Re: L.Rev (C) Release

On Mon, 15 Nov 1999, Bert R. Boyce <lsboyc[_at_]lsu.edu> wrote:
>
> If Mr. Hayden is correct, it would seem that thousands of faculty
> members over the last century have been conveying copyright that they
> did not own to publishers. I would thus assume that the publishers
> really don't own the copyright they have been so seriously exploiting
> in the learned community, and that there is hope for a free electronic
> exchange of previously fixed expressed ideas which may allow big science
> to continue to flourish. IMHO "a consummation devoutly to be wished."

I am not advocating that faculty do not have any rights, but most often I doubt that they have the right to either transfer the copyright, or enter into an exclusive license.

Of course, you then get into the actual and apparent authority problem. University policies may be sufficient to give the faculty the actual authority to grant nonexclusive licenses to their works. However, I think in industry, this is probably not true. In my experience as in-house counsel, I have seen any number of instances where "authors" of publications sign exclusive assignments of the copyrights to their publications. Needless to say, they almost never have either the actual, nor probably the apparent authority to enter into this sort of agreement.

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The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 1999 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
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Bruce E. Hayden                      bhayden[_at_]acm.org
Phoenix, Arizona                     bhayden[_at_]ieee.org
                                     bhayden[_at_]copatlaw.com