Whether or not the new stipulations, if the Corporation passes them, will be constraining to professors remains to be seen.

Miller, who was among the first professors to appear on a regular television show as well as the first to offer lectures online, told The Crimson that rules about how professors can distribute knowledge may limit their ability to educate with new venues like the Internet.

But Weld Professor of Law Charles R. Nesson says he is confident that the deans of Harvard's schools will keep professors' academic freedom in mind when deciding, on a case by case basis, what will be permissible.

Harvard is simply trying to regain control over what it sees as a rapidly expanding operational field, Nesson says.

He says he expects the University to be open to new educational opportunities online, especially where other institutions would use shared information in the same way they would use a textbook published by a Harvard professor to teach one of their courses.

But if Harvard begins to use its new drafted stipulations to enforce "work for hire,"--where the University asserts its rights over professors' intellectual property--Nesson says, "there will be trouble."

Nesson adds that while HLS embraces new online technologies and plans to offer ways for professors to use them, "at the same time there is a real interest in assuring quality and assuring against what you might call brand disillusion."

Miller's name as a Harvard professor being used at a "not particularly high quality" law school like Concord was a form of "brand disillusion," Nesson says.