Video Game Schools Claim Ownership Of Games Created By Students
from the your-first-lesson-in-copyright... dept
An anonymous reader submitted an interesting article about a growing controversy among students at various video game universities, over who owns the copyrights to the games developed by students. The well known DigiPen Institute, for example, makes it clear that all work created by students is actually owned by DigiPen, and this is upsetting some students. Even though DigiPen makes this clear (and even tells students not to submit anything they "hold dear"), it seems troubling for a variety of reasons. It makes little sense for DigiPen to retain the copyrights here. It is quite different than when someone is working for a commercial company and developing games for them as an employee. With DigiPen, these are students who are paying to learn to create video games. As someone notes, if you paint a painting in art school, the copyright doesn't belong to the art school.DigiPen's reasoning does not make much sense, either, claiming that it needs to do this to "avoid misunderstandings" between DigiPen and the gaming industry. However, it does not explain what those misunderstandings would have been. The whole thing seems questionable, and as some folks note in the article, diminishes DigiPen's reputation. First of all, it likely does (as it should) scare off some of the better prospective students, who fear having DigiPen "own" their creations. Secondly, the way the program is structured, it makes it that much harder to learn if the school itself is telling students not to actually make use of their best ideas.
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Filed Under: intellectual property, video games
Companies: digipen
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Not unusual
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Re: Not unusual
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Re: Not unusual
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Re: Not unusual
First off, when a student works at a university research lab, they are effectively employees of the university. You are using their labs, their tools, and their resources. They are paying you, and so they get first claim to any IP you generate. It is not the same if you submit an assignment to a class.
These are not students working as employees of a research lab. These are student assignments. Claiming ownership of them is disingenuous at best, and troubling at worst. What happens if you turn in a short story to your creative writing teacher? Do they get to turn around and sell it to the movie industry? Of course not. Video games are no different than any other creative student work. They are not research material.
I used to work for the Univ. of California (SB) in a Chemical Engineering research lab, so my experience comes from that. They were quite explicit about what was and was not owned by the university. And where I a regular student and NOT a researcher, they would have had no such claim.
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Re: Re: Not unusual
I get paid for working in Labs!? I don't have to pick up a temp job to pay next month's rent!? I must barge into my campus ASAP and DEMAND I get paid!
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Re: Re: Not unusual
When I submitted the dissertation for my MA the University were quite clear I wouldn't be able to further reproduce or publish it without consent, as they'd own the copyright.
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Re: Re: Not unusual
But, having seen it from the inside, I can honestly say there is a ridiculous amount of "concern" over IP and infringing on ANYONE in ANY WAY and that mindset seems to dovetail quite nicely into the idea of ownership over anything a student creates...
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Re: Re: Re: Not unusual
The cost of Visual Studio is rather large and it's provided on every machine. The educational version is quite a bit more reasonable. One of the things they are afraid of is the perceived (real or not) ramifications of anyone making any money off of a product developed under educationally licensed software.
Also, DigiPen is providing hardware as well as software and the whole school is pretty much a lab environment so I fail to see much differentiation from the research lab mentioned previously.
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Re: Re: Not unusual
So... aren't the students that write the video games using school equipment? In which case, your argument makes it a moot point, and anything done on school equipment becomes school property.
Otherwise, I would agree, if I create something, *I* own it, not the school. But I would try to do most of my work on my own system, or just go to a different school that wouldn't try to claim ownership.
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My 2 Cents
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Re: My 2 Cents
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It's not like they are being duped into it or forced to do it. Another great thing about America, choice. They can choose a different school if they want.
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This Ain't GPL, Folks
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Re: This Ain't GPL, Folks
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However, looking back, I should have been able to retain the copyright. I used the university library, and at some point university computers to prepare the thesis, but through my course fees, I was paying to use the universities library, and computers.
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Re:
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exploitative
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Ownership
Any work generated by the student is theirs but Freelance does have the right to use it to promote the school.
Seems fair to me.
Digipen's copyright claim sounds extreme.
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Unenforceable
They can claim they retain ownership all they want, it doesn't make it true.
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It was the same in Computer Science; at All Universities
Absolutely Ridiculous / troublesome. It sounds like DigiPen is just following the 'industry standard' for this sort of thing.
I never quite understood it; and do not agree with it. But, it sounds like a pretty good business model from a business owner perspective. I think I'm going to patent it.
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Re: It was the same in Computer Science; at All Universities
> the school owned the rights to stuff you wrote,
> even if it was on your own time, in your own
> place, on your own equipment, and had no relation
> to school assignments. It was definitely a tricky
> issue for those working full time jobs and
> getting a degree at night. As long as you were
> a student they could lay claim.
They could lay all the claims they like. Doesn't mean they're valid or that a court will enforce them.
The idea that a university owns every thought that goes through my head for the four years I'm enrolled there is beyond ridiculous, especially if the don't have a specific contract with my signature on it that says I agree to it. And no, handbook manuals and school policies do not count as binding contracts.
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Located ?
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Liar liar pants on fire
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Google was a research project...
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Assuming that "work for hire" does not apply (likely the case for one attending the school who is merely a student), a claim by the school that it holds copyright must be shown via a written assignment from the student to the school that also meets all legal requirements for a contract. Simply saying "We have a policy" is interesting, but irrelevant.
