Major Textbook Publishers Sue Open-Education Textbook Start-Up 278
linjaaho writes "Three major textbook publishers have sued a startup company making free and open textbooks, citing 'copyright infringement,' as the company is making similar textbooks using open material. From the article: 'The publishers' complaint takes issue with the way the upstart produces its open-education textbooks, which Boundless bills as free substitutes for expensive printed material. To gain access to the digital alternatives, students select the traditional books assigned in their classes, and Boundless pulls content from an array of open-education sources to knit together a text that the company claims is as good as the designated book. The company calls this mapping of printed book to open material "alignment" — a tactic the complaint said creates a finished product that violates the publishers' copyrights.'"
Boo hoo for the dinosaurs (Score:5, Interesting)
Since you can't copyright facts and figures only their presentation and form, as long as the arrangement, structure and alignment is different, they don't have a leg to stand on.
Re:Boo hoo for the dinosaurs (Score:4, Informative)
An analysis of facts and figures can also be copyrighted, and many textbooks (particularly liberal arts) contain as much analysis as anything else.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Boo hoo for the dinosaurs (Score:4, Insightful)
If I read TFA correctly, only open source materials are used, and they are being cited properly. There is some creative re-arrangement being done, and I would hope that the company that is doing so is copyrighting their art (similar to the copyright one can put on an anthology). The stuff should be going out under some equivalent of the GPL (which if you will recall is a use of copyright).
So what strikes me as odd is that the company is being sued for copyright infringement of what is, very clearly, their own creative work. This should not just get thrown out of court, but all the lawyers involved in filing this suit should be permanently disbarred for malpractice. Every lawyer allowed before the bar has a duty to the Court to uphold the law, which transcends any contractual or for-hire duties they may otherwise take on. We do not need, nor can we afford to have, lawyers who do not understand this basic ethic practicing in this country.
Re:Boo hoo for the dinosaurs (Score:5, Insightful)
they don't have a leg to stand on.
You're applying common sense, not a wise practice when it comes to law. Especially not when it comes to "law" as practiced in the modern US. If a bunch of publishers get together and lobby aggressively I wouldn't be surprised if a court found that a sufficient degree of similarity existed, thereby violating copyright. And if the court didn't find it, well, Congress can amend the copyright law and I think the US Copyright Office can regulate matters a bit.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering that the open sources which contain the documentation / resources used are already out there in the wild, and no-one is suing them, then it is only the arrangement or total content aggregate that they could be suing for, since the content cannot be refuted or sued for copyright infringement, and as long as the arrangement doesn't impinge, then the fact that the content accumulated covers the same sets of topics but in the words of those already published as open content, there is no legal leg to
Re: (Score:3)
Has anyone here actually compared Boundless' offerings with the recommended texbooks? I know that 'dinosaur traditional publishers attempt to squash plucky upstart', but it may be that anyone dispassionate looking at the results would say 'hey thats an obvious rip-pff'. I have no idea - I haven't seen the output.
Re:Boo hoo for the dinosaurs (Score:5, Interesting)
A company is producing free books, they are generating no income likely running off donations. The publishers had go togethor knowing full well their case is bullshit and sharing the cost in case the company producing free books manages a legal defence.
This is a straight up corrupt abuse of the legal system. The publishers know their claim is a lie, they are simply relying of the company producing free books not having the money to pay for a legal defence and hoping against hope someone like the ACLU doesn't jump to the defence of the free book company.
Re:Boo hoo for the dinosaurs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Boo hoo for the dinosaurs (Score:4, Interesting)
There are mechanisms that have been in place for a long time that could be used to handle this.
One is barratry [wikipedia.org] (wikipedia is fine for an intro, use its references to go deeper). This should be used more widely and more often right now.
Another is the process of disbarring lawyers who fashion suits that impede justice rather than seeking it. Make corporate lawyers personally responsible for the actions they take on behalf of their employers. They are supposed to be officers of the Court, and as such are supposed to put certain lawyerly ethics above their duties to their employers. If the worst 5% were permanently disbarred (and ideally tarred feathered, too) that would go along way toward getting the rest of them to grow a pair and tell the CEO where the line has to be drawn.
