Report on part of discussion at UCOP of Future Models Subgroup of UC
Copyright Task Force meeting on 12/19/98 by Pam Samuelson

It is already evident that digital documents in networked environments have the potential to be far more than merely digital forms of print documents that are more easily searchable. The plasticity of information in digital form means, among other things, that new classes of functions can be performed on documents in digital form, making the documents themselves more complex objects. Professor Wilensky’s concept of "multivalent documents" captures some of the potential of digital documents to enable new modes of layering, annotating, and causing document components to interact. This in turn enables new forms of collaboration both within the university and between members of the university community and those beyond its walls. Digital documents may also be "live" in the sense that they evolve over time in response to new developments or as new data become available for processing. The compactness of works in digital form means that it is also possible to combine materials that in print form would be too cumbersome, and the flatness of the digital medium means that it is possible to combine text, pictures, graphs, video, audio, and anything else that can be rendered in digital form makes it possible to create much richer "composite" document types. These and other foreseeable developments have important educational uses that the university should encourage. The university should help promote the emergence of new economic and normative ways of responding appropriately to these developments.

Among the concerns identified in our group about the evolution of digital information systems and copyright policy were the following:

• preservation of digital information and archiving
• information that essentially is lost to the literature if not digitized
• access to information if all copies technically protected
• importance of some room for private noncommercial sharing in university environment
• potential for lost creativity if serendipity discouraged by pay-per-use systems (broad searches and lengthy study are essential to new learning)
• integrity and authenticity of information (this document is authentic, and the appropriate identification information, including the name of the author, is associated with it)
• consolidation of publishers
• prohibitively high pricing for scholarly information
• terms and conditions for use of scholarly information that undermine educational and research efforts

A number of policy recommendations, including some at the state or national level, may flow from these concerns.

Because it is not going to be possible to know for a while which new models for teaching, research and scholarly communication will take hold, it is important to develop policies that are flexible and adaptable and based on well-accepted values and principles of academic life. It is also important to develop a process that will allow those policies to be adapted as new developments

Some interesting questions arise as regards the interests of faculty, students, and the university in teaching materials made available on the Web. At the moment, many faculty at UC put the syllabi for their courses on the Web. This not only gives access to their students, but to all students at UC, as well as anyone in the world who might happen upon these syllabi. When faculty link from their syllabi to assigned reading materials also found on the Web, they are sharing even more content with the world. The general sentiment is that this kind of sharing of information with the world is consistent with the educational mission of the university. Some faculty, of course, go further and post their classnotes, outlines, charts, and other materials they or their students prepared for class on the Web. In time, some faculty may also post video clips of their classes on the Web. Given this, is it just a matter of time before someone posts her whole class on the Web? The gift economy of the academy is, to a certain degree, desirable, but should it extend so far?

The posting of a whole class (or substantial portions of it) on the Web would obviously undercut both the market for and function of the university. It raises intellectual property as well as ethical questions. Under the traditional view, faculty have rights in their classnotes and other copyrightable materials they produce in connection with their classes. Should they leave the employ of one university, they are understood to be entitled to reuse their teaching materials elsewhere. When a class taught at a particular university has been videotaped, the university may perceive itself to have an interest in that videotape, and it may not wish for that tape to be disseminated without its permission. Should the university be able to insist on taping a faculty member and then to sell copies of the tape or access to the tape without the faculty member’s permission? What about the students? Students may perceive themselves as having interests both in any contributions they have made as to materials for class (charts, bibliographies, papers, etc.) and in their performances in any taped or broadcast class session. These interests may both be as to privacy matters and as to intellectual property rights. Use of advanced technologies will make this problem space increasingly complex. New norms will need to emerge to mediate among competing interests.