Prof. Randy Finch, an educator and film producer with years of Hollywood work experience, is taking a guest professorship at TNUA this semester, teaching various courses on film production and intellectual property rights.

Prof. Finch, from the University of Central Florida, has produced a number of movies including "Outside Providence," Federal Hill," and "The Substance of Fire." His first film, "Miles from Home," premiered in competition at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.

His courses offered at the Department of Filmmaking this semester are designed to show students the production side of the film industry, including fundraising, marketing, advertising, and intellectual property rights.

Prof. Finch is an expert in intellectual property rights and negotiations over them. In his course on this subject, he is helping students gain deeper understanding of issues concerning copyrights, intellectual property rights, and related U.S. laws.

He discusses how the internet changed the world as intellectual property rights. Prof. Finch says these issues are not new.
To illustrate this point, he cited Benjamin Franklin as saying that "as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."

He also cited other current cases to highlight issues concerning intellectual property rights, such as the suicide of Internet activist Aaron H. Swartz after he came under FBI investigation for downloading academic articles from JSTOR.