IP: free enterprise vs. free speech?

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> X-Sender: fuhn () mail ricochet net
> Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 00:20:36 -0700
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: Suzanne Johnson <fuhn () ricochet net>
> Subject: free enterprise vs. free speech?
>
>
>
> An article in 9/9/99 NYT describes an Internet startup called StudentU.com
> that is hiring students at a number of universities and paying them to take
> notes in core courses.  These notes are then posted on a web site and
> offered to others for free.  The income stream for the the new company
> apparently comes from selling banner ads on the site, which is heavily
> visited by college students.
>
> Quotes from the article, by professors who had not realized that their
> classes were being "broadcast" in this way:
>
>
> "I am troubled by it because I, like thousands of faculty members, spent a
> great deal of time developing my courses within a specific intellectual
> context, a context that I control," he said. "For someone who is not
> educated in my field to offer what could be erroneous versions of that
> material, without my permission, strikes me as something which could
> potentially be illegal. It's certainly offensive."
>
> "I'm not unalterably opposed to this dissemination," ... "I'd just like to
> know how wide my audience is. I'm going to get up there and take on the
> policies of the U.S. government, the policies of the Indonesian government,
> the policies of the Chinese government."  "If I think this is something
> that is going to be quoted globally," ... "it may change what I say"
>
> full article:
> Web Venture Puts Class Notes From College Lecture Courses Online, by
> Jacques Steinberg
> http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/09/biztech/articles/09internet-classn
> otes.html