Students

Recently a question has come up at our academic library concerning patron privacy and the notification to a patron (usually a student) concerning excessive downloading of content from databases in our collection. Our current practice has been to receive notification from the vendor about perceived illegal downloading.

Questions that combine higher education, data access, and "terms of use" enforcement always give me a moment of sad reflection, as I remember Internet pioneer and activist Aaron Schwartz. It was an alleged overuse of an academic database at MIT in 2012 that lead up to his demise.[1]

When is it advisable for an author/creator to register a work with the copyright office?

I work in higher education. Students will sometimes ask for information on copyright protection for a thesis (written, not performance). Sometimes faculty will ask about protecting various devices of education such as a syllabus, exam or spreadsheet.

There are some really good, separate answers to this question.  I'll present them in the order I think would be useful to students and academics.

Answer #1: Clarity of ownership

As we transformed to fully/largely remote learning and pulled all student work and interactions onto Google platforms, a question has arisen about the intersection between student privacy and parent access to student accounts. Currently, if a parent is given their child's google log in information, they will have access to far more than ever in the past.

Thank you for this careful and thoughtful question.  As we rush to migrate education to online, the small details can get overlooked.  As the member writes, information that used to be safeguarded in physical files or with separate passwords is increasingly accessible via a "one-stop shop."