California State University has barred students from buying and selling lecture notes online through a new note-sharing service called NoteUtopia.
The university sent a cease-and-desist letter to the San Francisco-based company on September 21, ordering it to stop commercial operations across all 23 of the system’s campuses. Cal State also sent out a systemwide e-mail warning students that selling class notes violates state law and could, in extreme cases, result in expulsion.
According to Michael Uhlenkamp, a Cal State spokesman, the service violates the portion of the state education code barring the distribution of lecture records, including “handwritten or typewritten class notes,” for profit. Since the company received the letter last month, Mr. Uhlenkamp said, its officials have “done what we’ve asked them to do,” including stopping active marketing and publishing a disclaimer on their site warning users that selling lecture notes is illegal.
That does not mean that the site is shutting down, however. Though it can no longer promote the sale of course material, the site can continue to operate so long as no one reaps commercial gain from lecture notes. Users can, therefore, continue to share their notes, as long as they’re not getting paid for them, and other materials, like outlines and old homework, can still be sold. Ryan Stevens, the company’s founder, said he was disappointed with the law “because it made it look like our entire site was illegal.”
“Legally, it’s a matter of changing your notes from being sold to being free,” he said.
Mr. Stevens, then a student at California State University at Sacramento, founded NoteUtopia in 2008 as a space for classmates to share course materials and discuss classes online. After coming home confused from a lecture one day, Mr. Stevens asked himself, “How great would it be if we could go online and ask somebody a question about it?”
Similar to sites like Course Hero and PostYourTest.com, NoteUtopia allowed registered students to upload their lecture notes, essays, and old exams, and name their price. Their classmates could then buy the material, looking at user ratings on the quality and reliability of a seller’s note-taking to determine if it was worth the money.
The Web site, which is available only to California students, made a major advertising push at Cal State’s campuses at Chico, East Bay, and Sacramento when the site began operating, in August. It also encouraged student note-sellers to advertise their own course material through social networks and with fliers available for download from the site.
With commercial operations at a standstill, the company is attempting once again to reach out to students to let them know that the site is still open for business. Mr. Stevens said the systemwide e-mail actually spread the word about his company to new markets on campuses across the state, and more students are asking to join the network.
NoteUtopia has also contacted the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which fights for free speech and consumer rights online, to push back against the education code. “We think it’s a students’ rights issue,” Mr. Stevens said. The university is “telling us you write it in your own words, but we tell you what can do with it.”
Mr. Uhlenkamp said Cal State just wanted the site to comply with state law. Their ruling is not meant as a statement on intellectual property, he said, and the university is “simply saying that the service as it was laid out was prohibited by the education code.”
18 Responses to Cal State Bans Students From Using Online Note-Selling Service
panacea - October 18, 2010 at 9:54 pm
I could see that it is inappropriate to sell an actual professor’s notes, Power Points, etc.
But for as student to sell the notes he took himself? That’s the product of his labor, and besides, the information is freely available in a multitude of other sources.
I would have no problem with a student selling notes they took in my class. I would have a problem with them selling my Power Points since they contain proprietary images used under license, and because those are MY work that I created.
drnancylbush - October 19, 2010 at 7:26 am
I’m with panacea. I object to the idea that students who take notes in their own words can’t use the notes as they see fit. My handouts? No. My teaching aids? No. But their own notes? Notice it is “their own notes”. Of course they should be able to sell, barter, trade or give those away as they see fit.
edueye - October 19, 2010 at 7:43 am
This reminds me of something, a historical paralell.
In medieval times, at the Universities of Paris and Bologna, students were cut off from the university during one year if they took notes of a lecture literally, word for word. Attempts were common, and a work distribution system among students was sometimes used, and specially assigned students were appointed to make the lecturer slow down so the note-taking team could cope with the flow of words. A lecture, “lectio” should be slow enough to follow intellectually, but not so slow that it could be copied in writing … Some of the first things that were printed by entrepreneurs were “reportatio”, lecture notes. Professors feared to loose their job. What if students would learn from books only? But they didn´t loose their jobs, and many work in a similar fashion today, and think in a similar way apparently. While other professors saw the possibility of increased learning with both books and lectures and discussions, the blended learning of that time. Can´t we accept university teaching as a public space? (Of course, another thing is the teaching aids, this is about the notes).
notexactly - October 19, 2010 at 8:46 am
I am not a lawyer but it would seem this has some potential first amendment problems. If a category of speech is legal, the presence or absence of payment should be immaterial.
a_voice - October 19, 2010 at 9:32 am
@edueye: A class should not be a public space because participants need to feel free to experiment with ideas. Next thing you know a student is on CNN or in jail for comments made in class while playing devil’s advocate.
outsourced - October 19, 2010 at 9:50 am
The back story is at
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/09/18/3038124/sac-state-grads-new-website-seeks.html#mi_rss=Top%20Stories
while the law is cited at
http://www.noteutopia.com/calcode and
http://law.justia.com/california/codes/2009/edc/66450-66452.html
Seems to me that it hinges on “unauthorized” use — if the prof gives permission (which I vaguely recall doing when I was teaching) then what’s the problem?