Re:Boo hoo for the dinosaurs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Boo hoo for the dinosaurs (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's time to end all this BS.
Just create an official "license to kill competition". It shall allow to just call a judge and cry "WHaaaa Mr. Judge! They are making me lose money! WHaaa" And the judge will just send the police.
Just make the license expensive enough. And then find a way of dealing with the thousands of jobless lawyers.
Re: (Score:3)
Awesome, while obviously not the first choice I would make. This solution is definitely more efficient than the current legislation that is trying to achieve the very same thing!
Simplicity and transparency. I fully support this (if we can't get an optimal solution)..
Re:Boo hoo for the dinosaurs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
rewording a paragraph and passing it off as your own is plagiarism, not copyright infringement. Two entirely different things.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Boo hoo for the dinosaurs (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Table of contents are like phone books - listing of facts and locations - non copyrightable.
Please cite case law demonstrating that tables of contents are excluded under 17 USC 102(b).
Re:Boo hoo for the dinosaurs (Score:5, Informative)
U.S. Copyright Law
Is the Table of Contents Copyrightable?
Bernard C. Dietz, current head of the renewal section of the examining division of the U.S. Copyright Office, October 17, 1991, stated in his deposition, "...it has to be kept in mind that in the vast majority of cases the table of contents itself is not copyrightable; it's nothing more than a listing of the citations in the book. There has to be something uniquely attributable to that author of the table of contents to make it copyrightable."
From here [urantiabook.org]. (Never heard of that book before. The world is bizarre.)
Re: (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Yea, is the start-up actually using any of the text from the established publishers?
If not then I don't see how they can claim copyright.
Non-literal copying: the choice of a bear (Score:5, Funny)
Yea, is the start-up actually using any of the text from the established publishers?
According to the article, the start-up is accused of non-literal copying. The plaintiff's textbook illustrates thermodynamics with a non-free photo of a bear running and a non-free photo of a bear catching a fish. The allegedly infringing textbook illustrates thermodynamics with a free photo of a bear running and a free photo of a bear catching a fish. The claim is that apart from the copyright in the particular photographs, the choice of a bear to illustrate the laws of thermodynamics is itself sufficiently original.
Re:Non-literal copying: the choice of a bear (Score:5, Insightful)
The claim is that apart from the copyright in the particular photographs, the choice of a bear to illustrate the laws of thermodynamics is itself sufficiently original.
Honestly, that does sound like the (big, evil, monstrous, yadda, yadda, yadda) textbook publisher may have a point. There are some concepts in physics that are always illustrated in (nearly) the same way, with (nearly) identical examples. You can't talk about Maxwell's demon without a demon. Schrodinger will always have his half-dead cat. Every first-year dynamics textbook will have a race car travelling a banked, circular track riding on tires with a certain coefficient of friction.
On the other hand, I've spent a couple of decades studying and working in physics-related fields, and I've yet to come across a famous or canonical bear-catching-a-fish story in any branch of physics, let alone thermodynamics. The choice of a novel illustrative example certainly seems like a genuinely creative act on the part of the textbook's authors, and could form the basis of a legitimate complaint.
Ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
as long as the arrangement, structure and alignment is different
They seem to be claiming that the structure is copied though i.e. you select one of their texts and the site collects "open source" information which covers the same material in a similar fashion. What is so ironic about this is that, at least where 1st year physics text books are concerned, the publisher's text books have almost exactly identical structures - sometimes even down to the level of chapter and section numbers. So, since I am certain that these publishers would never do what they seem to be accusing this company of doing, I can only presume that they must all pay a licensing fee for use of this format.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Since you can't copyright facts and figures only their presentation and form, as long as the arrangement, structure and alignment is different, they don't have a leg to stand on.
Facts schmacts we have lawyers and a huge legal budget. - textbook publishers
Re: (Score:2)
More specifically, you cannot be guilty of copyright infringement without having copied anything.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I would agree.
But you see, the USA has become a fascist state. Fascism is law.
It has nothing to to do with Facts or Figures or a leg to stand on.
This now depends on what is in the Judges best interest for this case to either pass, or shut the company down.
