Comment Your tax dollars at work (Score 2) 346
As I read this story, there are a few of issues at stake.
First: Is the University of Utah a tax supported institution? If it is, then the actions of the administration may constitute content based censorship by a government agency - a definite no-no under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983.
Second: Does the University of Utah generally permit students to establish Web sites for learning purposes (and at this point all must admit that flikx has really learned something)? If so, then they may have established an open forum, or limited open forum, placing on them the burden of establishing violation of the forum guidelines as a condition to terminating the forum discussion.
Third: Does the University of Utah have a clearly stated policy that student work product belongs to the University? (Usually such gifts of copyright are made by voluntary assignment to the institution on a form attached to the work in question - as the assignment of a use right in the case of a Master's thesis or PhD dissertation). If not, then the University's claim of ownership of the materials on the Web site is shaky, at best. My limited understanding of the copyright laws is that the copyright vests in the author when the work is fixed in a tangible medium. Under this standard, the University may own contributions to the site that were actually contributed by University _employees_, depending on the policies of the University, but for students contributing materials, each student arguably retains the copyright to the materials they have submitted to the site. Ownership of the host server noes not automatically result in ownership of the contents of each site on the server (with the exception of a license granting such as in MicroSoft's Passport).
IAALBTINLA
First: Is the University of Utah a tax supported institution? If it is, then the actions of the administration may constitute content based censorship by a government agency - a definite no-no under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983.
Second: Does the University of Utah generally permit students to establish Web sites for learning purposes (and at this point all must admit that flikx has really learned something)? If so, then they may have established an open forum, or limited open forum, placing on them the burden of establishing violation of the forum guidelines as a condition to terminating the forum discussion.
Third: Does the University of Utah have a clearly stated policy that student work product belongs to the University? (Usually such gifts of copyright are made by voluntary assignment to the institution on a form attached to the work in question - as the assignment of a use right in the case of a Master's thesis or PhD dissertation). If not, then the University's claim of ownership of the materials on the Web site is shaky, at best. My limited understanding of the copyright laws is that the copyright vests in the author when the work is fixed in a tangible medium. Under this standard, the University may own contributions to the site that were actually contributed by University _employees_, depending on the policies of the University, but for students contributing materials, each student arguably retains the copyright to the materials they have submitted to the site. Ownership of the host server noes not automatically result in ownership of the contents of each site on the server (with the exception of a license granting such as in MicroSoft's Passport).
IAALBTINLA
