That the copyright in a student’s assignments belongs to him isn’t disputed; he has the right to control how or if his work is published.
An IIT student — that’s the Illinois Institute of Technology — Roman Kofman, doesn’t seem to have been able to convince one of his professors who has posted some of his work online of this and isn’t sure of what to do next:
“Should I serve my professor with a formal “cease and desist”? Should I go to legal counsel with a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice? The DMCA notice would make IIT (as the internet service provider for the site) liable if the content was not removed. Surely, this would produce results. I doubt I would actually sue the school, but who knows?”
Mr Kofman says, “Winning a case of willful copyright infringement would net me a nice payout to help me with my student loans.” I’ve not heard of a student in India having a similar problem although if he were to have such a problem, his rights would be similar. I’m not sure if, practically speaking, his remedies would be the same.
In the Indian scenario, would a student actually want to send a legal notice to a professor who controlled his grades? If he tried to file a suit, how far would he get? Would it take too much time and effort to try to enforce his rights? Would it be worth it if he did win: I don’t see him getting too much in the way of damages. And what would the fall out be? Would either the school or the professor refrain from holding it against him? Would it diminish his chances of future employability if he was thought of as being litigious?
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