Funny, but I posted many many times over the many years (1998) that fascism was coming to this country and that it would eventually lead to laws that prevent anyone from learning anything without a license.
We have come a long way and facism has now offici
The crux of the matter (Score:5, Interesting)
From the Article:
To illustrate this claim of intellectual theft, the publishers’ complaint points to the Boundless versions of several textbooks, including Biology, a textbook authored by Neil Campbell and Jane Reece. The Boundless alternative, the complaint alleges, is guilty of copying the printed material’s layout and engaging in what the complaint calls “photographic paraphrasing.” In one chapter of the printed book, for instance, the editors chose to illustrate the first and second laws of thermodynamics using pictures of a bear running and a bear catching a fish in its mouth. Boundless’s substitute text uses similar pictures to illustrate the same concepts—albeit Creative Commons-licensed images hosted on Wikipedia that include links to the source material, in accordance with the terms of the open license. (The end of each Boundless section also includes links to the text’s source material, which often includes Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia of Earth, and other Web sites.)
The complaint goes on to allege that Boundless’s choice of bear photographs in that chapter reflects “only the previously made creative, scholarly, and aesthetic judgments of the authors and editors of Campbell’s Biology.”
(Bolded by me)
So... is that wrong? I don't get it. If it's Creative Commons, doesn't that allow this sort of thing, by definition?
Re:The crux of the matter (Score:5, Interesting)
How similar were those pictures? I would have never thought to use a 'bear with a fish' to do thermal dynamics. That seems to be a 'non-obvious' solution. Someone else using that example would definitely be copying, even if they didn't use the exact same bear picture.
But how is the rest of the alignment done? Is is a manual process where and editor goes through and maps ever textbook they get a hold of? It is an automatic process based on the Table of Contents? (or index?)
It seems to me there are two important parts of making a text-book that would deserve copyright protection:
1. The narrative text/examples.
2. The 'flow'. The order by which the author chose to present the facts and lead you through the understanding.
Those are the two creative parts of the textbook. Those are what differentiate it from another 'book of facts.'
As much as I hate textbook cartels, I'd have to say that this 'alignment' process definitely has the potential to encroach on the actually creative side of textbook design, so I'd say the lawsuit has some merit. Of course, I haven't studied an 'aligned' book or the book from which it was derived. Heck, I didn't even RTFA.
Re: (Score:3)
But how is the rest of the alignment done? Is is a manual process where and editor goes through and maps ever textbook they get a hold of? It is an automatic process based on the Table of Contents? (or index?)
It seems to me there are two important parts of making a text-book that would deserve copyright protection:
1. The narrative text/examples.
2. The 'flow'. The order by which the author chose to present the facts and lead you through the understanding.
Those are the two creative parts of the textbook. Those are what differentiate it from another 'book of facts.'
As much as I hate textbook cartels, I'd have to say that this 'alignment' process definitely has the potential to encroach on the actually creative side of textbook design, so I'd say the lawsuit has some merit. Of course, I haven't studied an 'aligned' book or the book from which it was derived. Heck, I didn't even RTFA.
I think you are trying to define the word "curriculum".
For example, my kids district enforces that the teachers teach to the "connected mathematics" curriculum as seen in this wiki article. It is possible your local district also uses connected math, or perhaps it one of the numerous competitors. Personally I grew up in the IMP era across town in the same school district, but was able to self teach to a reasonably high level, so it turned out OK anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connected_Mathematics [wikipedia.org]
To
Re:The crux of the matter (Score:5, Interesting)
Except now you're trying to copyright an idea.
Seems to me, there's a fairly obvious reason why ideas were excluded from copyright. Once you start, where do you stop? So a bear catching a fish is "too similar"? What if it's a different color bear, catching a different kind of fish? What if it's a different kind of animal that looks like a bear, but isn't really? Or what if it's a bear catching something that looks like a fish, but isn't? One could also argue that *any* animal catching *any* fish or anything similar is "non-obvious" and therefore too similar.
But above all, the authors of the textbooks knew what kind of risks there are before they ever started. They knew you can't copyright facts or ideas. If you're merely organizing and explaining certain facts, you shouldn't be too surprised if someone else attempts to do the same thing in a slightly different (although similar) manner.