davi2665 - October 19, 2010 at 10:50 am
Why should there be any restrictions on students who take their own notes, organize the material, and sell it to an outside organization? As long as they do not sell university property, proprietary images, powerpoint slides that have a copyright, or someone else’s IP, more power to them if they are entrepreneurial enough to make money off the fruits of their own organizational and writing skills. Anyone who buys the notes should be aware that they are on their own regarding the usefulness and accuracy of those notes, and that the institution itself is not responsible, the student and the outside organization are. For many years, the medical students at a university where I was a professor had a thriving business producing and selling class notes. Those in the medical school who objected to the note taking business were professors whose lectures were so deadly boring and disorganized that no one would show up; the note takers did their best to organize the pathetically incompetent lectures in order to help out their fellow students. The professors complained, and their lackey administrators tried to exert their “authority” to stop the process. It did not work, and the students prevailed. If the professors did a really great job preparing outlines and materials for the students, and actually made their lectures interactive and their presentations informative, there would be no need for a note-taking business. This business should take on the idiotic Cal State ban legally.
educatetheus - October 19, 2010 at 11:06 am
@davi2665 I might regret saying this, but I couldn’t agree more! Legal action should be taken. I have been a professor at a UC institution for 23 years. Banning the commercialization of notes is absurd. I have seen my entrepreneurial minded students do this for years. They will spend hours typing up a study guide for the rest of the class, make copies and sell them outside my class. They are earning money to learn! I love when this happens. As long as the students learn the material, that is my objective as a professor.
Nothing is wrong or illegal with selling notes. From a legal prospective once the words come out of my mouth and students take notes paraphrasing what I said, it then becomes their copyright. The UC system has too many problems to worry about to focus on this. I am embarrassed.
esselan - October 19, 2010 at 11:20 am
Hmmm. Does this mean that universities in California do not employ notetakers for students with disabilities who qualify for such an accommodation? The notetaker would in fact be receiving financial gain for the notes distributed to the student with the disability…
mccaugheym - October 19, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Two things: First, when I was a graduate student at U of CA Santa Barbara (early 1990s) I myself was paid by the university to submit my typed lectures notes to a notetaking service. The university itself sold notes to students. I’m not sure I understand the difference.
Second, what would stop this company from selling subscriptions where purchasers paid for the outlines and old homework (legal to buy/sell) and then as a bonus the lecture notes are offered for free?
drjeff - October 19, 2010 at 12:01 pm
There’s one issue I don’t see anyone addressing here. Maybe I’m more sensitive to it, because it comes up all the time in a Secondary setting, where I did some time.
The Supreme Court has (repeatedly) ruled that students DO “check (some of) their first amendment rights at the door” to the school. In the U.S., a school has a perfect legal right to create restrictions on the free speech of students, within certain bounds. It would be a reasonable legal argument to ask whether this is within those bounds or not, but I don’t think that question has appeared on this thread yet.
I don’t pretend to know the answer, or even to have an opinion on the subject; I really don’t know.
This could also, certainly, fall within the category of an academic code of ethics, which is not a legal thing at all. Again, we could argue whether it belongs there (I would think not), but, again, it has little to do with the first amendment.
As many have pointed out (correctly, as far as I know), it also has nothing to do with copyright.
But a school can get around the first amendment in other ways besides copyright.
educatetheus - October 19, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Exactly, I know our university and UC Berkeley has black lighting noes where they pay note takers and also charge students. Very hypocritical of the UC system
jabberwocky12 - October 19, 2010 at 1:19 pm
If my students were doing this, then surely I could also sell my own notes this way? I would type them up nicely, advertise them on the site as the original notes, maybe add a few diagrams – and before you know it, I’m actually selling my lecture notes almost as a self-published textbook. I just have to keep the price comptetitive, but could rake in quite a bit.
Problem is, in most cases, the university has copyrighht over my notes. Then I could just do a deal with the university, they get a cut, and at least we know that the notes that are going out are accurate and clear. Sounds like a good source of revenue for the professors.
thirtyeyes - October 19, 2010 at 1:57 pm
The University of California system is not bound by the state education code–just the CSU and the CC systems.
jmb5b - October 19, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Two points:
1. The Cal. State system is supported by state taxes paid by California residents and businesses. Do they thus have the right to arbitrarily restrict paraphrasing services by the same tax-paying residents and businesses that support them?
2. I would also like to suggest that perhaps universities might wish to change their fee structures. Rather than paying tuition up front for unlimited use of the knowledge gained by the student, I suggest that tuition should be dramatically reduced, but that the student pay an on-going royalty for the rest of their working years for use of the knowledge gained. This fee could be adjusted depending on whether the student ended up working in his or her field of study or not and, if in the field, how much money the student makes. There could also be a “sudden windfall” fee in case the graduate publishes a successful book, wins a Nobel Prize, etc.
interface - October 20, 2010 at 3:20 pm
edueye: It’s “lose,” not “loose.”
Can’t help myself.
beeterada - October 21, 2010 at 2:32 pm
What a great to shut down an enterprising student by declaring his business illegal to use. Student notes are the student’s property. Unlike other sites that I have seen, this site doesn’t write papers for students or encourages them to cheat by giving out exams. Sharing notes is harmless and so are study groups and other study tools like flash cards. This post reminds of a poll I took this morning, http://my-take.com/poll/is-it-okay-to-sell-class-notes-online I wonder how other educators feel about students making money off their lecture material?
bidgeb - October 22, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Ah, but in the digital age, what’s to keep a student from recording either audio or video?