Issue
26(1)
Who Owns
Academic Work? Battling for Control of Intellectual Property.
(2001).
McSherry, Corynne. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 288 pp. $16.95 (Paperback). ISBN 0-674-01243-7.
Review
by: Heather T. Wagoner
Career
Counselor
Miami,
Florida
Who
Owns Academic Work? addresses
the topic of intellectual property that captures the timely and
visceral exchanges resonating throughout the disciplines. McSherry
affirms this age old question as she posits the term " battling"
without mincing words. Although many writings on this topic
isolate issues to the fields of engineering and science, McSherry
broadens the discourse to essential definitions of ideas, data
streams, expressions, and creation in a range of fields.
McSherry
outlays the historical basis from which many of today's essential
questions arise in this thought provoking chronology. As the sociologist
Camille Paglia often affirms "old fashioned timelines provide
the visual track recording the rough shape of rising and falling
cultures" (2005). McSherry goes beyond a mere historical timeline
to reveal that cultural value and precedent for intellectual property
harkens back to the guild craftsman when knowledge was privy to
a coterie of individuals for their common good.
What
McSherry brings to light is the clash between a perceived utilitarianism
that may or may not exist within academic circles; a university
system which intrinsically presumes by affiliation any academic
products fostered therein; a perpetuating and regenerating source
of "gifting". One may recall Sherlock Holmes famous quote" What
one man can invent, another can discover" which affirms the nature
of what McSherry calls data streams, and the flow of these amongst
academics. Access to these data streams are privileged and suggest
some type of "gifting" or ability to use the data streams toward
a discovery which will perpetuate and broaden the disciplines.
This is in large contrast to the marked integration of private
funding sources that often pits researchers against their academic
ideals.
A
highlight of the book is a discussion of legal cases. For example,
the initial complaint of "Pelletier" was rejected due
to the commonly held regulation that data and research is owned
by the university itself. However Pelletier's legal team injected
a provocative blending of terms when they contended that, in the
quantitative scientific world, creativity (a wholly qualitative
realm) is a plausible construct for protection.
Why
would an academic advisor posit such an interest? These very discussions
are central to the way we prepare and disseminate information
to our students. Many advisors are being asked to prepare their
work for electronic mediums, encouraged to collaborate with the
private sector in grants, become authors, or even develop programs,
theoretical approaches, or curriculums. These very developments,
intrinsic in the advisor's role, necessitate the understanding
of intellectual property.
The author
concludes by noting a landmark case where intellectual property,
as a part of the university in lieu of the researcher, was considered
a type of modern "feudalism." Ironically, it was this structure
which fueled the first Craft Guilds and protected coteries of
intellectual knowledge in medieval times. One thing is assured,
with McSherry definition of the realm, the discussion of intellectual
property concept has only begun.
Reference
Paglia,
C. Forget Focault Remember the Facts . Ask Camille in Salon.
Retrieved Sept 12, 2005 from http://www.salon.com/it/col/pagl/1998/11/04pagl.html
