You partied particularly hard last night, and today you slept through your 8 a.m. biology section - again. A warning bell is chiming deep in your brain: "Exam coming ... must get ... class notes ..."

Normally, slacker students must beg for notes from disdainful, class-attending types or, horrors, throw themselves at the mercy of their professors. Now, however, there's a new hope for late sleepers, binge drinkers and anyone with Internet access: free notes you can get right from the Web.

Not surprisingly, educators hate these sites. They say they belittle the education process, discourage students from coming to class and may even violate copyright laws. Some institutions may even be a step away from taking legal action against sites like Versity.com, StudentU.com and AllStudents.com.

Many sites claim they violate no copyright laws and say they're just another resource to help students learn. But many sites remove class notes if professors or universities object, and at least one student-oriented Web site plans to phase out notes entirely. (See related story)

Copyright issues are at the core of most schools' complaints about Web sites, with professors arguing that their class lectures constitute intellectual property and can't be distributed on the Web without their permission.

"What's really at the heart of this is ... (professors) don't have a chance to say 'Yes' or 'No,'" said R. Anthony Reese, an assistant professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin.

Professors are also concerned about quality of education, fearing students will go to the Web for class information instead of obtaining it from the source. That's mainly what annoys Jeffrey L. Warburton, who teaches theater arts at the University of Arizona. To his chagrin, StudentU.com posted notes for his Theater Arts 103 lecture in the fall.

"The whole purpose is to have (students) attend class," Warburton said. "This is another way to not attend class.

"This is theater, for gosh sakes. You gotta' be there and experience it."

Around the country, university officials have tried to curb these sites by sternly lecturing students who are selling notes, sending cease-and-desist letters to the Web sites and writing student codes that prohibit the sale of notes.

But the law may not be on the side of the teachers, according to Reese and David Post, an associate law professor at Temple University Law School and co-director of the Cyberspace Law Institute.

"I'm not sure that one can find a way to characterize what these sites are doing as illegal," Post said.

Copyright laws generally protect work that's written down over work that's presented orally, according to Reese. Federal copyright applies to works of authorship which are fixed in a tangible medium of expression - like a letter or a page of music.

"If you sit down at a piano and improvise a song, you haven't fixed it and it's not protected," Reese said.

The same might apply to lectures, he said. "The lecture itself is not fixed. For the most part, it's orally delivered."

Fair use or implied use license issues make the arguments even murkier, Reese said. The very nature of a classroom and lecture implies that students have permission to take notes.

"Presumably, no one really thinks that students are infringing on copyright when they do that," Reese said. "Does it extend to giving it to someone online? Maybe."

However, it's possible lecturers may be able to claim copyright infringement anyway because most of them use written notes or outlines to help them deliver lectures, Reese said. "Even if you don't copy it directly, you could be copying them indirectly," he said. "It's at least possible there is a copyright claim there."

"That doesn't necessarily mean that they win based on that alone," Reese added. "Copyright law protects an author's expression, but not facts or an author's idea ... Whether a student's notes infringe on a professor's notes depend on how much of a professor's expression is captured in the notes as opposed to ideas."

University of Arizona attorney Mike Proctor is "reviewing all the issues" but said it's not yet clear whether the UA will take legal steps against the sites.

"We have to prepare for legal issues that are going to arise as we get into higher use of electronic media in education, whether it's distance learning or sharing of information or authentication of identity or access to course materials," Proctor said.

In the meantime, university attorneys are handling professors' complaints about these sites on a case-by-case basis. He declined to discuss these cases, saying, "I'm not going to get into anything we might have pending with individual people."

Purdue University sociology professor Mathieu Deflem is fighting back against online notes sites with his own site, FreeEducation.com. Notes sites are "invading our education and destroying all that students and educators work for," DeFlem claims on his site.

"More and more online companies are invading the free spaces of the Internet to infiltrate your minds, souls and pocketbooks," Deflem writes. "They are but profiteers who try to take away your right to real education by presenting students with what seem to be useful services."

"Go to class and enjoy the company of real living people!" he exhorts. "Take your own notes! You'll love them!"

But even if professors and universities find a legal leg to stand on, their battles are futile, according to Post. "The universities are ill-advised to fight this - at least to fight it by lawsuit. The stuff is going to be available, period. That is the way of this new world."

Suing sites into nonexistence goes against the nature and spirit of the Internet as a means of exchanging information, Post said.

"It's bizarre to me that many people in the world of education find this to be such a terrible threat. It's a terrific opportunity to use our collective imagination to enrich the educational process," Post said.

"We want the Internet to develop into a place where you can go to your computer and say, 'Does anyone know anything about the theme of patricide in "King Lear?"' It's a worldwide library," he said. "The way to accomplish that is not to suppress information."

As a lecturer, Post admits he'd prefer students to come to class instead of downloading notes. "My students should not buy notes as a means of not going to class. They're making a terribly short-sighted decision," he said.

But professors should view the competition of online notes as an impetus to improve their lectures, Post said. Professors should make the total classroom experience so important that students who just read notes posted online will be missing out, he said.

"We will have to come up with ways that we are enriching people in the classroom besides just (through) notes," Post said. "That can make my classroom a much richer place."

Links

• Free Education
  
• Study24-7.com
  
• Versity.com
  
• Allstudents.com
  
• StudentU.com

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