Today
there is big money in intellectual property (IP) such as computer
software or genetic research, with potential profits far greater
than the average book from an academic press. Many universities
are moving to grab more of the revenue created by the work of
faculty and staff. Academic
institutions now hold more gene patents than the top 25 drug
companies and all biotech firms combined.
IP is an
economic issue, and the PSC has raised the subject in contract
negotiations to ensure that CUNY’s IP policy protects the rights
of faculty and staff. Yet
CUNY management has refused to negotiate.
Instead, management wants to unilaterally impose a new
policy of its own.
What will
that policy look like? A draft is now being circulated, prepared
by the management-controlled “Intellectual Property
Committee.” The biggest change would be to merge CUNY’s
existing policies on copyrights and patents, with a 50-50 split in
royalties for patents and copyrighted software.
This would give more to creators on patents, where their
share of royalties is currently 35%.
But creators currently get 100% of the revenue from all
copyrights; for software, the draft policy would cut that in half.
The
proposal assigns all computer programs and code to the category of
an invention, treating them as if they were patents and subjecting
them to the 50-50 split. Since
computer code can include books on CD-ROMs, on-line books and the
software related to artistic production, this potentially affects
a far, far greater number of people at CUNY than the boost in
royalties from patents. The
draft IP policy would also give CUNY the same interest in distance
education course materials when they were developed with grant
support.
The main
goal of this new policy appears to be the capture of profits from
copyrights on software and distance education, and its
implications are potentially very broad.
“In the future, ‘software’ will include almost
everything we do,” comments Manfred Philipp of Lehman College,
one of two faculty who were on the IP committee. “The stated
purpose of this draft is not to capture the ownership of
copyrights on books and other intellectual creations—but because
of the way it is written, I believe it will end up doing exactly
that.”
CUNY’s
ownership interest in “software” would thus have serious
consequences for academic freedom and intellectual control.
“IP
policy must be part of the contract so that faculty and staff will
be protected,” argued PSC First Vice President Steve London.
“If the policy is unilaterally defined by the Board of
Trustees, we will be at the mercy of whatever they decide to
impose.”
back
to PSC HOME page
other
CLARION
articles