- This topic has 13 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 4 months ago by
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Oldie but goodie.
Interesting that Guildhall and Digipen (two of the most reputed game schools in the US) coming out and clearly declaring ownership over student games.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3849/controversy_in_the_classroom_.php?print=1
I’m sure this will make a few of the schools in Europe (Qantm, SAE, etc.) sit up and take notice. Possibly Australia as well, as De Blob (Australian Game of the Year), was *apparently* a student game that they bought to further develop.
B.
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Thats rather interesting. I wounder what sort of implications that would have for competitions like dare where the IP must be signed over for the duration of the competition.
I’m very much in the pro-academic institution camp (it’s been good to me) but I have come across a few instances of bizarre, random and stupid bureaucratic nonsense and plain old power tripping that have had an impact on projects.
This could also wind up insuring that even fewer student games ever go into production. Do folks think this will ever generate significant revenue for Universities?
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After talking to the course head here over the last couple of days there seems to be a slightly different take on it in Abertay. While the University does claim copyright on all IP created by students, when it comes to them wanting to use it themselves they seem to encourage the practice, actively getting involved in helping students whether it’s finding a publisher, starting up their own company or even acquiring funding to further develop the title.
The logic behind all this (it seems) is that while the University owns the IP the students are protected from possible exploitation and that, as part of the release of the IP, the students are required to endorse the college. To me that makes much more sense than what Digipen seem to be doing. In general it just seems to be a waste of good ideas.
Also this quote…
"We are not here for people to come and make a game in a less-expensive manner utilizing equipment and software that has student licenses."
…seems rather daft, does he actually believe people would go to a college in order to develop their game for less than it would out in the real world?
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I think that’s disgusting. To think that anything you do there doesn’t belong to you… What a total and utter waste of effort and creativity.
I do like Abertay’s approach though. I took part in Dare so our game belongs to them. But if we ever took it further we could get it back from them.
I do understand the need to protect students, if one in a group walks off they wouldn’t be able to take all their assets with them. But to just keep it permanently is utterly rediculous.
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Weird that students are paying to do a course and then have their i.p. removed. I get that the universities provide an environment and equipment to help stimulate some results, but lets be honest, the barriers to entry of developing a game are fairly low and the real work of ideas and implementation is done by the student. It’s not like they are creating a 2million dollar sillicone plant or a microbiology lab, or even as in the past, access to fast internet connections.
Ultimately, it works as it does because students are naive or don’t think the situation through (no-one is running to tell them differently).. and because much of the stuff made at college isn’t worth taking further. The down side for the university is that clever talented people will avoid them, either by not doing the courses or by saving/hiding good ideas for later. They loose out on the main benefit they might get, which is promotional gains.
Now if it’s a partnership of some sort, say the college uses it’s weight to help a small dev off the ground then thats a different thing, but getting i.p., any i.p. via proxy of "if they come up with anything saleable, we take it", well that doesn’t cut it. Perhaps the first wave of games industry union will come from students forming a game dev union in college? Who knows, go you young radicals, fight the power.
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I think you’ll find in the small writing of all college projects (especially FYP) that the uni owns it and you cant profit from it without their permisson. Although i suspect most uni’s dont really refuse in practise a student making a go of a project, providing the college and people involved are all clearly consulted and acredited prior to any venture.
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Ideas are cheap….execution costs. I’ve supervised lots of projects, including student ones, some of which were innovative enough to have commericial potencial. The ones which have since succeeded are where those people involved have exchanged ideas, improved their concept and increased their chances of success.
Don’t be too hung up on the idea, do however try to achieve a ‘well executed idea’ – and for that your going to need other peoples help(unless you’ve done it all before…in that case you don’t need to read this post) . Where you get that help people or organisations they should be credited/acknowledged in some way. Most of them are glad that you’ve just acknowledged their assistance. It is useful to know what the rules of engagement are – up front.
Investors (the money people) are the ones who will take their pound of flesh and some! The idea has some value if their interested.
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I think you’ll find in the small writing of all college projects (especially FYP) that the uni owns it and you cant profit from it without their permisson.[/quote:6a0b24e989]
As previously discussed here, this is frequently, but not universally, true.The logic behind all this (it seems) is that while the University owns the IP the students are protected from possible exploitation and that, as part of the release of the IP, the students are required to endorse the college. To me that makes much more sense than what Digipen seem to be doing. [/quote:6a0b24e989]
The college feels the need to require students to endorse them to release IP?
Students aren’t minors, the university should not be taking the IP to protect the students from ‘possible exploitation’.I do like Abertay’s approach though. I took part in Dare so our game belongs to them. But if we ever took it further we could get it back from them.
