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Education

Prince George’s considers copyright policy that takes ownership of students’ work

By Ovetta Wiggins,February 02, 2013

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School systems in the Washington region have policies that address the use of copyrighted materials, but none has rules that allow ownership of what a student creates, officials said. Some do address ownership of employees’ work.

The District holds common law copyright, at a minimum, to all relevant intellectual property its city and school employees create, a spokeswoman said.

In Montgomery County, the school system says supplies, equipment or instructional materials that are made by a school employee using “substantial time, facilities or materials” belonging to the system become the property of the public schools. If the activity is performed partially on private time and partially on public time, the school superintendent will approve the arrangement, according to the district’s conflict-of-interest policy.

Peter Jaszi, a law professor with the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic at American University, called the proposal in Prince George’s “sufficiently extreme.”

Jaszi said the policy sends the wrong message to students about respecting copyright. He also questioned whether the policy, as it applies to students, would be legal.

He said there would have to be an agreement between the student and the board to allow the copyright of his or her work. A company or organization cannot impose copyright on “someone by saying it is so,” Jaszi said. “That seems to be the fundamental difficulty with this.”

Cahn said he understands the board’s move regarding an employee’s work, but he called the policy affecting the students “immoral.”

“It’s like they are exploiting the kids,” he said.

For Adrienne Paul and her sister, Abigail Schiavello, who wrote a 28-page book more than a decade ago in elementary school for a project that landed them a national television interview with Rosie O’Donnell and a $10,000 check from the American Cancer Society, the policy — had it been in effect — would have meant they would not have been able to sell the rights to “Our Mom Has Cancer.”

Dawn Ackerman, their mother, said she would have obtained legal advice if there had been a policy like the one being considered when her daughters wrote their book about her fight against cancer 14 years ago.

“I really would have objected to that,” Ackerman said.

Paul agreed, saying the policy seems to be ill-conceived. It could stifle a child’s creativity and strip students and their families of what is rightfully theirs, she said.

“I think if you paint a picture, publish a book or create an invention as a kid, your family — certainly not the school board — should have the rights to that,” she said.

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