In revising the 1909 Copyright Act, a definition of “worksmade for hire” which codified the law decided under the 1909 Copyright Act was incorporated into the Copyright Act of 1976 (“the1976 Copyright Act"). Section 101 of the 1976 Copyright Act defines a “work made for hire" as (1) a work created by an employee within the scope of employment; or (2) a work created by an independent contractor during the course of commission. The 1976 Copyright Act provides that in the case of a “work made for hire", the employer or the commissioning party for whom the work was created is deemed the author and owns the copyright unless there is a written agreement to the contrary. Based on the fact that Congress failed to incorporate the longstanding “academic exception" into Section 201(b) of the 1976 Copyright Act as a exception to the “work made for hire" doctrine other than the “signed written agreement" exception, some commentators argued that the language of the “work made for hire" provision in the 1976 Copyright Act has eliminated the “academic exception" for university professors. No case authority was exactly on point. Nevertheless, judges have spoken in dicta supporting the proposition that the “academic exception" had continued to exist after the enactment of the 1976 Copyright Act. Whether the “work made for hire" provision governing the employeecreated works in the 1976 Copyright Act permits universities to claim authorship and copyright ownership in conventional acdemic works created by their professors has yet to be decided by courts or responded from congress, professors and universities have started another copyright ownership battle for on-line academic works produced by professors based substantially on preexisting conventional academic works crated by professors. With the growth of distance learning in the Internet, on-line academic works created by university professors were considered more valuable than ever. Some universities have come to view exploitation of on-line academic works produced by their professors as a means of filling the revenue gaps left by shrinking government grants and students tuition payments. Motivating by the considerable profit in commercializing on-line academic works produced by their professors, several leading universities such as Harvard Law School, have begun to compete with their professors for the copyright ownership of professors' on-line academic works. While the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 was enacted by Congress to deal with the copyright issues relating to the use of preexisting conventional academic works and course materials in the distance learning, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 however fails to address the copyright ownership issues with respect to preexisting academic works created or adopted for distance learning. Therefore, the authorship/copyright ownership of professors' preexisting conventional academic works is still governed by the 1976 Copyright Act's “work made for hire" provisions. To claim the copyright ownership of professors' on-line academic works, universities asserted that such works are derivative works based substantially on preexisting conventional academic works that are “works made for hire" whose copyright belonged to the employers-universities under the 1976 Copyright Act's“work made for hire" provisions. However, as derivative works, the copyright ownership of professors' on-line academic works will largely depend on the copyright ownership of preexisting conventional academic works created by professors, unless there is contrary agreement provided otherwise. Thus, the copyright ownership of professors' conventional academic works and on-line academic works under the 1976 Copyright Act's “work made for hire". provisions again become issues of great concern in the academic world.