Is Learning Stealing?
Robert Appleton
A surprising thing happened at my university: In a typography class that I’ve taught since 1994, which relates abstract sound and design, I suggest that one of my students explore the theme of making a typeface interact with abstract sound files. And although I realize that at this time in the morning—halfway between breakfast and English Composition—my student is half asleep, I explain that this project is a component of my own research and I’m anxious to open it up to students. So I ask him (Joe) if he wants to work with me. He agrees, does very well, earning himself a good grade, and the result proves once again that my premise to integrate type and sound is valuable both as a teaching tool and as a practical working method.
All of this was in the spring of 2003. I told Joe that I’d show his interactive typebook along with other student works at the Alliance Graphique Internationale Congress in Helsinki that September, where I was to make my first presentation as a new AGI member. And I told him that I wanted to include his piece in an article I was preparing for Graphis about these ideas of mine, and the artistic and educational successes we have had in class. I mentioned to Joe that he would receive credit for his work as both designer and student and I would be credited as both art director and professor.
At this point Joe decided that he wanted to help me further with my research. I applied for a grant, which would pay for equipment costs and a student research assistant. The grant was delayed, but Joe was still interested enough to sign up for a directed study in spring 2004—with no guarantee of payment (a sure sign of willingness).
Spring came, and the grant was still delayed. I couldn’t buy the new software and hardware and I couldn’t pay him. So I did the next best thing—I asked him to assist me with current projects for my clients as well as our second student show. The client work meant I could pay him for his efforts on the student show, and although we were not working on my research, he was learning what it takes (a great deal of effort) to do good design for real clients.
What happens next is where this story takes an unexpected turn.
Joe was graduating at Christmas, and by fall he needed a grade for the directed study he’d done with me the previous spring. He and I had decided at the time that he should take an incomplete and do a second version of his 2003 typebook over the summer—since with our best efforts, we couldn’t begin my new research without the equipment, and I couldn’t grade him on work he’d done for clients of mine. By fall, Joe and I had reached a disagreement over his grade for the directed study: His second version of the interactive typebook—created on his own over the summer—was not very interesting and I believed it was worth a lower grade; he disagreed. He wanted to negotiate the grade, and when I declined to do this, he became upset. Students are under incredible pressure at graduation—when all expectations come rushing in from parents, faculty, university administrators—and most of all from themselves. Joe was probably feeling all this very intensely. My concern was that my research had not been advanced by his directed study. So I came up with a solution: I asked Joe to make one small correction in the drawing of a letterform that had been bothering me since the 2003 interactive typebook and then give me the source files. I could then take these where I felt they needed to go as a teaching tool—with new students. I could give him a better grade for directed study because he would now have helped my research. And he would still have both the first and the second books to use in his portfolio.
I made this suggestion in an email in which I also mentioned the Graphis article again, and he responded with “I see [the typebook] as something that was not done collaboratively or as something that I am willing to hand off. I don’t feel that giving you the source files are worth a better grade. Although it ties into your research it was my design and my concept . . . I don’t think it’s fair to use my work as a starting point.” I emailed him back, pointing out that he was guided through the process stage by stage in class and that he could therefore not claim the entire project as his own original work. I suggested that until he finds his own authentic voice, he should willingly acknowledge influence and help wherever he receives it. And I copied this correspondence to my department chair and other parties.
The department chair asked me for a written explanation of the situation with the student. And he responded with a letter: “In the absence of any articulated agreement, work produced by a student in a class remains under the ownership of that student. . . . Concept is a characteristic of a student’s response to the challenge. . . . Critical review and suggested courses of action to develop and improve a student’s work . . . are . . . not requiring compensation beyond that of a paycheck . . . and . . . it is also not advised to continue this project with another student, as that would further exacerbate the initial complaint.”
This letter sounded like a variation on an idea I’ve heard before—the “work for hire” clause, which some companies still try to enforce—but written from another point of view and giving all rights to a different client, the student.
This response was very disappointing, and I expressed that to my chair and the associate dean. It seemed that in the interest of expediency and the hope that this would all go away, my department was quoting university regulations that didn’t apply. The idea here seems to be this: While I’m teaching others what I know and they don’t, if any students choose to claim my knowledge as their own, then my employer will support them against me and I will be asked to give up ownership of my work. Now, that is completely unacceptable to me—as I believe it would be for any designer with any artistic integrity or personal voice and a contribution to make to a student’s future.
If this decision were correct, it seemed to me, no students could expect a better education than the one they’d receive from a second-rate textbook—because no designer or professor with any original contribution to make would be willing to teach under these circumstances.
Eventually, I was able to reach an intellectual property attorney who is also a former designer. His comment, though not conclusive, helped me resolve the situation temporarily at least. He pointed me to www.copyright.gov (the U.S. Copyright Office’s Web site), where, in the FAQ, it states: “Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something. You may express your ideas in writing or drawings and claim copyright in your description, but be aware that copyright will not protect the idea itself as revealed in your written or artistic work.”
What this has meant, for me at least, is that I could respond to my chair that the university could not prevent me from developing my ideas, and their admonition that I am “not advised to continue this project with another student” is outside the laws of the United States.
Copyright and ownership are complex issues—and it is necessary to interpret them wisely, particularly in education, where the stakes involve the future of our students and the professionals who educate and inspire them.