V-cs reject beefed-up copyright

Vice-chancellors have given the thumbs down to the Association of University Teachers' proposals for a "fairer" agreement on intellectual property rights between academics, their employers and publishers.

The AUT had been hoping for support from the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals for its proposed model agreement on intellectual property.

But a CVCP spokesman said: "The union's proposals are far too prescriptive. As such the CVCP feels unable to take them forward as they stand."

The union wants to ensure that academics "maintain control over their work to the greatest extent reasonable and practicable. They should retain copyright on material produced during the course of their duties ... and be strongly encouraged in all cases to license rather than assign their copyright to publishers".

The AUT also proposes that the intellectual property rights to any invention produced in the course of an academic's employment should belong to the employer but be "subject to an obligation on the latter to exploit it or assign it back to the inventor, and to enter into a revenue-sharing agreement with the inventor".

In addition, the union wants an agreed arbitration procedure to resolve disputes in the area.

A CVCP spokesman said: "There are no differences between the two bodies on limiting publishers' autonomy, but in other areas, we did not feel the proposals advanced much on what the CVCP has already said about intellectual property."

The CVCP said the union is asking institutions to forgo rights and returns on intellectual property to an extent that would be counter-productive. "Universities in general are pretty fair and have a lot of regard for creators of intellectual property and their rights," said the spokesman.

Paul Cottrell, assistant AUT general secretary, said the union intends to respond to the CVCP's comments and plans to redraft its document. He said:

"We will make the proposals less legalistic and technical and more easily understandable."

The union will then issue the document to its local associations, which will be asked to compare the proposals with any existing agreement. "They may want to consider renegotiating the existing deal, perhaps bring in elements of our proposals," said Mr Cottrell. "If there is no existing arrangement, they could offer up ours to institution management."