Harvard University is up in arms over the internet. Arthur Miller, a rather famous professor at Harvard Law (not to be confused with the rather famous playwright who somehow married Marilyn Monroe while Henry didn't), recently taped some lectures for internet broadcast through Concord University, a "distance learning" college, and now he's facing disciplinary action from his employer. Harvard profs are allowed to freelance, you see, but they can't teach at other schools during the academic term without permission from the dean.

Since Miller is appearing in taped virtual form, he says he's not teaching. You can't ask Prof. Miller a question and Miller won't grade your papers. The class is taught by Concord professors, who are using Miller's lectures as a textbook of sorts. The question becomes: who owns Miller's lectures, the professor or his employers? Which is a rather silly question since the lectures are an extension of Miller and Harvard can't own Miller (because that'd be slavery.) In our country the workers generally don't own the means of production, but in the case of intellectual property the workers are the means of production and they certainly own their ideas.

Karl Marx 1, Harvard 0. (Or, the red storm beats the crimson tide.)

Harvard doesn't have a leg to stand on. Harvard professors publish books, after all, usually at presses not run by Harvard, and those books are used at schools throughout the country. Harvard professors tape the occasional lecture and play it off campus. Sometimes they even sell lectures. I assume that Harvard professors occasionally discourse at off campus cocktail parties.

What Harvard doesn't want (and this is what they told the Wall Street Journal) is for people to have access to a Harvard caliber professor without paying Harvard tuition. So, it'll cost you $30,000 a year to get good information, if you're among the lucky few who Harvard believes is worthy of getting such information. In order to be one of those lucky few you have to be smart, or rich, or be the offspring of people who went to Harvard and it helps if they donated money.) Ivy league school admissions are, of course, a joke. George W. Bush Jr. went to Yale, need I say more?

In the interest of full disclosure, I applied to the Yale School of Drama last year and didn't get in. Also in the interest of full disclosure, I am a lot smarter than George W. Bush Jr. It is possible that I've an axe to grind. I went to a posh private prep school where I had access to all sorts of great educational tools which were denied to the public school students around me, so I know there are advantages to these situations, especially in terms of course materials and the skill of the teachers. There are great professors all over, but the ones working at Harvard are probably a treat to be lectured by on a good day.

But Harvard doesn't want you to have that treat unless they've approve of you. It comes down to that, rather simply. Harvard is a private institution and they can do whatever they want in terms of letting people in. But private organizations can't stop people from getting out, not in a free society. For Harvard to say that Arthur Miller can't sell taped lectures to an internet college is for Harvard to say that they own Arthur Miller and that's a patently ridiculous claim.

Miller isn't even teaching, he's just being broadcast while he speaks and, get this, Miller once had a television show and Harvard didn't mind that one bit. Is this the kind of logic we should expect from one of the nation's best universities?

Maybe there's a bit of hypocrisy in all private schooling ñ the idea of a liberal education, upon which most of these institutions are founded, demands that knowledge be a free and available resource. But a private company often tries to horde and protect its knowledge and that means hoarding and protecting the people who create the knowledge. In this respect, Harvard is treating its professors like DOW Chemicals might treat one of its research scientists, and maybe we should expect similar behavior from two private entities, though their missions may be different.

Harvard actions in this leave me with the rather ugly feeling that they don't want people outside the Ivy league to have access to the best information and the best teachers. If they did, the Ivy league wouldn't be special anymore and that would perhaps be a sad thing, as they have a good tradition of turning out great minds (well, except that Harvard let Kissinger teach at one point). Or we may all grow up and stop treating knowledge as a commodity and education as something which should cost one student 30,000 a year.

Michael Maiello went to a Poison Ivy League school, which means that his university couldn't even claim a good athletic program as a reason for poor academic performance.