Williams v Weisser, 273 Cal. App. 2d 726

     This case from 1969 is the second, and by far the most famous, common law decision to establish the concept of an ‘academic exception.’ 

     The case concerns B. J. Williams a professor at UCLA and Edwin Weisser a man who had a business selling class notes to UCLA students.  Weisser hired a student to attend Williams’ class and using the notes the student took created a product that he sold to other students.  Williams sued Weisser to stop him from doing this saying that as the owner of the lecture notes he had the right to decide when and how they were published.  Weisser disagreed saying that the notes were a work for hire and therefore the university owned the rights and Williams had no grounds to sue.  UCLA produced a letter they had sent to all professors saying that they did not make a claim to own any of the professor’s lecture notes.  The courts eventually ruled that Williams did own the rights to his notes and thus Weisser was in the wrong.

     This case is one of the clearest cases establishing the academic exception.  There is no other claim for Weisser other than that the notes are a work for hire.  When both the employer and the employee deny that and say that the very notion of a university having claim to the copyright of their employees lecture notes is unecessary, then they have established the idea of the academic exception very strongly.

     There are downsides to this case with regards the Mauro v Allentown case.  First, the case decided the academic exception at the university level and did not address the high school level.  However it does establish it for class notes and the Irish medley is a classroom aid similar to a set of class notes, produced by the instructor, and not necessarily essential to the teaching of a class, only beneficial.  Second, and more importantly, the case was decided prior to the implementation of the 1976 Copyright Act, which clearly defines the work for hire clause.  That definition seems to allow no wiggle room for the academic exception.  This means that other decisions would be needed to extend and further establish the academic exception.