Paper 1: use of course materials found on the Internet

Due: Tuesday, Sept 20

Professor Ulrich is to teach a course on Economics at privateschool.edu, a regional private university. He finds on the Internet, at a famous research university,

a course outline
a set of powerpoint slides

He downloads and uses them both for his course. There is no indication at the original site whether there are any restrictions on the use of the materials.

Dr Ulrich reasons that the original author put the materials online and so they are intended for public use, or at least for public educational use. He also feels that the outline, at least, is really too sketchy and insubstantial to be "owned" by anyone; there aren't that many ways to structure an economics course. Some of the slides, however, have detailed graphics, and the case studies presented in the slides are quite carefully prepared and sequenced. However, Dr Ulrich argues to himself that there is no substantial difference between copying the slides and simply linking to them.

Discuss whether Dr Ulrich's use of the material is appropriate. You should begin your paper with a brief one-paragraph summary of the situation, so that the paper could be read by someone unfamiliar with the issue.

In your analysis, here are a few points to consider:

whether Dr Ulrich's use is "fair"
whether it matters whether Dr Ulrich credits the original author
who are all the stakeholders
whether some stakeholders are negatively affected by such use, and how
whether the students have any special interests or obligations here
why Dr Ulrich might not want to ask permission

Your primary focus should be on what is appropriate behavior, NOT on whether any given actions are legal or not.

You may take either a Utilitarian or a deontological approach.

Whatever your opinion of Dr Ulrich's use, try to identify some different (hopefully not too different) circumstances under which your opinion would change, and discuss why. (Alternatively, maybe you feel that the situation is quite clear-cut, and no minor variations would substantially change anything; if so, discuss why.)

Expected length: 3-4 pages (600+ words)