http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/copyright+academic_exception+weisser PennTags Feed http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/8276 http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/8276 <p>Williams v Weisser, 273 Cal. App. 2d 726</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This case from 1969 is the second, and by far the most famous,&nbsp;common law decision&nbsp;to establish the concept of an &lsquo;academic exception.&rsquo;&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The case concerns B. J. Williams a professor at UCLA and Edwin Weisser a man who had a business selling class notes to UCLA students.&nbsp; Weisser hired a student to attend Williams&rsquo; class and using the notes the student took created a product that he sold to other students.&nbsp; Williams sued Weisser to stop him from doing this saying that as the owner of the lecture notes he had the right to decide when and how they were published.&nbsp; Weisser disagreed saying that the notes were a work for hire and therefore the university owned the rights and Williams had no grounds to sue.&nbsp; UCLA produced a letter they had sent to all professors saying that they did not make a claim to own any of the professor&rsquo;s lecture notes.&nbsp; The courts eventually ruled that Williams did own the rights to his notes and thus Weisser was in the wrong.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This case is one of the clearest cases establishing the academic exception.&nbsp; There is no other claim for Weisser other than that the notes are a work for hire.&nbsp; When both the employer and the employee deny&nbsp;that&nbsp;and say that the very notion of a university having claim to the copyright of their employees lecture notes is unecessary, then&nbsp;they&nbsp;have established the idea of the academic&nbsp;exception very strongly.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There are downsides to this case with regards the Mauro v Allentown case.&nbsp; First, the case decided the academic exception at the university level and did not address the high school level.&nbsp; However it does establish it for class notes and the Irish medley is a classroom aid similar to a set of class notes, produced by the instructor, and not necessarily essential to the teaching of a class, only beneficial.&nbsp; Second, and more importantly, the case was decided prior to the implementation of the 1976 Copyright Act, which clearly defines the work for hire clause.&nbsp; That definition seems to allow no wiggle room for the academic exception.&nbsp; This means that other decisions would be needed to extend and further establish the academic exception.</p>