[/quote:6a0b24e989]
Wouldn’t ever sign over something, especially IP, on the basis that your counting on getting it back because everyone will be nice and friendly in future. Not saying don’t make those agreements, but just don’t do so on the basis you’ll definitely get your IP back. -
Note that I’m not commenting upon (nor getting drawn into) the moral side of this debate, just posting from personal first-hand experience (I work extensively for both UK Universities and the Investors (money people) in the specific area of IP registration and ownership).
Investors (money people) would only ever consider an investment if
#1 there is a clear/undisputed/documented chain of ownership in the IP (it’s the only asset of any real value in the venture); and
#2 the ownership in the IP is at least with the startup, and/or will be with them ultimately.Universities will increasingly have to rely upon commercial exploitation of IP for their subsistence (it’s all they output, in real terms, hand-in-hand with sponsored R&D, which has no reason to be unless it creates exploitable IP), and ever-dwindling handouts from government/public authorities.
Put simply, the drive is on and has been on awhile for turning Universities into self-sustaining knowledge-based businesses, rather than part-publicly-sponsored purely academic centres. Needs must, it’s as simple as, and a fact of life. Rightly or wrongly, again I’m not commenting upon that side of it.
As regards the ownership by Universities of their students’ IP, that’s Standard Operating Procedure, has been for donkey’s years regardless of the technical field. The alternative is …DIY/bedroom coding ;)
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The last post sums it up, as soon as you go outside ‘bedroom’ coding there is some exchange of ideas, in college, among your friends or advisers. That’s why NDA’s exist. BTW you also need to be careful about the online services you use and associated ‘terms and conditions’ that apply to ideas communicated over such mediums.
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Universities will increasingly have to rely upon commercial exploitation of IP for their subsistence (it’s all they output, in real terms, hand-in-hand with sponsored R&D, which has no reason to be unless it creates exploitable IP), and ever-dwindling handouts from government/public authorities.[/quote:6ee348a9f0]
That sounds like a rather flawed direction and very much a market approach to a social concern. If it were a realistic business direction, there would be businesses doing it for many years already – the closest we get is large corporation research departments*. And that’s not what universities do*. I’m constantly amazed at the stuff I keep using today that was researched, considered and archived 100 years ago, but for all intents and purposes considered useless from a business perspective at the time*. A university isn’t devised to produce ip, patents or goods, in fact the whole scientific method relies on peer review and openness and pretty much removes such things*. It’s devised to increase the extent of human knowledge*. From a much more pragmatic point of view, good universities increase the economy and standing of the country they reside in, so the kick back is outstanding already*. To cripple it with the tunnel thinking of the neo-conversative, of short term goals or of the bottom line today is cutting off the nose to spite the face.*
[*Citations needed]
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As previous posters have said, each Uni can be different in subtle ways.
The policy in TCD, which has been publicly stated many times, is relatively straightforward: if you’re paid to do the work, the Uni owns it (usually the money comes from a public source like EI / SFI so it is the Unis responsibilty to make sure that our taxpayers money is being put to a use where the taxpayer can get value back). There are internal policies for rewarding inventors where the Uni owns the IP, but these are not public and not relevant here.
In the case of most undergraduate and taught postgraduate work the student is not paid and the IP / copyright is theirs. There is a grey area where the work of the student is highly inspired/influenced by a member of the paid academic staff, in which case some from of joint ownership will apply.
Recently on the IET MSc course (game technology) in TCD, students developed group game projects. In this case, because of the potential minefield, all students signed up to a shared copyright/IP where they agreed as a group to jointly own all content / IP developed, and to allow the University to use that IP for promotion purposes only. This was more by way of informing the students of the potential future pitfalls – i.e. if 1 student on a group decided to commercialise something but another didn’t want them to, then it’s very hard to fully legislate in advance for the outcome.
My own personal view is that ideas are rarely anything but "cheap" (not in the sense of being tacky, but in the sense of being of no value at all unless backed up by a ton of work in the implementation). I prefer students to have a Collegiate approach to their work, and share ideas freely. Anyone who then does the hard work of turning one of these ideas into a product has basically done more than 99% of the real work and deserves the rewards. If you really think you have the next Tetris in your head then keep it to yourself, don’t publish it as a final year dissertation, and get out there and develop it commercially.
Steve
(my own opinions expressed here, and I don’t speak for TCD or any other employer)
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Cheers Ivan, I meant to order that last night, but never got around to it, thanks for reminding me about it :)
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