My teacher on intellectual property

Economics Political Theory
1

I am taking this microbiology course at junior college and my professor seems to be a major stickler on intellectual property. At the beginning of her class she gave us a talk about how any sound recordings of her lectures are for personal use only and she has the right to use legal force against anyone distributing her “ideas.” Also she will not allow anyone in the class to take photos of the informational posters on microorganisms which are copyrighted. She comes off hypocritical because she enjoys using educational videos off youtube which im pretty sure were uploaded without the consent of the original author. (They are like videos that would accompany a textbook or something like that.)

I just bought Stephen Kinsella’s book on intellectual property so I will learn more soon but here is basically preconceived notions on it.

  1. She can’t really say that they are her “ideas” because pretty much everything she knows came from information she read from another source or information verbally spoken to her. It seems extremely difficult and rare to come up with a truly unique idea

  2. Even if it was a unique idea once she utters it into the air it is no longer in her possesion because it is in the air and anyone within distance to hear it. So if I record something she says i should have rghts to the recording and do what i want with it.

  3. Also another idea Kinsella talks about which I like is that copyrights make scarcity of a non scarce good which in terms of pretty much any other object or resource is kind of dumb/impossible to do.

reiterating a concept does not mean that is your idea. Just because you formed the words and spoke them does not give you the rights to information.

Intellectual Property (IP) and innovation resources
2

sorry about the title. I mean to write intellectual property not intelligent. Im bad with typos.

3

You should be able to edit your post and change the title with the MORE button.

4

Fixed. I’m bad with typos too.

You’re on the right track IMO about IP. She does sound like a pretty big hypocrite. Probably not much profit in you exposing it though.

5

Pretend a teacher writes up an annual lesson plan as a PDF file. It’s on a website, and, before you can access the file, you have to sign some kind of online contract that says you won’t copy it, publish it elsewhere, etc.? Then the person who publishes/sells it elsewhere can be convicted in an anarcho-capitalistic society but no one can be arrested for possession because they may have assumed it came from a free source.

Is this how it would work if you didn’t want your material to be given to anyone but the recipient?

6

It is just one of the many examples how it could be… no one knows for sure and no one will unless we try.

7

under current law there are some copyright exemptions for educational purposes.

8

Record her lecture anyway and say that is it for educational purposes (but only if you are willing to endure the wrath that may ensue).