In a blog post about sharing taped university lectures, it outlines how students (and anyone looking for an education) could benefit greatly from access to free lectures. Obviously, universities might not appreciate giving away these lectures for free because it might cause students not to enroll. What I find interesting is whether or not a recorded lecture would be considered the property of the university because it was a work for hire or would it be copyright of the professor because it would be his/her ideas?
I think that free lectures would only benefit society and could even cause more students to want to enroll and get a more enriched educational experience once they watched a few lectures. If there would be any institution that might be more lienant with regards to copyright law I would imagine that it might be colleges and universities. Unfortunately, universities seem more and more like businesses and maybe they will try and restrict free education rather than promote it.
