CAUT Intellectual Property Advisory | July 2008
The purpose of this advisory is to assist academic staff members in avoiding conflict over ownership and authorship rights in collaborative academic work. When students, professors, librarians and other researchers work together in teams, they can create fundamental advances in knowledge. Unfortunately, these arrangements are also generating conflict over intellectual property ownership and authorship attribution; conflict that can derail projects, damage or destroy careers and undermine the integrity of all academic work. To avoid these difficulties, individuals engaged in collaborative academic projects are advised to:
• understand the basic academic practices
and legal rules that govern the sharing of
ownership and authorship rights;
• be aware of the social and economic contexts
that foster conflict over these rights;
and, most importantly
• reach written agreement on how rights are
to be assigned before commencing collaborative
work.