says if a student writes a paper, goes home and
polishes it up and expands it, the school district can knock on the door and
say, ‘We want a piece of that,’ ” Rein said. “I can’t imagine that.”
The proposal is part of a broader policy the board is
reviewing that would provide guidelines for the “use and creation” of materials
developed by employees and students. The boards’s staff recommended the policy
largely to address the increased use of technology in the classroom. Board Chair Verjeana M. Jacobs (District 5)
said she and Vice Chair Carolyn M. Boston (District 6) attended an Apple
presentation and learned how teachers can use apps to create new curricula. The
proposal was designed to make it clear who owns teacher-developed curricula
created while using apps on iPads that are school property, Jacobs said.
It’s not unusual for a company to hold the rights to an
employee’s work, copyright policy experts said. But the Prince George’s policy
goes a step further by saying that work created for the school by employees
during their own time and using their own materials is the school system’s
property. Kevin Welner, a professor and
director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado
in Boulder, said the proposal appears to be revenue-driven. There is a growing
secondary online market for teacher lesson plans, he said. “I think it’s just the district saying, ‘If
there is some brilliant idea that one of our teachers comes up with, we want be
in on that. Not only be in on that, but to have it all,’ ” he said.
Welner said teachers have always looked for ways to develop
materials to reach their students, but “in the brave new world of software
development, there might be more opportunity to be creative in ways that could
reach beyond that specific teacher’s classroom.” Still, Welner said he doesn’t see the policy
affecting teacher behavior. “Within a
large district, there might be some who would invest a lot of time into
something that might be marketable, but most teachers invest their time in
teaching for the immediate need of their students and this wouldn’t change
that,” he said.
But it is the broad sweep of the proposed policy that has
raised concerns. “Works created by
employees and/or students specifically for use by the Prince George’s County
Public Schools or a specific school or department within PGCPS, are properties
of the Board of Education even if created on the employee’s or student’s time
and with the use of their materials,” the policy reads. “Further, works created
during school/work hours, with the use of school system materials, and within
the scope of an employee’s position or student’s classroom work assignment(s)
are the properties of the Board of Education.”
Questioned about the policy after it was introduced, Jacobs said it was
never the board’s “intention to declare ownership” of students’ work. “Counsel needs to restructure the language,”
Jacobs said. “We want the district to get the recognition . . . not take their
work.” Jacobs said last week that it was
possible amendments could be made to the policy at the board’s next meeting.
The board approved the policy for consideration by a vote of 8 to 1 last month
but has removed the item from its agenda Thursday.
School systems in the Washington region have policies that
address the use of copyrighted materials, but none has rules that allow
ownership of what a student creates, officials said. Some do address ownership
of employees’ work. The District holds
common law copyright, at a minimum, to all relevant intellectual property its
city and school employees create, a spokeswoman said. In Montgomery County, the school system says
supplies, equipment or instructional materials that are made by a school
employee using “substantial time, facilities or materials” belonging to the
system become the property of the public schools. If the activity is performed
partially on private time and partially on public time, the school
superintendent will approve the arrangement, according to the district’s
conflict-of-interest policy. Peter
Jaszi, a law professor with the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law
Clinic at American University, called the proposal in Prince George’s
“sufficiently extreme.”
Jaszi said the policy sends the wrong message to students
about respecting copyright. He also questioned whether the policy, as it
applies to students, would be legal. He
said there would have to be an agreement between the student and the board to
allow the copyright of his or her work. A company or organization cannot impose
copyright on “someone by saying it is so,” Jaszi said. “That seems to be the
fundamental difficulty with this.” Cahn
said he understands the board’s move regarding an employee’s work, but he
called the policy affecting the students “immoral.” “It’s like they are exploiting the kids,” he
said.
For Adrienne Paul and her sister, Abigail Schiavello, who
wrote a 28-page book more than a decade ago in elementary school for a project
that landed them a national television interview with Rosie O’Donnell and a
$10,000 check from the American Cancer Society, the policy — had it been in
effect — would have meant they would not have been able to sell the rights to “Our
Mom Has Cancer.” Dawn Ackerman,
their mother, said she would have obtained legal advice if there had been a
policy like the one being considered when her daughters wrote their book about
her fight against cancer 14 years ago. “I
really would have objected to that,” Ackerman said. Paul agreed, saying the policy seems to be
ill-conceived. It could stifle a child’s creativity and strip students and
their families of what is rightfully theirs, she said. “I think if you paint a picture, publish a
book or create an invention as a kid, your family — certainly not the school
board — should have the rights to that,” she said.
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