Cc-uk mailing list

[David M.Berry <d.berry AT sussex.ac.uk>]

Actually this is completely untrue. Academics *technically* do not own 
the copyright to their own work as they are designated as employee's of 
the University, as I am sure you are all well aware, therefore the 
employer owns their intellectual property. The whole situation of 
academics copyright is little discussed or resolved in the UK and I 
expect this to be a flashpoint should the Universities decide to 
capitalise on IP beyond patents. My University, for instance, is very 
clear that it owns the IPR but has chosen not to enforce it on 
copyright... yet...

Therefore again *technically* releasing under a CC license without the 
permission of the employer (i.e. the owner of your academic work, the 
University) is illegal.

The University's are all now shifting their IPR policy and no doubt 
this will mean many academic freedoms will be curtailed or certainly 
challenged by these changes...

See http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/ccf.html

An interesting question is whether this CC license work that has been 
undertaken by academics within their work-time might have the 
unfortunate consequence of actually being owned by their respective 
University.

That would be very ironic.. ;-)

Maybe this a place for CC-UK to start a campaign? As I am sure that 
most academics do not realise that this is actually the case...

- David




On 28 Apr 2005, at 17:09, Paul Harkins wrote:

> Academics can happily use CC licenses for their work because they are 
> salaried. Most songwriters and musicians on the other hand need to 
> make a living from their work.