"Famous Last Words"

Who Owns Student Work Product? (November 2008)

Dear Jim:

I'm a student working toward a degree in a game design and development program at the university level.

Our school claims it is the owner of IP we create on school projects.

This doesn't seem fair to me. Can they do that?

Future Studio Member

Dear Future:

First of all, congratulations on undertaking your studies! I know it is not easy – there is a lot to learn in a field that demands high level skills and hard work.

It is difficult for me to see any scenario where your school could truly claim to own IP rights in the classroom or class project work product you create.

Under U.S. copyright law, copyright subsists in the name of the creator of a work from the moment it is first fixed in a tangible form of expression.

This means that from the time you fix a pixel on a screen (and save it to your hard disk), or write a line of code, copyright in that tangible asset (the graphic or the code) resides with you.

Until there is some written transfer, no one but the author has rights.

The way this is handled in a studio, once you take a job, is that each employee is an employee-for-hire, and ownership of work product from employees flows to the studio. Many studios have written employee agreements that clarify this. But even if they did not, as employees, if work product is created using company equipment, on company time, relating directly to company projects, and the employee is working within the scope of his or her job responsibilities, that work would belong to the company.

It is hard to see how these work-for-hire concepts could be applied to student work. After all, going to school is not a job. You are not getting paid twice a month!

Another theory under which the school could claim to own the IP could be that as “producer,” it is the author of the work for copyright purposes.

At best, such a claim would probably require active production participation that goes beyond classroom instruction and feedback, and may require that the project be undertaken by teams of students. Individual work would be extremely hard to shoehorn into the “producer” model.

A final possibility may be that students sign an agreement when entering the program transferring ownership of classroom IP to the institution. Such a document could exist; but I have never heard of, nor seen, such a procedure in place.

Educational institutions and degree programs are meant to help students gain skills needed to pursue a career. They are not depositories for potentially valuable intellectual property rights.

Be sure you know what you are being asked to sign when you enter a program. And always ask for and retain copies of all documents you sign.

When I was an undergraduate I made two 8mm movies (in those old primitive days). Both were critiqued by my instructors. Both were important learning experiences. But there was never any question but that all rights in my work belonged to me!

If educational institutions insist on holding rights in student IP, I believe it would be worthwhile to begin a dialogue on campus with the administration to explore the issue, come to a full understanding, and factor that in to decisions on where you want to study.