This isn't really about copyright infringement at all. It's about an industry that is rapidly becoming obsolete, and the greedy fat cats trying to keep it going to keep getting fatter off it.
Re:The crux of the matter (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't really about copyright infringement at all. It's about an industry that is rapidly becoming obsolete, and the greedy fat cats trying to keep it going to keep getting fatter off it.
I'm also willing to bet that the textbook cartel has had their sharks circling this company for a while looking for any standing whatsoever to sue over. This is probably just the first vaguely plausible thing they've come up with.
Re: (Score:3)
From the Article:
To illustrate this claim of intellectual theft, the publishers’ complaint points to the Boundless versions of several textbooks, including Biology, a textbook authored by Neil Campbell and Jane Reece. The Boundless alternative, the complaint alleges, is guilty of copying the printed material’s layout and engaging in what the complaint calls “photographic paraphrasing.” In one chapter of the printed book, for instance, the editors chose to illustrate the first and second laws of thermodynamics using pictures of a bear running and a bear catching a fish in its mouth. Boundless’s substitute text uses similar pictures to illustrate the same concepts—albeit Creative Commons-licensed images hosted on Wikipedia that include links to the source material, in accordance with the terms of the open license. (The end of each Boundless section also includes links to the text’s source material, which often includes Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia of Earth, and other Web sites.)
The complaint goes on to allege that Boundless’s choice of bear photographs in that chapter reflects “only the previously made creative, scholarly, and aesthetic judgments of the authors and editors of Campbell’s Biology.”
(Bolded by me)
So... is that wrong? I don't get it. If it's Creative Commons, doesn't that allow this sort of thing, by definition?
IANAL but my understanding is that its not the bears in isolation, it the bears in the larger context. Its the overall look-and-feel of the page. Look-and-feel, perhaps not in this context though, has been successfully used in copyright/patent suits. Also I would guess that the use of bears strongly indicates that the look-and-feel being similar was not a coincidence, that it was intentional. Keep in mind that civil courts use a threshold of guilt far lower than criminal course where you have "innocent beyo
Re:The crux of the matter (Score:5, Interesting)
From the Article:
So... is that wrong? I don't get it. If it's Creative Commons, doesn't that allow this sort of thing, by definition?
Well, yes, wikipedia certainly does allow that sort of thing. But the publishers of the textbooks that are sueing certainly don't.
Their claim is not that the picture itself is being infringed (and if it was, it would be for wikipedia to pursue the claim, but of course wikipedia permits that) but that the mere idea that a bear running illustrates the first law of thermodynamics is copyrightable and that's what is being infringed upon. An artistic choice was made by the author -- a running bear shows the first law of thermodynamics (I certainly don't see it, but whatever) and they think this is copyrightable.
As I see it, it's a weak case, but not so frivilous that it should just be thrown out without going to court. They're probably hoping that Boundless can't even defend themselves against this weak suit.
Re: (Score:2)
And that's where it falls down, as the fact that ideas are not copyrightable, but only the representations of those ideas, is one of the basic principles of copyright law.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not ownership of the facts that they're claiming, it's the organization of the facts that they present in the text.
Re: (Score:2)
You misunderstand - the license of the content Boundless use is not at issue here, its the (for want of a better way of putting it) creation of a "derivative work" of a third parties textbook by using that content in the exact same manner as the third party does in its text.
Boundless are doing it on demand, and using the third party text as a reference for creating their own version - that is what the third party is taking issue with.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Their point is that the arrangement of items that are public domain or otherwise free can still be protected by copyright. However, this is a very narrow protection. If Boundless is using their textbook to create a 'free' clone, it's quite possible that they're crossing the line of infringement. This is very much a gray area of copyright.
Re: (Score:3)
Seems like an honest question; I'll take a shot, giving my own interpretation of TFA:
In essence, the plaintiffs are saying that, due to the aforementioned creative, scholarly, and aesthetic judgments, their textbooks present a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Boundless is, in their view, reproducing (perhaps I should say "echoing") not just the freely available parts, but the copyrighted arrangement that represents (they claim) a significant part of the value of the books. Ergo, lawsuit.