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Common school rule
Many schools use this very same rule to prevent you from reusing your own work in multiple classes. To turn it in twice (different assignments/classes) is plagiarism (against the schools copyrighted work). If someone else uses your homework, the school considers it plagiarism against their copyright.
Right or wrong, for better or worse, those are the rules and are made known to you when you sign up (read those silly papers and handbooks they give you). You can always go somewhere else (vote with your dollars and feet).
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Re: Common school rule
Handbooks are not contracts. Neither are school policies. The schools need a signed contract in hand, and that contract must meet all legal requirements to be enforceable. One interesting case would be where the student is below the age of "majority". In some jurisdictions such contracts can be terminated sua sponte by the "minor".
"Anything you hand in as an assignment (homework, thesis, program, etc...) becomes property of the school."
Perhaps the documents themselves, but that is an issue totally separate from copyright law.
"...if you were employed by the school...". Different rules pertain to "employees", but the question to be answered is whether or not a student is in fact an employee. The burden is on the school to demonstrate the student's status as an employee, which is no easy matter and subject to more exceptions than I can begin to count.
"Right or wrong, for better or worse, those are the rules and are made known to you when you sign up (read those silly papers and handbooks they give you)."
These are interesting pieces of paper, but of no moment unless somewhere the school can present an actual contract that is fully compliant with state law. Barring a contract, the school is on this (if non-existent) legal ground.
Remember, under US copoyright law there are essentially two ways to transfer copyright from the author to a third party, namely a contract or under "work for hire" that pertains to an employee.
Patent law has somewhat different legal requirements, but there are many permutations that call into question whether or not a school can claim ownership of inventions, and one particularly thorny problem facing such schools is if the work is done by a non-employee student performing under a federal funding agreement.
To say "Contrary to the previous post" is terribly misleading since in many, if not most, instances the school faces a very difficult hurdle it has to clear if it hopes to have any chance of successfully asserting ownership of patents and copyrights associated with student work.
Remember, here the issue concerns the typical student, and not an employee of the school, and in such circumstances the law generally defaults in favor of the original author and original inventor.
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Re: Re: Common school rule
> policies.
I agree with everything you said here. Glad I read through all the comments before writing all this out myself.
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This might hold back the good work
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Maybe I'm the only one...
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A Sensible Policy
"The University does not assert rights in student work, unless the student is also an employee of the University and the work is prepared in the context of that employment."
Granted, they do have different policies regarding research, but at the very least I get to own anything I write as part of my undergraduate coursework. Yay for a sensible policy!
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Work Around
Essentially, there's a class called GAM that students take every year. It's a year long class where students get into a team of 3-5 people and make a game over the course of the year with the teachers acting as 'The Publisher'.
It's a good system for learning, but terrible if you wanna try to distribute or sell it. So don't put good ideas into your GAM project is the crucial :
THE WORKAROUND!!! =D I'm gonna be making a game Senior year that i think can attract some attention. So for my GAM project, i'll be turning in tic-tac-toe or something small. While me and my teammates work on the real game mostly.
Digipen's cool with it. So we're cool with it. :) It sucks i can't get credit for it, but i'd rather retain rights than get an A.
That's my two cents.
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Educational Liscenses
Digipen retains the rights to software and art created by its students to prevent them from trying to sell it. At first glance that seems pretty harsh. But consider this, even if Digipen did not retain the copyrights, the student is still legally not supposed to sell it. If you do, and if it is discovered, you put yourself in the direct sights of legal action by the software company whose software you used to create the product.
Digipen is not being evil and unreasonable, it's actually trying to protect its students from legal action. There is no provision in Digipen's student agreement that prevents students from buying professional licenses and working on their own projects at home. I should know, I happen to attend. There are no provisions preventing you from using your work in portfolios while seeking jobs. As a matter of fact, Digipen actually actively assists students in getting internships, and the last time I checked our job placement rate was over 90%.
This whole thing is a lot of hot air about nothing. Key point: even if Digipen did not hold the copyrights you still couldn't sell it, and you'd be possibly royally screwed if you tried.
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They aren't doing it to steal work from students, it is done to protect not only Digipen but the Students as well. If someone else steals a students work or idea, a student would not be able to "go after" them in court etc. Digipen will and has.
It also get's students used to how it is in the industry, if you work for Lucasarts and you come up with a game idea while at work it belongs to Lucasarts, not you.
And seriously, you shouldn't be worried about the stuff you create while at school, if that's the best you can do and you can't excel to do better than you have bigger issues than who owns the copyright to last weeks assignment.
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The flipside of that is: Students created a game called Narbacular Drop. It later became the basis for Portal. Then students made a game called Tag. This became the basis for new ideas brought forth in Portal 2. So, if those students never developed their game concepts because they thought their ideas had value, Valve would never have found these people.
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Perhaps it is hard to understand if you haven't been through DigiPen, but in most cases students really do not have enough time to create a profitable game to turn in while studying there. My understanding is that the rule makes it easier for students to collaborate freely within the school and have their work protected from other students who may try to claim the work as their own. All the games made at DigiPen are free to download if you want proof that there is not many profitable games. While studying you are able to demonstrate your ability with the game projects and be recognized for your potential. However, anything you make as a student, you are going to want to remake in a much better way after you graduate and have time to be working full-time on the game.
Some students will disagree with my opinion on this, but of all the complaining I hear around DigiPen, I actually don't hear many complaints about this issue.
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