Class notes -- who owns the copyright: student or teacher?
<p>This question is basically just curiosity, no actual dispute. But a few years ago I scanned and uploaded <a href="http://www.forkosh.com/u715.html" rel="noreferrer">http://www.forkosh.com/u715.html</a> to my site, personally claiming copyright (see notice on that page) just so somebody would be asserting copyright. Then I pretty much forgot about the whole thing. But a few months ago, I coincidentally received two unrelated emails from fellow former (but >>much&lt;&lt; more recent:) students, both thanking me for putting my detailed notes online. That prompted me to google the teacher, and surprisingly finding him still at CCNY.</p>

<p>So I emailed him, forwarding both emails I'd received, and pointing him to my online notes in case they were actually still of any use. That started a five-or-six email exchange, during which I mentioned my copyright statement, explaining why I'd claimed it, and offering to transfer it to him, since I considered it his material, with me just the "scribe". But he never mentioned it, one way or the other, so I just left the copyright statement as-is.</p>

<p>But my curious question -- suppose there were a dispute. Who prevails, and why?</p>

<p>The copyright owner is whoever first put the material in fixed form. It is most likely that that is the note-taker (you).</p>

<p>It is possible (and highly unlikely) that the lecturer read (had memorized) a prepared script and you copied that script mechanically, and if that were the case, he would hold copyright and you infringed by making a copy. Typically, a note-taker follows the logic of a lecture and expresses those ideas in his own words (the notes do not match a plausible verbatim class lecture). Since expression is protected and ideas are not, that makes it most likely that you would prevail in a suit. The equations are almost certainly not protected.</p>

copyright