🚀 go-pugleaf

kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:

>           17 United States Code
>           SECT101. Definitions

> [...]
>      A "work made for hire" is- (1) a work prepared by an employee
>      within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work
>      specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a
>      collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other
>      audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a
>      compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer
>      material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly
>      agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall
>      be considered a work made for hire.
> [...]

Traditionally, however, academic employees own the rights to journal 
articles and textbooks that they right while employed by a University,
even though publishing these is consider a prerequisite for tenure and
promotion.  In fact, professors frequently write class notes, teach
from them, and later publish the notes as a textbook.  Even though 
they were originally created for a class (and teaching is clearly 
within the scope of a professor's duties), universities claim no rights.

This is probably a matter of tradition, not law, and might very well
not carry over into software, although I know professors who have
published software and don't give any portion of the royalties to their
employers.
-- 
Thomas Insel (tinsel@uiuc.edu)
  "All television is children's television." -- Richard P. Adler