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Page 1 of 1 Law, Policy & Ethics in Design and Media Arts

Intellectual Property

Almost all the work at Pathways involves intellectual property. The materials the company creates for its clients are original creative products. Typically, the client holds the copyright. In some cases, Pathways obtains the copyright and licenses the material to the client. This way, Pathways retains control of the creative product and generates more revenue from it.

Pathways is a regional leader in the development of Web sites, gaming applications for educational usage, eLearning, and museum and exhibition media. Employees at Pathways create Web sites from start to finish. Clients often want to provide content for inclusion on their Web site. In this process, one of the problems frequently encountered by Pathways is the verification of ownership of images and videos clients often want to include in their Web sites. Pathways verifies the ownership of these images and videos before using them on the new Web site in order to avoid copyright infringement issues. Any trademarks or logos provided by the client are also checked against the United States Patent and Trademark’s database for authenticity.

At times, the clients approach Pathways to update their existing Web sites created by another firm. In cases like this, before work can begin, it is important to make sure none of the content was created under a license agreement with the original Web design firm. Clients all too often do not realize that the material on their Web site could be owned by the Web design firm, depending on how the contract was structured. If the original design firm simply licensed Flash components to the client for use on the Web site during a contract time frame, and if the client wants to maintain those portions of the Web site, then the issue of licensing must be addressed.

In the last decade, Pathways began providing eLearning solutions, developing proprietary software to host online learning ranging from corporate training courses to creating and maintaining entire distance learning programs for colleges and universities. Since the software is proprietary, Pathways licenses its software to various entities. The scope of the license is negotiated with each client based on the length of license, number of users, customization of the software, and maintenance of the eLearning platforms.

Another service Pathways offers is course- and program-specific video tutorials. For instance, Pathways may enter into contract with a medical school to create interactive online programs that allow medical students to test themselves on key concepts and to interact with the software in 3D format simulating actual medical procedures.

Under a work-for-hire agreement, Pathways also creates interactive kiosks, museum exhibits, and media exhibits for tradeshows. In this instance, Pathways maintains no rights to any of the intellectual property rights and everything created by Pathways’ employees becomes the property of the client. An example of this type of media would be an interactive exhibit at the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, where museum visitors can engage in simulations with various exhibits hosted by the museum.

Pathways has contracts with all national media outlets including CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX for remote production of interviews and commentary segments used in national news programs. Each aspect of the production is controlled by the specific terms of the contract where all rights to the content are retained by the media outlet. Pathways is paid per contract depending on the services required and personnel involved and whether it is on-site or remote broadcasting.