Re: (Score:2)
So... is that wrong? I don't get it.
My view is that that is wrong. My take on it is this:
I'd read it as the publishers arguing that copyright protection covers more than the final words on the page — that, in terms of the overall expenditure of effort / cost in writing a text book, the "original" author puts effort into research, thinking and structure / layout, and that the cost of doing this should mean that someone should be prohibited from taking a fully-research and structured book, and replacing the paragraphs and images with o
Was it an African or European bear? (Score:3)
To begin with, I needed basic kinematic data on African and European bear species.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The publishers are trying to claim they can copyright an idea. Unless the judge is bought and paid for twice over, that'll get thrown out of the court so hard it'll bounce twice.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
"Analysis" sounds like someone's ideas. Ideas are not copyrightable, only expressions of ideas.
Can you say "Desperation" (Score:4, Interesting)
It's bad enough that profs happily write textbooks and have a partner do a quid pro quo arrangement (each prof in a pair requires the other's pricey textbook in a given class to get around the rules forbidding you to require your own). It's worse that textbooks "change" from year-to-year (often with no substantial content changes at all) in order to keep a revenue stream coming in. It's worse still the practices used to hamper the used textbook markets...
Now students have to deal with crap like this?
Glad I left academia years ago. :(
Re:Can you say "Desperation" (Score:5, Interesting)
I have fairly extensive experience with academia, and I have never seen a school that would have a rule prohibiting professors using their own books. I have also never seen professors having an agreement like the one you talk about. When I was an undergraduate student, about half my professors required their own textbooks, that were mostly available at the university store for a nominal price as mimeographed copies.
As far as publishers coming up with a bogus "new" edition of a textbook every few years, I can assure you that professors hate that practice as much as students do.
Re:written/recorded form (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll reply to you, because besides all the usual textbook games, you hinted at the *really nasty* copyright theme brewing - one so ugly the media has managed to distract us from even talking about it!
Entry Level Lectures in College/University.
Those are famously just "3d Videocasts" with Talking Heads writing things on White/Black boards. A "Class" consists of 25 "Episodes", plus the 1-3 course books, plus a "certification that you know the material". Price: Some $10,000.
If you can just get an alternative certification process down to validate people knowing their materials, then parts of the educational engine will crash, badly. I know, there's other parts of the "experience", but from the content side, Big-Ed has a really wrenching shakedown coming, maybe in five-seven years.
Re: (Score:3)
This. This. This.
See what Khan Academy and CK-12.org are doing to K-12 teaching materials? K-12? HAH. College courses are next. The last nails in the coffin is an open certification body where you can go for testing without getting gouged, and an open marketplace for tutors/subject matter experts to work with you online.
Re: (Score:2)
If you require a human body, you've failed.
So how do you manage without yours? ;-) Books, multimedia etc. can certainly go along way but you need someone to challenge your understanding, until we have AI computers, that requires a human to interpret what a student says and point out the flaws in their reasoning.
Re: (Score:2)
That should have read: "If you require a human body to teach a subject to someone, you've failed"
Re: (Score:2)
If the classes you are taking in college are at such a low level that you do not actually need a professor teaching them, you did not study hard enough at high school.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess we'll just call it a big experiment, and see what happens when all the content is open sourced and freely available.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you implying that only professors of a subject can serve this purpose?
Re: (Score:3)
Doubtful, however they are the ideal person for the job.
It also doesn't change that you have an error in:
If you require a human body, you've failed.
By that logic, needing a TA for that feedback loop is still failure.
While I hate the textbook cartel a ton, teachers still have a very useful purpose, especially in the introductory and very high level classes. The intermediate stuff people often can learn on their own, but when you are just entering into a field, or are pushing the limits of a field, having someone very knowledgeable to hold your han
Re: (Score:2)
I also believe that you don't need a TA in the feedback loop.
I very firmly believe you can eliminate the need for people in teaching; it will take time, and it will take engineers to build software capable of optimizing teaching a student the material. Once you have the foundation though, you'll be able to add subjects to the framework once, and teach millions of people at little to no additional cost.
