From the Editors

Something to Own

By MM

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Cover by Hilary Falb
Cover

First Thursday was the new Friday. Then Wednesday was the new Thursday. Last we heard there was talk of a secret exodus from Wednesday to, gasp, Tuesday. At this rate of Bacchanalian back-peddling we thought that sooner or later the weekend was destined for a second renaissance, but they finally did it. They finally co-opted the effing weekend-at least for the university faculty. Andries van Dam, vice president of research at Brown, admitted to the Providence Journal last week that "there is no such thing" as personal time when you're a Brown University professor.

Under Brown's newly proposed changes to the Patent and Invention Policy and the Copyright Policy, if professors are visited by inspiration after work, on sabbatical, or on vacation, their inventions would become the intellectual property of the University Corporation. Differentiating between inventions developed during a professor's own time and paid university time poses a number of problems. The pursuit of knowledge in all forms is cumulative and interconnected, and any idea developed within any discipline is likely the culmination of years of research and experimentation-that is, research and experimentation conducted in University facilities. But the proposed policy changes beg the question: Are university professors hired or purchased minds?

The faculty approved the new policy in a 33-22 vote last Tuesday, revealing a feeling of ambivalence about this issue amongst professors. Those proceedings, however, are still shrouded in tumult and confusion regarding the procedures for contesting a vote on grounds of an insufficient quorum of 100 faculty members.

Quorum or no quorum, universities everywhere stand to lose a lot from policies like this one. Brown prides itself in fostering an entrepreneurial environment and an innovative face for the university, but the new policy threatens this vision by colonizing free time and distorting incentives. The long term losses in faculty and staff incurred (at least one professor has dubbed the new policy "slave labor") could outweigh the potential capital gains from inventions. The prestige and honor bestowed upon an inventor's host institution should provide ample financial reward in and of itself.

The new policy portends a great reduction in incentives to innovate. Intellectual property laws are designed to provide lasting economic incentives to promote innovation and discovery. The specter of corporate seizure might dull some of the most creative minds in the country. The alternative is that new ideas and inventions might encourage professors to severe ties with the university, opting for early retirement over the confiscation of their intellectual property.

Van Dam also told the Providence Journal that professorships were dissimilar to bank workers, "where you work nine to five and it's pretty clearly understood that you don't take work home and the weekends are yours-that's not the life of a scholar." Discoveries and inventions made outside of the academy and without the funding and resources of the university must be treated differently, however. The seizure of intellectual property invented on one's own time is tantamount to declaring ownership over a professor's cerebral cortex.

In California and several other states, it's illegal for employers to demand the rights for intellectual property conceived on employees' own time. Unlike students, rapidly retreating farther into the recesses of the weekday party world, professors may have more luck re-appropriating the weekend in the Golden State.

-MM

Ephemera

baseball brawl

The key is to work as a team. Before your catcher can lunge at the batter with his glove, he's got to be absolutely certain that someone from his dugout can incapacitate the on-deck hitter with a chokehold before the third base coach gets involved. That's the only way to win a brawl.

Most people underestimate the devastating psychological potential of wielding a baseball glove as a weapon, which is why the fielding team always has the advantage in a baseball fight. With its endless web of stiff leather thongs, one glove shot to the nose, mouth or eyes is almost guaranteed to draw blood. In and of itself, this first shot, no matter how successful, won't do anything to stop a determined opponent. But someone clever with a glove can use his second shot to completely cover the batter's face, confusing him with darkness and frustrating him with pressure on the nose. It is in this condition that the initial blow, however minor, becomes a major problem for the hitter. Unable to see and tasting his own blood, even the most aggressive ballplayers will be overcome with the realization that he has been defeated and feel a powerful instinct to surrender. This feeling is hard to shake, even after the fight is over. For the team that loses a brawl, the game is as good as over.

As If You Care

Fairly recently I decided to cut my high top Converse sneakers in half. Now they are mid-tops, and their needless amputation is another civilian casualty that we can never hope to justify. I imagine that the chopped tops are now in some better place, or at least in some place less bound to my variable musculature. Perhaps they are eating Portuguese sweet bread dropped off a steely park bench, or doing Pilates on the median of a nearby highway. I like to speculate about these parts that are gone because the shoes that remain are a constant source of shame, just one more cog in the cycle of consuming, rejecting, modifying, cutting, displaying, hiding, and deep, deep ambivalence. Like a threadbare t-shirt or the film of mucus on a baby's mouth, my tenuous fashions are perpetually on the verge of destruction.

-CHO

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