Toeing the Line to Teach Online: Legal Issues on Copyright Ownership

Adrian R. Montemayor

University of Santo Tomas, Philippines

When teachers produce and upload instructional materials for online teaching, one might assume that the same teachers must be the copyright owners of such materials. Under Philippine law, however, more often it is the school—as the employer of the faculty—that enjoys the exclusive copyright and the privilege to determine through institutional policies which economic rights are vested in whom. Questions on ethics and equity have arisen from this, particularly in cases where no added compensation is given to authors of digital teaching materials stored in school-sponsored repositories. Using critical policy analysis in the context of education and power relations, this study discusses the legal implications of such rules when viewed in light of constitutional policies governing contracts, property, academic freedom, and labor-management relations. Guiding the analysis are the doctrinal and comparative methods of legal research, through which this paper explores the wider legal framework impacting copyright ownership in the academe and highlights how norms from foreign legal systems may help enhance Philippine copyright legislation. Having examined the issues, this article then proposes viable policy modifications for the consideration of legislators and institutional stakeholders

Article link: https://www.asianinstituteofresearch.org/lhqrarchives/toeing-the-line-to-teach-online%3A-legal-issues-on-copyright-ownership