Re: (Score:2)
"Professor" is merely shorthand for "subject matter expert." Yes, only a subject matter expert is likely to be able to explain your mistakes or tell you if you're doing it wrong. Graduate assistant and fellow students are also a resource; but being progressively less trained themselves, they are progressively more likely to be wrong themselves. This doesn't mean that a professor is always right, that student is always wrong, or that there is not a considerable amount of subjectiveness in any of this, bu
Re: (Score:2)
No, but you were the one that implied that teachers should be obsolete, and if you need one, then you've failed.
Translation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
From what I can tell they are using stuff that's already in the public domain. I really don't see how there's a legitimate complaint here. I mean if they are using the layout of copyrighted works, as in paragraph 3 and 8 have the same meaning in both works, maybe, but it doesn't look that way.
Re: (Score:2)
From the article: Those "Thieves" just copied our work, reworded stuff so it's not a direct copy, and now give it away! The question is how much do you have to re-word factual content in order to not be copyright infringement. There is a limit to how far they can differ and still cover the same (factual) material.
The party which has brought this suit have described the upstart's product as a paraphrased version of their product. A paraphrase is a sentence-by-sentence rewording. If it is copyright violation to publish an unauthorized translation into another language and publish the translation, surely it is also a copyright violation to publish a paraphrase. But, we don't have enough information to say whether this is really what was done.
There are ways to produce a replacement text without paraphrasing. For exampl
Re: (Score:2)
It's an interesting question. Clearly, a sentence-by-sentence rephrasing would be a violation. Independently assembling a textbook on the same topics would not be. Here we are somewhere in between, since it appears they're at least duplicating the work at the table of contents level, and perhaps at finer grain than that.
While I'm as opposed as anyone to the shady crap that's perpetrated by the textbook publishers, I don't think the guys they're suing are behaving entirely ethically here either. It doesn't p
Educational use (Score:2)
I thought educational use was exempt from copyright restrictions.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought educational use was exempt from copyright restrictions.
I think such exemptions are with respect to brief excerpts.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought educational use was exempt from copyright restrictions.
You thought wrong.
Educational uses are certainly one of the things that often falls under fair use [nolo.com] but there's limits. For example, a teacher can probably legally copy an article to discuss it in class, but you can't photocopy an entire book legally.
If the use is educational, that can make the case for the use being fair use stronger -- but it's only part of the equation.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought educational use was exempt from copyright restrictions.
You are thinking of the concept of fair use. Such uses are called fair because they do not unreasonably encroach on the right of the author to exploit his work commercially. The principle of fair uses recognizes that we sometimes have to make copies in order to study the work, comment on it, and show it to others. But, this principle does not permit us to try to take over the function of the publisher. Copying entire textbooks and distributing them to students (who will be studying the subjects expounded in
array of sources ... just as good ? (Score:4, Insightful)
... pulls content from an array of open-education sources to knit together a text that the company claims is as good as the designated book ...
A noble intention but I am suspicious of "as good as". Pulling stuff from various sources and slapping it together quickly is not a strategy known for producing "as good as" products. Perhaps a "good enough" product though.
However is the "knitted together" text better than, or even different from, just googling and reading some of the top sites, reading various topics on wikipedia?
Also with respect to "as good as" I am *not* counting the missing homework problems against it.
Re: (Score:2)
However is the "knitted together" text better than, or even different from, just googling and reading some of the top sites, reading various topics on wikipedia?
The difference is that this upstart publisher claims to do the googling for you and to organize the results. It would be difficult to do it yourself since you would have to first borrow the book from a classmate and create an outline so that you would know which topics will be discussed in class and in what order.
Cell phone picture of table of contents ... (Score:2)
However is the "knitted together" text better than, or even different from, just googling and reading some of the top sites, reading various topics on wikipedia?
The difference is that this upstart publisher claims to do the googling for you and to organize the results. It would be difficult to do it yourself since you would have to first borrow the book from a classmate and create an outline so that you would know which topics will be discussed in class and in what order.
