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Denver, 12:26 PM
Tue Dec 1
65 posts in the last 24 hours
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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/15/08
11/15/08
11/15/08
Do they take the IP, or just the film rights? By that I mean are you then prohibited from using the property in general (story, characters, etc.), or just the original film?
11/16/08
Keep in mind, this was us using the school's gear...cameras, editing stations, their licensed software. All the school asked for in return was that the films could be used in the school's promotional material--a request the student could deny, if he felt so inclined.
11/16/08
Aha, I see now. So all the school did was request (but not require) limited-use publishing rights. Seems fair to me.
11/15/08
11/15/08
Something about this didn't sound right to me, and then I figured out what it was. George Lucas went to USC as a graduate student. While there he filmed the original short for THX 1138. After graduating, Lucas produced a commercial feature-length version of THX 1138 with financing from Francis Ford Copolla, and Lucas was later able to release that original short film as a bonus feature on the THX 1138 Director's Cut DVD. There is not one single mention of USC anywhere on the packaging, not even in the copyright notice.
Now, I suppose things might have changed in the 38 years since the original short was filmed, but that is one instance suggesting that USC has no ownership of student films. Then again, maybe Lucas' success with his next sci-fi property is what prompted them to get dollar signs in their eyes.
11/15/08
The matter is further complicated because the student in almost all cases is using the resources (physical and mental) of the school's facilities and staff. So while the idea may belong wholly to the student (though this is doubtful in the presence of professors, peers and other mentors), the actual development of a project is often spread among many people.
11/15/08
11/15/08
So if I were to design a game in a rented apartment, I should then expect for my landlord to come ask for a cut of the profits because it was produced on his property? School's already being compensated for your education without expecting you to hand over any highly marketable games you create there. Taking a cut, I can see, but not the whole thing.
11/15/08
11/15/08
Yeah, in my case it'd be the credit union coming after me because they hold my mortgage. And they'd be coming after some of my LEGO designs because I don't really do the software thing. And I'd screw them over by posting the instructions for free.
11/15/08
Graduate students publishing stuff is very different than creating a marketable product so I don't see how that's relevant, and besides when you publish a paper you almost always put the institution right under your name so they're getting credit and publicity from it. They have no reason to stifle that.
All that being said, I'm a graduate student that has co-invented something with the potential to be profitable. We got to sit down with some university lawyers and hammer out an agreement so that we all got some royalties. It sounds like these guys are just trying to skirt around giving the university a share of the profits in a game they own and helped create.
11/15/08
No, it sounds like the college is trying to do the reverse and strip the students of any IP rights. The only way that you lose all rights to any creative property that you come up with is if you're creating it under a work-for-hire contract. As a student, you should never encounter one of those except for purposes of demonstration, so while the college _may_ be able to field an argument that they hold rights to the code involved, they have _NO_ valid claim to the creative IP.
11/15/08
Fine they go there for an education, but surely it's a bonus to their education if they can make a profit while they're there. I'm in my third and final year of a Journalism degree (hoping to go into game journalism...obviously) here in the UK, and our tutors ENCOURAGE us to try to sell our stories, that we've written as part of an assignment, to newspapers.
11/15/08
It's a trade off, you could pay $700 per license to use the software as a student, and not sell the game, or $5000 per license and get the right to sell it.
I'm sure if students were willing to pay for the software in full they could sell it, but they would need to spend atleast $50,000 on commercial software for the full team... or code their own.
11/15/08
Okay, that sorta makes sense, for the actual coded work. If they then take that IP and do a new build from scratch, they should be clean and free. If they don't use any licensed software in the coding process (not sure if it's possible, just saying is all), they should be able to sell the original code. And I'm guessing that if it ever does become an issue, they should just be able to cover the cost of a full licensed copy of any software used and be all legal-like on selling code that they developed with an educational copy, without having to then recode the entire thing.
11/15/08
11/15/08
Totally different situation here. If you are working in a research capacity, it is with the full understanding that the college intends to turn a profit on what you are producing, and you are typically being compensated in the form of a paycheck. If it's just a homework assignment for a class, _you_ are paying _them_ as it is. Consider that when you are doing a thesis for a Masters or PhD, all of that research, which you are doing in as a student, is yours. You can (and sometimes have to) publish a book, which you can then turn a profit on. This is no different. If they're already getting paid to judge the quality of your own personal work, they have no moral right to outright rob you of the IP rights. After all, the whole purpose in being there is to learn how to produce a commercially profitable game, right? How bass-ackwards is it to then say that you've made the game of the year, but you still have to pay full price to obtain a copy of a game you designed from scratch?
The only justafiable claim I can see for them is if a professor actually assists you with some of the code, rather than just telling you what needs to be fixed.
11/15/08
Unfortunately, I've heard horror stories of teachers taking a student's work and profiting from it, claiming it as their own, etc. Just one more way for the school to squeeze more money out of you.
11/15/08
If a teacher does that to you, and you aren't working in some sort of research assistant capacity, then (after you've gotten your grades from that class) you should take him to court, or at the very least report him to the Dean of the college. Tenure is one thing, but if they're pulling that sort of stunt I'm sure they can be forced out.
11/15/08
Maybe I just got screwed over (twice) but it's just been a bit of a tough experience.
11/16/08
You did get screwed. Creative copyright always falls to the person who came up with the idea, so while said teacher might have had some claim on ownership of the code on the basis that you might not have been able to produce it without the teacher's assistance and guidance, they shouldn't be able to touch the IP itself unless they co-created it with you.
11/15/08
11/15/08
11/15/08
11/15/08
Also; this policy of ownership applies to everything from a finished game to the simple sketches and original artwork. If you drew it, wrote it, coded it, or designed it then they own it.
11/15/08
11/15/08
But what is defined as "developed there"? Seriously, if I were to go there and develop my own game on their machines, but do so independently of any of the class curricula, would it still be theirs? I don't think so; not unless they're spying on everything you do and force you to submit every file you create.
So, basically, this encourages students to not put forth their best works and ideas in the classes, since they'll lose them, and just develop them independently. Right?
11/15/08
But yeah, I remember being at DigiPen, and the golden rule was to never make anything you actually cared about within those walls.
11/15/08
11/15/08
It's a school, you're there to learn skills that will gain you a foothold for the industry, not develop your own IP for personal gain. If you are willing to pour your heart and soul into a project that you think could be commercially viable, you use the skills you learned in your class to do so.
Just because it's not something you hold dear, something you have poured countless hours into outside of school doesn't mean that you can't still put out work that is of a high caliber within the required curriculum.
And I would define "developed there" as projects that were made apecifically for class, as outlined by the teacher of said class, developed partly on their hardware, using their software, possibly with input from other students - which to me speaks of anything that would be handed in for academic credit.
11/15/08
So what you're saying is that you're there to learn how to get into the business, but not actually, you know, get into the business? How epic fail...