Copyright Ownership policy update January 19

On January 4th we reported that we had to reschedule bargaining on the University Copyright Ownership Policy.  We met with Administration on January 17 and discussed at length administrators' questions and concerns with the PSU-AAUP proposal.

Administration again asserted their desire for blanket approval for use for all faculty created materials.  PSU-AAUP reiterated that faculty members have significant pride of ownership in the materials they create and that individual faculty members want to be able to control how their works are used.  Much of our concern has been focused on the use of the intellectual work embedded in courses in particular, online content developed by faculty.  We discussed the different circumstances where use permissions could be sought in advance, and extenuating instances where permissions could not be sought in advance.  Administration stated they now more fully understand how our proposal would work, and would come back with a counter proposal.

Another outcome of the bargaining session was that Administration communicated they were not interested in getting involved in copyright disputes between faculty members.  Similarly, we do not want to be involved in member against member copyright disputes, we simply want dispute resolution and the ability to seek remedy only in cases where an administrator (acting agent of the University) violates a member's permission.  We see such potential violations akin to a chair going into a faculty member's filing cabinet and handing copyrighted course materials to another instructor to use.  Administration stated that they understand our concerns and may come back with a counter proposal.



EF 1/22/18, JP 1/26/18