Coming Attractions: Who Owns Teachers' Work?

Andrew Rotherham

Last year at TIME I took a look at the new websites where teachers can share their work - in some cases for personal profit and in some cases under circumstances where vendors can profit. The idea has great potential - especially with Common Core - for teachers to share work in an anytime/anywhere manner. But as the column noted - greatly upsetting some readers who thought there should simply be no question - there are also a complicated set of legal questions swirling around these sites about who owns content teachers produce in the course of their work. [You can read some terms of use language from key sites here] Not a lot of case law yet but a New York court ruled that school districts own the rights to lesson plans teachers create as part of their employment and with employer provided tools. That's a generally accepted, if infrequently enforced, standard.

Now the National Education Association has released its new statement on digital learning and it includes a statement about the ownership issue seeking to create a new standard - and include this issue in collective bargaining:

...education employees should own the copyright to materials that they create in the course of their employment. There should be an appropriate "teacher's exception" to the "works made for hire" doctrine, pursuant to which works created by education employees in the course of their employment are owned by the employee. This exception should reflect the unique practices and traditions of academia.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 7, 2013 1:10 AM
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