Universities and article copyright

In all the debates about copyright and intellectual property in recent years, the battle lines have tended to be drawn between librarians and publishers. This neglected what in some ways is the most important player of all, the employer. There seems little doubt that the university owns the copyright in articles, and universities are beginning seriously to turn their attention to this. Whether the article is in printed and/or electronic form probably makes no difference in law to ownership, but custom and practice are important here. A study has just been completed by the Centre for Educational Systems at Strathclyde University at the request of the Funding Councils to review current practice and benchmark the present position against future action. Higher education has turned itself into big business and as a result is beginning to contemplate more fully how to manage its assets. The total turnover in the sector now exceeds £10 billion pounds per annum. An 'average' university will have a turnover in the region of £120-150 million, less than half of which comes directly from the state. More than half of funds now come from a combination of overseas student fees, competitively tendered research grants, endowment income and intellectual property rights. This last can increasingly represent several millions of pounds and the figure is growing. Quite apart from some of the ownership questions raised below, staff structures are increasingly organized to allow some staff additional research time for the benefit of all. Universities have no other purpose than the creation, dissemination, understanding and development of knowledge, and it is inevitable that intellectual property asset management is an area of growing concern

Generating Rembrandt: Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, and Accountability in the 3A Era--The Human-like Authors are Already Here- A New Model

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are creative, unpredictable, independent, autonomous, rational, evolving, capable of data collection, communicative, efficient, accurate, and have free choice among alternatives. Similar to humans, AI systems can autonomously create and generate creative works. The use of AI systems in the production of works, either for personal or manufacturing purposes, has become common in the 3A era of automated, autonomous, and advanced technology. Despite this progress, there is a deep and common concern in modern society that AI technology will become uncontrollable. There is therefore a call for social and legal tools for controlling AI systems’ functions and outcomes. This Article addresses the questions of the copyrightability of artworks generated by AI systems: ownership and accountability. The Article debates who should enjoy the benefits of copyright protection and who should be responsible for the infringement of rights and damages caused by AI systems that independently produce creative works. Subsequently, this Article presents the AI Multi- Player paradigm, arguing against the imposition of these rights and responsibilities on the AI systems themselves or on the different stakeholders, mainly the programmers who develop such systems. Most importantly, this Article proposes the adoption of a new model of accountability for works generated by AI systems: the AI Work Made for Hire (WMFH) model, which views the AI system as a creative employee or independent contractor of the user. Under this proposed model, ownership, control, and responsibility would be imposed on the humans or legal entities that use AI systems and enjoy its benefits. This model accurately reflects the human-like features of AI systems; it is justified by the theories behind copyright protection; and it serves as a practical solution to assuage the fears behind AI systems. In addition, this model unveils the powers behind the operation of AI systems; hence, it efficiently imposes accountability on clearly identifiable persons or legal entities. Since AI systems are copyrightable algorithms, this Article reflects on the accountability for AI systems in other legal regimes, such as tort or criminal law and in various industries using these systems

Make the butterflies fly in formation? Management of copyright created by academics in UK universities

Universities have increasingly become aware of the fact that the intellectual property (IP) rights that attach to the work of their academics could become significant and valuable assets to the university as an institution and economic organisation. The study involved analysis of the copyright and intellectual property policies of universities in the UK and the interviewing of specialised representatives of universities in relation to the policies of their respective institutions. The principal question of the study was the way in which university policies deal with the issue of ownership of copyright generated by academic staff, which proved to be a sensitive area. University policies presume that, by default, they own all work that academics create as their employees. There seems to be insufficient appreciation of the differentiated legal interpretation of the employees' copyright rule. At least in relation to core academic work (scholarly books and journal articles in particular), initial copyright ownership by the university, by virtue of the statutory employee-copyright rule, is highly doubtful. As a result of the universities' principal position with regard to ownership, university IP policies have resorted to complicated and artificial assignment and licencing provisions, with questionable enforceability

Libre culture: meditations on free culture

Libre Culture is the essential expression of the free culture/copyleft movement. This anthology, brought together here for the first time, represents the early groundwork of Libre Society thought. Referring to the development of creativity and ideas, capital works to hoard and privatize the knowledge and meaning of what is created. Expression becomes monopolized, secured within an artificial market-scarcity enclave and finally presented as a novelty on the culture industry in order to benefit cloistered profit motives. In the way that physical resources such as forests or public services are free, Libre Culture argues for the freeing up of human ideas and expression from copyright bulwarks in all forms

AI-Generated Fashion Designs: Who or What Owns the Goods?

