Intellectual Property has been explained as a distinct category of creations of the mind for which property rights are recognized. Under IP regulation, proprietors are granted certain exclusive right to an assortment of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, artistic works, discoveries and invention, word, phrases, symbols and designs. Common types of IP include copyrights, trademarks, patents, and industrial design right and trade secrets in some jurisdictions.
That’s the legal or official description.
Now let’s mull over the case of celebrated professors in those renowned universities. Some of them will soon start taking their IP rights very seriously and will initiate a copyright claim to the ideas that they spread in their classrooms. Their take: “I, the professor own my ideas and these may not be distributed without my permission”
The elementary and indispensable predicament here on this take is how the heck do you put into effect IP rights and support the idea of a university which after all is all about teaching and distributing ideas to all. The concept appears exceedingly bizarre.
The idea looks as if one is charging for the education and not for the degree. One can either distribute ones idea freely in the classroom or enter into a contract with the students somewhat in the following lines:
My {teachings, instructions, sermons, speeches, lectures, etc.} are protected by copyright law. They are my own innovative phrases and I document/record them at the same time that I deliver them in order to secure protection. You the students are authorized to make one set of notes only for your own personal use ONLY. You are not authorized to record my lectures, to distribute your notes to anyone else, to make a copy or to use them for any commercial gains without taking any prior permission form me.
Oh! Really? There goes the spirit of education.
Our minds are not made up like Hard Drives that can be wiped off clean after the semester is over. The universities objective is to distribute knowledge, not to award a one time use for what you are taught in the classroom. The idea of an individual student is to gain knowledge which can be used in every probable way during his life span and leave behind those ideas to others.
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