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Water Cooler Games – DigiPen forces Slamdance Reinstatement

January 18th, 2007 (Visited 2271 times) Tags:

This Slamdance saga is getting silly at this point. The latest news is that DigiPen has forced Toblo to rejoin the festival. Apparently, DigiPen, basically a videogame trade school, asserts IP ownership over student projects.

Coming from a liberal arts sort of background, this kinda shocks me. I can’t recall any colleges claiming IP ownership of student papers or of books written while there. I suppose it’s common if it’s research sponsored by school. Does DigiPen supply financial support to student projects?

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16 Responses to “Water Cooler Games – DigiPen forces Slamdance Reinstatement”

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friends wrote on January 18th, 2007 at 8:30 pm:

[...] raphkoster_rsshttp://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/18/water-cooler-games-digipen-forces-slamdance-reinstatement/This Slamdance saga is getting silly at this point. The latest news is that DigiPen has forced Toblo to rejoin the festival. Apparently, DigiPen, basically a videogame trade school, asserts IP ownership over student projects. [...]

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zimmitti said on January 18th, 2007 at 10:27 am:
I didn’t go to DigiPen, but I did go to one of the other “big names” in game schools and they also asserted the rights to our projects. While they didn’t directly support our projects with money, they certainly provided us with free artists, audio engineers, arrays of test machines… the kinds of stuff that we would have been in no way able to afford ourselves.

It’s not the best arrangement, but it does allow students to get much more game together and at a much more polished level than they would on their own.
Steve Chiavelli said on January 18th, 2007 at 10:34 am:
Raph,

The only financial aid we receive is the same all other college students are eligible for. DigiPen gets to do this sort of thing because most students see it as an acceptable trade-off to attend arguably the best school for a game programmer’s (I can’t speak for the artists) education.

I agree that it is wierd (and wrong) for DigiPen to retain the IP, but there’s not much we can do at this point other than continue to protest in our own way.
Schlecht said on January 18th, 2007 at 10:38 am:
Even if they can exert that kind of control, why would they do it? The action carries a very authoritarian omen with it.
moo said on January 18th, 2007 at 10:50 am:
What the hell?

I would drop out of an institution that did that to me. In a heartbeat.

I wonder if he signed any contract or anything. If not, he should sue them for slandering the title to his copyright.
Chas said on January 18th, 2007 at 11:06 am:
I’ve heard similar stories, usually based on the fact that the school provided the “gaming labs” with the software the students used to create the work.
Aaron said on January 18th, 2007 at 11:14 am:
My understanding is that any school of higher education has legal dominion over any work produced by any student in relation to school activities, even if only indirectly related. Whether or not an individual school or faculty member chooses to actualize that right will vary, I suppose, but I believe all colleges retain that power and it applies to all subjects of study, undergraduate or post-graduate.

I’m an English major who has written short stories as class assignments. I could probably publish those stories now without interference from my school, but only because the faculty are kind that way; the school could intervene if they wanted to. Whether or not they could claim IP rights on a work I produced for school after I’m out of school…that I don’t know.
Michael Chui said on January 18th, 2007 at 11:17 am:
If I understand it correctly, universities typically hold ownership rights first and then transfer it to students/faculty on request. I’d need to look it up, and I’m not sure where to search.
Will McGuire said on January 18th, 2007 at 11:23 am:
I know that Full Sail does not hold the rights to student generated games. The only thing they require of student games is that the School be allowed to use them marketing material. Just in case a student does win an event, they can put it on websites and such…
Steve Chiaveli said on January 18th, 2007 at 11:37 am:
zimmitti,

As DigiPen students, we do not get “free” artists provided by the school. Some game teams are able to convince DigiPen art students to collaborate with them, but clearly that is not what you are referring to. The music in Toblo was also made by a fellow student in his spare time.

I guess what I am saying here is that Toblo was made from the ground up by students, without significant assistance from the school other than occasional lab time. That being said, they still own the IP. This is because it says so on a paper I signed on admittance into their degree program.
Anon said on January 18th, 2007 at 12:34 pm:
A student is not an employee. By default, companies own the copyright in works that employees produce, but students aren’t employees. (Comments 6 and 7 are wrong.) Of course a student could sign a contract giving those rights to their school (or to any random person they met on the street for that matter), but… why would they?

I see the answer in comment #2, but this certainly sucks. Anyone want to post the relevant sections from Digipen’s contract that students have to sign?
CmdrSlack said on January 18th, 2007 at 12:35 pm:
I’d be willing to bet that material generated by students is not owned by the school. Seriously. There’s nothing in the copyright act that would indicate otherwise. I guess a student could agree to this by signing an agreement with the school that assigns the rights in things he creates to the schol. On a very basic level, if a student creates a work, the student owns the copyright in that work. That work could infringe on other copyrights, but that’s due to theft and laziness, not some operation of bizarre university fiat.
Kressilac said on January 18th, 2007 at 1:45 pm:
Speaking of infringment, is the risk that a student will create the next IGDA festival contest winner worth the liability that the school would have to accept by claiming IP ownership? If they own the work then if a student infringes upon the work of another isn’t it the school that has to answer to the charges? I bet there is something in the contract passing all the negative implications of the IP right on to the student while retaining the IP for the university. If such a clause exists one has to wonder if a court would accept the contract or declare it too one-sided. (not sure of what constitutes one-sidedness but I believe there are laws to prevent people from being grossly taken advantage of when signing contracts.
zimmitti said on January 18th, 2007 at 2:09 pm:
@ Chiaveli,

Cool, yeah I wasn’t really certain how it worked out there for the DigiPen folks. I certainly don’t want to make it sound like it is a good deal for the student (especially given the price tag attached to attending many of these degree programs).

In the end, one of the biggest reasons these schools make students sign away some degree of control of their IP (this I had to do on paper for admission) is because the schools want to use student projects to promote the school. That DigiPen is wielding whatever IP rights they may have, in spite of the clear statement that the students are trying to make, is just poor business on their end. The more attention the game gets, the worse the school looks for the controversy attached.

@ McGuire,

(Fancy finding you here.) Still, I think that FS (and other schools) could easily argue that entering a student made game into a festival is a means of marketing the school. Because there is not really a ton of legal precedence in this type of situation, it remains to be seen what the bounds of such arrangements really are. I never had any big concerns over this when I was in school, but then again, my game wasn’t big news.
Brew said on January 18th, 2007 at 9:43 pm:
On a similar note, DeVry owns the rights to any devices or technology created by any of their Electronics program students as well.

Teddy Ruxpin was a Senior Project for one of the students. DeVry got a huge chunk off that one…
Morgan Ramsay said on January 19th, 2007 at 2:13 am:
… entering a student made game into a festival is a means of marketing the school.

Likewise, festivals provide opportunities for students to market their projects and thus themselves. But I strongly doubt that marketing was the reason for DigiPen forcing Toblo to rejoin Slamdance. The more likely reason was that DigiPen viewed the situation in a negative light and thus proceeded to execute damage control procedures.

Nevertheless, I don’t think forcing Toblo to rejoin Slamdance was in the best interests of DigiPen—regardless of my views on the game. This was an excellent opportunity for DigiPen to send out the message, “We support our students 100% because their decisions reflect our commitment to artistic integrity and leadership.” Or something along those lines.

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