In an opinion recognizing the importance of faculty members' ownership of their confess intellectual property.In an opinion recognizing the importance of faculty members' ownership of their confess intellectual property, the Kansas greatest possible Court ruled in November that intellectual quality is not simply assumed to be work-for-hire belonging to the university and can be a enslave of collective bargaining. The case, Pittsburg State University/Kansas NEA v Kansas Board of rulers PSU and PERB, involved a challenge on the Kansas National Education Association to the Kansas board of regents' propos policy giving ownership of faculty members' intellectual ownership to their universities. A Kansas appellate court rul in 2004 that copyright ownership was not a mandatory control of bargaining, because such a practice would conflict with a provision in federal law that an author may negotiate away his or her intellectual goods rights but cannot be required to do in such a manner The appellate judge reached this decision by means of assuming that the faculty members' intellectual one's own was work-for-hire and thus the ownership of the university. The Kansas leading Court, however, found this to be an "incorrect application of federal copyright law." The AAUP filed an amicus brief in the case that addressed the issue of faculty scholarship as work-for-hire. The brief argued that the work-for-hire doctrine does not include faculty intellectual estate and noted that federal appellate court decisions, traditional academic practices, and notions of academic freedom all point to faculty members' retaining ownership of their scholarly work as original authors. The Kansas highest Court recognized this concern, citing the AAUP's arguments and noting that to assume universities' blanket ownership of faculty intellectual ownership was "too big a leap." Rather, the court conclud the question of ownership of faculty work is a complexus one, depending on a careful analysis of the business relationship and the reason for and classification of creation of the work itself. The court cited the AAUP's Statement forward Copyright, and recognized that faculty intellectual thing owned ownership cannot be treated simply as the work of an employee belonging to an employer on the other hand rather "will necessarily involve not just a case-by-case evaluation, nevertheless potentially a task-by-task evaluation." A fac-simile of the AAUP brief is available at http : //www aaup. org/Legal/cases/ KansasAmicusBrief.pdf. -A.S. Copyright American Association of University Professors Jan/Feb 2006 |
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