Mauro v Allentown High School, Upper Freehold Regional School District et al. 

     This is a description of the case as described by a third party who has consulted about the matter with parties representing both a plaintiff and the defendant. 

     Mr. Peter Mauro was the director of the Allentown (NJ) High School Marching Band for about 15 years.  He was removed from his position in January 2006 but was retained in a separate position in the school.  He had composed a medley of Irish music that the band has used and won with in parade competitions for several years.  The band performed this piece under the new band director at the 2006 New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which they won and received a monetary prize.

     Mr. Mauro is claiming copyright infringement against the high school, school district and other individuals and intends to sue for damages.  He argues that they illegally obtained the documents from his classroom when he was not allowed to remove them from there with the rest of his personal belongings.  He says that the composition does in fact belong to him since he is the arranger and the work is an original piece.  He also argues that the arrangement does not fall under the work for hire clause of the 1976 US Copyright Act since his job did not require him to write new music.  However there is a question of when exactly the music was given to the students; since Mr. Mauro is in the habit of giving the band their music in the fall semester to allow them to practice.  If they were given the music by Mr. Mauro the fact that he did not re-collect the music from his students could be seen as giving them permission to perform those works.

     The school district argues that because he is a teacher and that the music he wrote was used in the performance of his job then it must be a work for hire and the school can use it as they see fit.  They also say that Mr. Mauro was given time to protest the use of this piece prior to its performance and that he sees an opportunity to get back at the school for removing him from the director's position.

This case has not yet been filed in court and so there is no case number.

75 Iowa L. Rev. 381 (1989-90)

     In this article the author explores the issues of academic copyright and looks specifically at the rights of high school teachers.  Specifically in section V the article outlines several recent cases and how they impact the idea of a ‘teacher exception’ and also goes into a good amount of detail about the reasoning behind the courts' decisions.  The author also discuss a few solutions to this issue.  Arguing that neither the school nor the teacher solely owning the copyright presents a great solution.  If the school owns the copyright then they have removed a large incentive for teachers to produce, and if the teachers have sole possession of copyright they could severely limit the academic environment, if they decided to be very strict and not allow their works to be used and shared among their peers.  The example given was a teacher develops an exam; if the exam is particularly well designed it is in the best interest of the students and the school to make this available to all the students in the district.  If the teacher refuses to allow the distribution then they are impeding progress; the opposite of what copyright is intended for.

     As a solution for this the article explores several routes, sharing copyright between the school and the teacher seems an obvious solution, but it begins to fail when one considers the relatively transient nature of teachers.  While not as drastic as university professors, some high school teachers will be at several schools before they find one that suits them.  If they are not allowed to use their own works once they transfer to a new school they will be in a difficult situation.  An alternative is using the right of teacher inception, which would have to be contractually agreed on.  This would allow the school the right to use a work created by the teacher for educational non-profit purposes, but the teacher would hold all other rights.  Allowing them to profit from their creativity.

     This seems like a good general solution.  However, it likely cannot be applied to Mauro v Allentown.  If there were no prior agreement to the right of teacher inception then it would not be valid.  So while the right of teacher inception is a viable and mutually beneficial solution, this situation is most likely going to have to rely on precedent to be decided.

Hays and Macdonald v Sony  847 F.2d 412; 1988 U.S. App.

     This was one of the few cases I could find that specifically dealt with the academic exception at a high school level. 

     Hays and MacDonald were two high school business teachers who developed a handbook for a word processor that the high school owned.  They distributed the handbook to the staff and students of the high school.  When the high school purchased new word processors from Sony, the school gave the handbook to Sony asking them to adapt it for the new word processors.  Sony did so by taking large parts of the document and copying it into the new handbook.  Sony then gave it back to the school at no charge.  When Hays and MacDonald found out about the new handbooks they sued Sony for copyright infringement arguing that they owned the rights to the handbook.  The District Court found for Sony.  Hays and MacDonald tried to appeal the decision but they filed their appeal to late.  The Appeals Court thus denied their appeal and they lost their case.  However in issuing the denial the Appeals Court discussed the case in more depth, exploring the issues as if the case had been heard.  They argued that that since Sony didn’t make any direct profits from the handbook there would have been no damages to be awarded based on the arguments made by the plaintiffs.  However the court did say that it appeared that Hays and MacDonald were the rightful owners of copyright and so might have been entitled to an injunction.  They also discussed the nature of the work for hire clause of the 1976 Copyright Act.  They said that although it appears to have eliminated the academic exception there seems to have been no intent by Congress to do so and therefore if another case came before this Appeals Circuit they might be inclined to uphold the academic exception.

     This case relates very well to Mauro v Allentown.  Both occur at the high school level, and both deal with teachers preparing works beyond the basic scope of the classroom.  The fact that this case ended with a denial of appeal makes drawing any concrete conclusions from it more difficult, but it does appear that if Mr. Mauro did proceed with his case his might be able to receive an injunction to prevent the high school from performing his work without his permission.

Shaul v Cherry Valley-Springfield School District et al. 363 F.3d 177; 2004 U.S. App.

    This case was filed by William Shaul against his former employer accusing them of illegally confiscating his personal property from his classroom.  Shaul was fired from his position as a teacher in the high school.  He was given permission to return to his office and classroom to remove his personal effects.  However he said that he wasn’t given enough time to get everything.  When he went back to get more he was not allowed in and when he tried to get the district to surrender his remaining effects he was not given them.  Shaul says that because the school didn’t give him enough time to remove his personal items they violated his fourth amendment rights to reasonable search and seizure.  Among the items he claimed were various photos and also his class notes and quizzes, which he claimed to own based upon the academic exception.  The court found in favor of the school district saying that in general enough time was given for him to remove his belongings.  And specifically they addressed his class notes saying that because he was not the author of the quizzes and that class notes were created directly from him performing his job they were the property of the school district under the work for hire clause.

     This case while only tangentially dealing with the academic exception does address the issue of whether Allentown High School took the score from Mauro's possession without his permission in Mauro v Allentown.  There are a few extenuating circumstances such as whether or not Mauro gave the sheet music to the students prior to his removal from his position.  And also the fact that Mauro was told not to remove any music when he was allowed to remove his personal belongings from his classroom could be a factor in the decision, however this is a remarkably similar case in which the school was the winner.