A professor within the University of Oregon’s School of Music and Dance has earned roughly $570,000 in revenue from students in the past four years with his self-published book. However the issue was set aside as a “gray area” in policy, according to numerous SOMD faculty. 

The professor, Toby Koenigsberg, teaches the “Popular Songwriting” course at UO, which previously had at times several hundred asynchronous students each term. He’s raising several ethical and legal concerns amongst his colleagues at the school, their concerns being that he could be not only violating UO Ethics, but Oregon law, due to the revenue he made from the book while working as a “public official.” 

Koenigsberg is the sole owner of King & Hill Publishing, which publishes his textbook, according to state business records. He registered his business with the state in 2020.

He did not directly answer the Daily Emerald when asked how much he has profited from textbook sales since its publishing in 2020. However, according to an analysis by the Emerald, Koenigsberg may have pocketed roughly $570,000 in the past four years, given the price of his textbook and varying number of students each term. 

Since Koenigsberg self-published his book, he allegedly received all the revenue from this text. According to one SOMD faculty member, the text did not go through the typical academic peer-review and publishing process, and therefore there was no third party that would earn a profit.  

In a subsequent email to the Emerald, Koenigsberg claimed his text was contributed to and vetted by those who have worked for famous musicians including Elton John, the Backstreet Boys, French Montana, Grace VanderWaal and many more. 

SOMD’s slow response to its students and staff’s concerns

SOMD students and faculty attempted to raise their concerns to the dean of the SOMD, Sabrina Madison-Cannon, in 2020, according to SOMD faculty who asked not to be identified for confidentiality purposes. 

The concerned faculty were told there was a “gray area” in policy for the situation, and nothing was changed at this time.  

In late 2021, Madison-Cannon and the Office of the Provost discussed the issue again, according to emails obtained by the Emerald. Madison-Cannon was told it seemed like a “pretty clear conflict of interest,” by the Executive Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, emails show. 

However, the Assistant Director of Research Compliance Services at the time, Carolyn Craig, told Madison-Cannon that there was no hard policy to prevent instructors from selling their materials to students, and that the SOMD should establish its own policy for this, according to the emails obtained by the Emerald.

The school did not begin the policy making process until June 2024. In light of this, the textbook continued to be required for every student for several more years, allowing Koenigsberg to profit further. 

The information given to Madison-Cannon was proven to be false in April, when the UO’s Associate Director of Conflicts of Interest & Export Controls, Mandy Gettler, discovered administration did not account for Koenigsberg owning his own publishing company when they discussed it with the dean in 2021, emails show.

When the Emerald attempted to speak with Madison-Cannon in May to discuss Koenigsberg’s textbook, she wrote in an email statement that she was “not able to comment on those matters right now, as confidential personnel and policy-related discussions are happening related to this.”

Madison-Cannon stated to the Emerald in September that there would be a new policy that would be voted on and ratified sometime in the coming months.  She said that, “we expect the situation to be resolved at this point.”

Textbook guidelines and how they’ve been broken 

According to UO Ethics guidelines, “All university employees, including faculty and staff, and even some students and volunteers are considered public officials.”

State law bars public employees from using their position for financial gain. UO policy clearly states an employee can’t influence students to buy goods from an employee’s side business. 

It also requires employees to disclose and receive prior approval from an administrator for all outside activities that could financially benefit them.

The UO Office of the Vice President for Research Innovation recommends that faculty follow the American Association of University Professors guidelines for professors who assign their own texts. 

The AAUP guidelines include several recommendations. One suggestion is to place copies of the text in the UO Course Reserves, which would give students the option for free access. 

Another is to have an unconflicted third party affirm the decision to include the text in class. This may look like a department head or other faculty member who approves of the quality and necessity of a text in any given course.

In an email statement to the Emerald Koenigsberg stated, “I believe this is a common practice at UO and other institutions of higher education, and does not violate Oregon law. I have done this with the full knowledge of the UO administration.”

Koenigsberg did not identify if any UO administrator gave prior approval for his textbook arrangement nor did he say if he disclosed his outside activity. 

Koenigsberg stated to the Emerald that he plans to provide the text for free to his students going forward. However, “Contemporary Songwriting” is not currently available at the UO Libraries. 

According to UO’s registration and financial aid website, DuckWeb, Koenigsberg’s class will have a maximum of 50 students instead of its regular 500 in the upcoming terms. 

These students are required to purchase a different textbook, its price tag coming out to  $17.25 for a new copy. The textbook is titled “The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory,” written by John Seabrook. 

Koenigsberg was not involved in the writing or publishing of the new textbook.

Students, faculty express frustration over Koenigsberg’s course material 

Students and faculty alike have shared a general feeling that the text is less of a professional source and more so a software tutorial one could access online for free.

Current students from the SOMD Dean Student Advisory Council said this issue was brought to the Dean in spring 2024 due to several students’ concerns. 

Some SOMD faculty have said since this text was published through his own company, it did not go through any peer review. Koenigsberg did not confirm or deny any questions relating to his book’s review processes.

“The self-published aspect is important here. It’s important because the academic review process, the peer review process, is what assures quality when a scholar does research or writes a book,” Zachary Wallmark, an associate professor of musicology at the SOMD, said. 

According to students and faculty, Koenigsberg’s book mainly consists of screenshots outlining how to use GarageBand. GarageBand is an Apple software application that does not exist on Windows software, meaning it can be difficult to access for students without an Apple computer.

“It very much is a glorified GarageBand tutorial,” Maykenzie Freeman, a former student in the SOMD, said. “We didn’t even talk about lyricism, except for maybe one week of the course.”

Freeman said because she did not have a MacBook, she had to spend a lot of time in the library in order to access the software, and ultimately do any work for the class.

Austin Godburn, a former student in the SOMD, who is now a music producer, said that it felt like the popular songwriting class was taking advantage of freshmen. 

“From my perspective, it was like a collection of PowerPoint slides, not like an actual legitimate text on songwriting,” Godburn said. 

He also said when he was a freshman, he wasn’t thinking too much about the textbooks, he just accepted they were required. 

“Most people…who make their own materials for their own classes, they just make a PDF packet and publish it [for free],” Drew Nobile, an associate professor of music theory, said. 

Nobile said he tends to post his class content for free access in Canvas, a software which many courses at UO are run through, rather than going through the “trouble” of publishing something through a personal company. 

Wallmark said if he were to require a self-written text that was peer-reviewed and published through a third party, he would receive “a very small percentage” of profit. 

This is because when using a publisher a separate group is introduced that earns the majority of the profit and academically reviews the text. Koenigsberg’s text did not have this separate group. 

Wallmark said because of the low profit margins, most professors aren’t motivated by the profit they would receive from assigning a text. 

Koenigsberg’s publishing site was previously publicly accessible during the Emerald’s reporting. Shortly after being contacted by the Emerald, Koenigsberg’s site became private and is no longer publicly accessible. 

“I am very proud of the popular music program. I also am very proud of popular songwriting, one of the most-loved music classes at the university,” Koenigsberg stated. 

[An earlier version of this article referred to Koenigsberg’s class as “Contemporary Songwriting.” The class is actually named “Popular Songwriting,” while the textbook in question is titled “Contemporary Songwriting.”]