Re: copyright incidents on the nets

A recent post stated:
>
>Some people have asserted that the students papers are not
>"intellectual property," raising some interesting questions about what
>they are asking their students to produce.

On what basis could it be argued that a student's piece of writing or computer program is not subject to copyright and (at least initially) owned by them?

Sure there may be some argument about a few assignments which involve no new expression from the students but I would wager these are a VERY small percentage of tertiary level student work. My maths assignments and maybe one or two of the first year computer assignments are the only ones I can think of. Even the answers I gave in law exams would have had sufficient originality.

Tim Arnold-Moore      | CITRI, RMIT         | Uni. of Melbourne Law School
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Phone: +61 3 282 2487 | Carlton 3053        |       simul iustus
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