Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Why do some professors ban recording in class?
- Thread starter waloshin
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I guess they want that students concentrate on his speech in classes. If you can record it, then you don't have to do anything in the class, or you just goof around and disturb the others.
Here's another thought. You can find certain classes and lectures online (iTunes University). If I were a professor, I would want to be in control of which lectures, when and where they get posted, and by whom they are posted. Some classes can be taught by pod casts and on-line techniques. Some can't.
No. Unless a professor is putting forth an original theory, it is not their 'intellectual property" to claim or protect. It's highly unlikely that a lecture class will be getting any groundbreaking new theory these days.
It's probably just because the professor feels uncomfortable, or they want people to pay attention in class.
I think its more paying attention then anything. Especially if the professor uses some visual aides, like a projector, white board, computer, etc.
Recording only captures so much, and when he's using something visual and the student is just sitting there letting the tape recorder do its thing, the risk of missing stuff is high.
Recording only captures so much, and when he's using something visual and the student is just sitting there letting the tape recorder do its thing, the risk of missing stuff is high.
But the speech itself would probably fall under copyright. The facts in it might not be copyrightable, but the actual speech certainly is. Whether that's their motivation or not, I have no idea.
I did not mean it in the sense of "original theory". The lesson is his work which he prepared and presented and has a "copyright" on it. Let's say a student records it and sells afterwards. I would say that is not legal.
EDIT: strider42 beat me to it.
It's not legal to sell it, but it would certainly fall under "fair use" to record and play it back later. Nothing prevents anyone from covertly recording the lecture in the first place.
edit: At least not according to US law. Can't say how things work in other countries.
I'm no expert on copyright law, but I really doubt that it "certainly" falls under fair use. Fair use has been used to time shift or format shift works that were legitmately bought and controlled by the end user. Simply taping a performance (and a lecture could be considered a performance) is not the same thing. The professor has the copyright, that is, the right to make copies.
Its illegal to make bootleg copies of a concert, even for your own use for the same reason.
I could be wrong about parts of that, or all of that, but that's ,y udnerstanding of fair use. Its not a catch all that allows you do anything you want so long as its for personal use.
There are several private companies that will pay students for their lecture notes and recordings and then offer them for sale to future students of the course.
This is at the bottom of my syllabus:
Copyright Notice: Copyright Prof Name 2010. All federal and state copyrights in my lectures and course materials are reserved by me. You are authorized to take notes in class for your own personal use and for no other purpose. You are not authorized to record my lectures or to make any commercial use of them or to provide them to anyone else other than students currently enrolled in this course, without my prior written permission. In addition to legal sanctions for violations of copyright law, students found to have violated these prohibitions may be subject to University disciplinary action under the Code of Student Conduct.
This is at the bottom of my syllabus:
Copyright Notice: Copyright Prof Name 2010. All federal and state copyrights in my lectures and course materials are reserved by me. You are authorized to take notes in class for your own personal use and for no other purpose. You are not authorized to record my lectures or to make any commercial use of them or to provide them to anyone else other than students currently enrolled in this course, without my prior written permission. In addition to legal sanctions for violations of copyright law, students found to have violated these prohibitions may be subject to University disciplinary action under the Code of Student Conduct.
that one is very common. I know some departments at TTU had problems with some companies buy test off students and making copies and selling them. They end up pressing charges and suing them to get them to stop.
Another reason is a lot of professors will =give lectures that they make money off of so they do not want those recording being sold or given out for free.
People to pay attention in class is common. Most I find do not have an issue with it but some do. I honestly do not record them because the recording is generally useless with out the diagrams that go with it.
Correct on the "personal use" as applied to the concert example, but that's not the situation. In an educational setting, "fair use" of material in the broad sense for scholarly purposes exempts whoever is using the material from obtaining permission from the rights holder.
Now, that is a very open statement (what is "scholarly" in purpose, etc), but it could easily be argued as a case for recording a lecture for at-home studying. If you've signed something that explicitly states you cannot record a lecture that's also a different case, but unless it's in writing it's merely a professional request and not legally binding.
I've heard about that exemption for showing videos to classes, or quoting short parts of an existing work for scholarly reasons, but that is nto what is happening here. Certainly, the person could use the lecture for a paper if they cite the professor, but I don't think its so cut and dry that they definitely have the right to make the recording. I've never heard of any case law about it at all. For instance, its not legal for me to make a full copy of a text book and claim thats for scholarly purposes, even if I'm using it for studying or a paper. Even professors need to pay attention to thsi when using excerpts of books in compilations style "readers". These cost students far more money than the printing costs because they need to reimburse the rights holders. But its being used for scholarly purposes.
Fair use is definitely a gray area and is much more limited in scope than many people think. My point is that people try to use it as an excuse to do what they want, and its often just not true, or at least debateable.
Certainly. Fair use gets exploited all the time (ahem...Wikileaks -> "Journalism").
I had a lecturer who said this, but then posted all his notes and slides up to our university website, rendering his argument invalid, we later found out he just flat out hates the sound of the tapping of keys, all the more ridiculous when he brought his laptop to every lecture, tapping away, bating us.
more than likely not but if you get caught with it that is a very quick way to get an F in the class.
Remember Professor is above you. Same rules do not apply to him. His class room his rules.
Oh yeah I get that, but it's just a bit frustrating that we'd be writing them onto paper, only to be typing them up later on in the day anyway, seems like a needless waste of time
Oh yeah I get that, but it's just a bit frustrating that we'd be writing them onto paper, only to be typing them up later on in the day anyway, seems like a needless waste of time
I would not call taking notes a waste of time. For vast majority of people it causes them to retain the information a lot better. It took me a while to figure this out. I had a prof who would give us all the notes for the year but I would take notes during class but never look at them against afterwards since I had better typed out copies form the teacher but I found myself doing a lot better on test when I did it that way.
When I can I do take notes on my computer and then I might look at them again in the future but most of the time I do not.
I didn't say taking lecture notes was a waste of time... I said copying them from paper to laptop was a waste of time (when it would save so much time to just type them up onto the laptop in the first place). And I do use my computer notes all the time, I find it much easier to do CMD+F to find a specific note rather than go through lot's of details that don't relate to my essay.