The camera in a modern cell phone is sufficiently good that you can take an image of the table of content pages. Its trivial to snap a few images in class. Or you can go old-school and get the library's limited loan copy of the book and photocopy the table of contents.
I did the camera thing. I knew a friend was working on a paper on a particular topic. I was coincidentally reading a book that had a paragraph I thought he might get a good quote/citation from. I took cell phone pictures of the paragraph in
Re: (Score:2)
They're probably better. Modern U.S. textbooks are terrible.
Look at modern math books, for example. They're ridiculously large and most the pages are filled exercises. Most of the exercises are painfully easy, then there are some difficult ones, and then a couple of real tough ones. Then other portions are dedicated to stupid little "Did You Know?" boxes that explain something that's pretty irrelevant to the subject at hand. Then you have several diagrams which all do a poor job of explaining the same conce
Re: (Score:2)
FWIW I get exactly what you are saying regarding modern US textbooks. I have an uncle who studied engineering in the 1950s. I was shocked at how small and thin his books were. Then when I opened them I understood, no fluff, just math and science
next industry to be affected by the internet (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Would it not make sense that there isn't anything particularly new in geometry or algebra that forces the need for a new rewrite of textbooks every 2-3 years?
Teaching fads rotate on an interval a little longer than the reign of a typical mid-level district administrator, for obvious reasons.
What sounds easier for a "typical seagull manager"... Select a new set of textbooks, or author/oversee/demand a customized by them new curriculum?
What sounds less dangerous for a typical risk adverse mid-level district administrator, buy an entire book from a multinational corporation, or personally sign off on a new homemade curriculum? The danger is page 142 paragraph 2 li
Re: (Score:2)
Because then you'd have people bitching about "SOCIALIZM!" and crap. Of course, the way things are going now, people are bitching about spending too much money on education.
Hah. (Score:2)
citing 'copyright infringement,' as the company is making similar textbooks using open material.
You're textbook has 1+1=2 in it?
Ours had it first, so we're going to sue you now.
Re:your, you're, there, their, they're (Score:5)
there should be a mod down "your, you're, there, their, they're mistake"
I disagree. Grammar prescriptivism should go in an English textbook, not in Slashdot's moderation system. Some people who post to Slashdot speak something other than English as a first language.
Some open materials based on proprietary sources (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know whether this lawsuit will succeed or fail, but many open source and open materials are based on proprietary materials.
For example, much of Wikipedia is graduate students and college students taking ideas from their textbooks, compiling them and putting them into their own words.
Linux is based on a commercial operating system, and many of its best software packages are either clones of popular Windows software packages, or enhancements to academic projects (like Apache and Mozilla).
The two need each other it seems.
The point of that is that it makes sense for us to keep a profit motive for development of new proprietary materials, and over time, to migrate older knowledge to the realm of free and open learning.
Re: (Score:3)
Complaint is BS (Score:4, Interesting)
The companies are complaining not because the textbook is actually copying them (which would be a violation of copyright), but because the free texbooks are copying their ideas. The example TFA gives is that the copyrighted textbook uses a picture of a bear to illustrate the laws of thermodynamics, and the open-source version uses another different but similar picture of a bear (properly licensed under a CC license).
Basically, the companies are claiming they hold the copyright to the idea of using a bear to illustrate a law of thermodynamics. I call that "bullshit." They don't have a leg to stand on under copyright law, IMO (well, they shouldn't, IANAL so I cannot say for certain). Ideas can, infact, be freely copied: you cannot copyright them, and you never could.
Now, if they'd patented that idea, it'd still be bullshit, but maybe they'd have had a case legally speaking.
Re: (Score:3)
The companies are complaining not because the textbook is actually copying them (which would be a violation of copyright), but because the free texbooks are copying their ideas. The example TFA gives is that the copyrighted textbook uses a picture of a bear to illustrate the laws of thermodynamics, and the open-source version uses another different but similar picture of a bear (properly licensed under a CC license).
Basically, the companies are claiming they hold the copyright to the idea of using a bear to illustrate a law of thermodynamics. I call that "bullshit." They don't have a leg to stand on under copyright law, IMO (well, they shouldn't, IANAL so I cannot say for certain). Ideas can, infact, be freely copied: you cannot copyright them, and you never could.