As artificial intelligence (“AI”) becomes an increasingly prevalent tool in a plethora of industries in today’s society, analyzing the potential legal implications attached to AI-generated works is becoming more popular. One of the industries impacted by AI is fashion. AI tools and devices are currently being used in the fashion industry to create fashion models, fabric designs, and clothing. An AI device’s ability to generate fashion designs raises the question of who will own the copyrights of the fashion designs. Will it be the fashion designer who hires or contracts with the AI device programmer? Will it be the programmer? Or will it be the AI device itself? Designers invest a lot of talent, time, and finances into designing and creating each article of clothing and accessory it releases to the public; yet, under the current copyright standards, designers will not likely be considered the authors of their creations. Ultimately, this Note makes policy proposals for future copyright legislation within the United States, particularly recommending that AI-generated and AI-assisted designs be copyrightable and owned by the designers who purchase the AI device

Regulating Data as Property: A New Construct for Moving Forward

The global community urgently needs precise, clear rules that define ownership of data and express the attendant rights to license, transfer, use, modify, and destroy digital information assets. In response, this article proposes a new approach for regulating data as an entirely new class of property. Recently, European and Asian public officials and industries have called for data ownership principles to be developed, above and beyond current privacy and data protection laws. In addition, official policy guidances and legal proposals have been published that offer to accelerate realization of a property rights structure for digital information. But how can ownership of digital information be achieved? How can those rights be transferred and enforced? Those calls for data ownership emphasize the impact of ownership on the automotive industry and the vast quantities of operational data which smart automobiles and self-driving vehicles will produce. We looked at how, if at all, the issue was being considered in consumer-facing statements addressing the data being collected by their vehicles. To formulate our proposal, we also considered continued advances in scientific research, quantum mechanics, and quantum computing which confirm that information in any digital or electronic medium is, and always has been, physical, tangible matter. Yet, to date, data regulation has sought to adapt legal constructs for “intangible” intellectual property or to express a series of permissions and constraints tied to specific classifications of data (such as personally identifiable information). We examined legal reforms that were recently approved by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law to enable transactions involving electronic transferable records, as well as prior reforms adopted in the United States Uniform Commercial Code and Federal law to enable similar transactions involving digital records that were, historically, physical assets (such as promissory notes or chattel paper). Finally, we surveyed prior academic scholarship in the U.S. and Europe to determine if the physical attributes of digital data had been previously considered in the vigorous debates on how to regulate personal information or the extent, if at all, that the solutions developed for transferable records had been considered for larger classes of digital assets. Based on the preceding, we propose that regulation of digital information assets, and clear concepts of ownership, can be built on existing legal constructs that have enabled electronic commercial practices. We propose a property rules construct that clearly defines a right to own digital information arises upon creation (whether by keystroke or machine), and suggest when and how that right attaches to specific data though the exercise of technological controls. This construct will enable faster, better adaptations of new rules for the ever-evolving portfolio of data assets being created around the world. This approach will also create more predictable, scalable, and extensible mechanisms for regulating data and is consistent with, and may improve the exercise and enforcement of, rights regarding personal information. We conclude by highlighting existing technologies and their potential to support this construct and begin an inventory of the steps necessary to further proceed with this process

Rights in a Cloud of Dust: The Value and Qualities of Farm Data and How Its Property Rights Should Be Viewed Moving Forward

Historically, technology growth has been slower in agriculture than other industries. However, a rising demand for food and an increase in efficient farm practices has changed this, leading to a rise in precision farming technologies. Now, entities that provide services or information to farmers need precision farming technologies to compete, and more farmers are adopting precision farming technologies. These technologies help farmers, but questions still remain about ownership rights in the data that farmers create