Ethan Kennerly

Today I see this continuation of Jim's topic on Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3849/controversy_in_the_classroom_.php). With two dozen articulate comments ensuing.

And Ian Schreiber asks on the IGDA education list:

As for the IP ownership column (hooray for Jim!), it makes me wonder -- is anyone here at a school that claims IP rights to student work, and if so, how is this enforced? Is there a contract that students sign upon matriculation, or is it simply the school making a loud claim and hoping it never goes to court?

In the USC School of Cinema and the Interactive Media Division, I've heard conflicting opinions from students and teachers. Since I've personally invested the last year and a half of my labor at HOME using FREELY available software to construct my thesis, I wanted a clearer answer. According to the USC IP policies (http://policies.usc.edu/policies/intellectualproperty040301.pdf), all students own their own work unless: 1) USC paid them, 2) it was a film or music, or 3) facilities were used to make the work (e.g., shoot a film on their stage with their equipment).

If a student work contains software, patentable subject matter, one or more inventions or other intellectual property and the student used a significant amount of USC facilities, funds, resources or supplies in developing the work, the University owns the underlying intellectual property in the student work.

The University owns the copyright on any student-produced films or other audiovisual work. The
student author, though, retains ownership subject to a nonexclusive license to the University of
rights to the treatment, script or other written work product related to any such audiovisual work.

That was better than the rumors, but still troubling what "significant" means, especially in the context of software. USC has full film production facilities, where you could make a film here. But it's software production facilities are not comprehensive.

The FAQ (http://policies.usc.edu/policies/IPPQ_A_102201.pdf) reiterates and covers a bit more.

Even though I don't plan to commercialize my thesis (I'm in school to learn), and think that aiming to sell a game from within school is oftentimes counterproductive to learning game design: I don't agree with those policies in full, and personally, I am operating under the fair and reasonable belief that my effort is my own.