CS FYPs - Rights

FireHydrant

Is it true that Trinity own the rights to all code written as part of a Final Year Project? Like I can't sell the final product?

Sir Ophiuchus

As I understand it, yes. Or at least not without Trinity's permission.

Jinonny

Yes. But you could sell it without telling them. They might try and sue left right and centre but they won't get a penny out of me!!!!

Jehuty42

Or, you could just speak to the department and come to an arrangement. They will probably give you the license in return for some recognition or publicity. Look at Havoc, the physics company, as an example.

Groinshot

Jehuty42 wrote: »

Or, you could just speak to the department and come to an arrangement. They will probably give you the license in return for some recognition or publicity. Look at Havoc, the physics company, as an example.

*havok

M450

I believe the rights are all yours unless you were receiving some form of financial support while you were in college...

FireHydrant

sooooo Maybe? Hmmm the thing is, ya reckon they'd notice the project was valuable... And couldn't the supervisor take all the credit, like they do for Nobel Prizes in the Sciences for example? All the credit being the cash from the sale of course!

Jehuty42

Get to know some of the people in the department before you make up bull****, they're not malicious people. If your project ends up being interesting or valuable, you're more than likely going to be encouraged to do more work on it as a masters- they get more academic funding and recognition, as does the university. Don't underestimate how much research is done in the CS department- 9% of the college's funding for research goes straight into it. That's whoppingly high when you consider the more expensive physics and bioscience research that comes out of that same budget. The department loves to get the best and the brightest people coming out of the undergraduate degree into research, where they can stay for years publishing papers with a supervisor, getting their name out there in the journals, working towards full professorship. They have no interest in making a quick buck selling a student's work to industry when they can grab that student, polish that work together and exploring all its implications for the field, and then presenting it to industry at a much higher value.

Sir Ophiuchus

Jehuty42 pretty much has the right of it. I know in Psychology that if you want to publish your final year project as a paper, you need to discuss it with your supervisor, and offer to put them as second author. If you don't publish it after a year or so, your supervisor can do so if they wish, but they must list you as second author.

I'm sure the regulations for CS are out there somewhere. But yeah, no need to be too paranoid about it.