Who owns academic work?; battling for control of intellectual property

Who owns academic work? This questions is provoking a political and legal battles, fought on uncertain terrain, for ever-higher stakes. The posting of facultry lectures notes on commercial Web sites is being hotly debated in multiple forumes, even as faculty and university adiminstrators square off in a battle for professional copyright in courtroom throughout the country, universities find themselves embroiled in intricate and expensive patent litigation. Meanwhile, junior researchers are appearing in those same courtrooms, using intellectual property rules to challenge traditonal academic hierarchies. All but forgotten in these ownership disputes is a more fundamental question: should academic work be owned at all? Once characterized as a kind gift, academic work - and academic freedom - are now being reframed as private intellectual property.