Entrepreneur gets a stern lecture from Cal State

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Recent graduate Ryan Stevens sought to put his business degree from Cal State Sacramento to use by creating a website where students can buy and sell lecture notes, old homework, study guides and other class materials.

The site, NoteUtopia.com, which was launched in August, is intended to function as an online community, a place to network, discuss courses and rate professors. But Stevens, 22, has run afoul of a little-known provision of California's education code that prohibits students from selling or distributing class notes for commercial purposes.

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But legal experts said that notwithstanding California's education code, the question of whether the state can prohibit the sale of lecture notes is far from settled.

When students summarize a lecture, they create a new work that they own under federal copyright law, said James D. Nguyen, Beverly Hills attorney and former chairman of the intellectual property section of the State Bar of California.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-class-notes-20101015,0,7797568.story

[WillParkinson]

1. Wow....

Interesting. I wonder how it'll all play out.

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2. It's a thorny issue, the whole plagiarism thing is a can of worms. nt

[Ian David]

3. The solution here is for professors to transcribe and copyright their lectures as one-man plays. n/t