united-states copyright education
(NY, USA) Old exams/notes independent database
<p>I asked this question on the academia stack exchange but was bashed saying I am just cheating and stealing &quot;copyrighted&quot; material, so here is the question, first can math/math questions be copyrighted, I'm not even talking about a question like Alice went and bought 2 apples... how much is the cost per apple, but purely math, since I am a math major and all of my classes are just math and nothing creative. Questions like what is 2 + 2 and so on cannot be copyrighted from what I know, but please tell me if this is not the case. Now on the assumption they cannot be copyrighted, why can I not post my notes and sample questions from old exams on my own server like Google sites or just a plain html website in my own domain? This would be a free server and publicly available. I was told that even if they are pure math I shouldn't do this but all I want to know is do math teachers own copyright on things like prove the sum 1 to n = (n(n + 1) / 2)?</p>

<p>A teacher's lectures and textbooks carry with them an implied license to take notes and restate, for example, the problems in the textbook when answering a question, that are incident to their ordinary and intended use. Implied license would overlap heavily with fair use as well in a non-commercial educational setting.</p>
<p>Likewise, it doesn't violate the derivative works protections of copyright to prepare general study aids in connection with studying in a particular course, or a particular subject area. Mathematical laws themselves, for example, are not subject to copyright, even though particularly ways of writing a textbook to explain mathematical laws can be protected by copyright.</p>
<p>As a practical matter, copyright law is almost never invoked in courts to resolve this kind of issue. Instead, the biggest concern with the course of conduct suggested in the question is not a copyright lawsuit, but penalties imposed upon students making these materials while they are students, and the penalties imposed upon students using these materials.</p>
<p>The permissibility of this conduct highly context specific, which can be thought of from a copyright law doctrine perspective as partially a question of the scope of the implied licenses that came with lecture notes or past exam materials.</p>
<p>One teacher or department might intentionally make past exams available to all in a publicly accessible place for its students to help them study.</p>
<p>Another institution might specifically classify this conduct as academic dishonesty and cheating with very severe academic consequences for violations.</p>
<p>In the absence of a clear expression of policy about the permissibility of this conduct, serious sanctions are less likely, but not impossible.</p>

<h1>...can math questions be copyrighted?</h1>
<p>YES, math can be copyrighted, if formulated in text form. If I formulate my math question as &quot;Peter, Maria, and class 3 made up of 14 students are at the gate. How many people are there?&quot; that is a copyrightable text that expresses 1+1+14=X.</p>
<p>As a compilation together with other questions of the exam, even just stating the problems like &quot;Prove a²+b²=c² in triangles.&quot; - the copyright then is on the whole exam and the format, but not the individual items. Copying old exams verbatim or even putting a photocopy of the exam papers online would thus always be copyright infringement - and they can sue for actual damages. Actual damages would be the costs to redo a compromised exam, and that is easily in the thousands of dollars: the hours to develop a new exam, organize a new examination, and then the costs to get the students in to redo the exam all can sum up very fast.</p>