Now, if they'd patented that idea, it'd still be bullshit, but maybe they'd have had a case legally speaking.
No, they're suing because the company used their layout, decisions on what to use to illustrate concepts, et
Prior Art (Score:2)
What's funny is that this sort of "alignment" has been taking place for *years* in dead-tree textbooks.
An example: Back in the 80s I was taking a class in differential equations and was having some trouble. So I went down to the library to see if different textbooks might have different approaches that could help me out. I pulled down four textbooks (different authors) and sat down to read. Turns out EVERY SINGLE ONE of them presented exactly the same concepts in exactly the same order with pretty much t
Not that I don't hate the textbook companies... (Score:3)
I'm a college student. I hate that my textbooks are hundreds of dollars, and would love open textbooks.
But it seems like the companies arguing that the stuff in the book, in the order it's in, is copyrighted - which seems reasonable to me. If true, it doesn't matter if you use libre text and images - you're still "filling in" the template provided by the textbook. It's similar to a song cover - you're reproducing "your" version of the song, but it's still copyright of the original artist.
They do actually pay people to come up with the best stuff to include, and the order in which to present it...
Re: (Score:2)
What about note taking then? Wouldn't that violate copyright under the same premise?
Re: (Score:2)
Note taking is supposed to be synthesis - a combination of the lecture, the textbook section that the lecture addresses, and your own intuition. As such they are arguably original - perhaps "inspired by" the book. In any case, education is a fair-use exception. But this company is making money off of books, not teaching or taking a class. IANAL.
Re: (Score:2)
In practice, I find that most people pirate the too-expensive books. It gets you a searchable PDF (usually) or sometimes just scanned images, but that's no less helpful than the book.
Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
ZERO sympathy (Score:2)
Hundreds for text books that sometimes professors don't even assign for your coursework. Plus, I have to lug around these heavy-assed things when an electronic version would be SO much more convenient. Add to that classes like Calculus and Physics that aren't really changing much fundamentally, yet still manage to mandate new textbooks every few years so that you can't even get by w/ used texts.
QQ moar (Score:2)
booo (Score:2)
God damn it! (Score:2)
THIS is why we can't have anything nice!
If they're so similar then .. whoops? (Score:3, Interesting)
If an open source data aggregator (my bad if that's the wrong way to phrase it) can use open source and non-copyrighted material to product almost the exact same result as a copyrighted textbook does that mean the copyrighted textbook is infringing on open source and non-copyrighted material? Seems to me that unless they can prove that they came up with those facts themselves then they're just gathering up the same information.
"Look and feel" is another concept entirely. Ask Lotus how that one worked out for them.
Re:No surprises here (Score:4, Insightful)
Not so much sue, but license. You will have to pay a "knowledge usage" fee each time you utilize your learned knowledge for monetary gain. With the correct "lobbying" this fee will be captured on your tax form and levied based on the work you do (engineer, doctor, etc) coupled with the money you earned (salary) and the cost of the education you paid to "gain" your knowledge.
If you just happen to be smart and able to have meaningful and well-paying employment, without any identifiable higher education, then you probably just stole the information and skills from someone and will be open to punishment.
Re: (Score:2)
Boycott (Score:3)
Pearson including Penguin, SAMS, Addison Wesley and Financial Times
Cengage Learning including National Geographic Learning, Gale and Brooks/Cole
Macmillan Higher Education -- a major ebook publisher
Cengage Learning in Australia have changed their name to 'Open Colleges' [opencolleges.edu.au]
After this, I'll be avoiding them.
Re: (Score:3)
If the prof says, "Turn to page 256 and look at illustration 3," you will not spend minutes trying to find the correlating page in your cheaper book. It will BE page 256, and the illustration will be what the prof is referring to.
Interesting question: are page numbers copyrightable or not? To me, IANAL, not: they are merely a way how content is accessed, they are not part of the content itself. But knowing you crazy US legal system I wouldn't be much surprised if that would turn out to be so.
Textbooks are pricey. Sure. But this guy works hard putting out the best in his field every year. He and his staff spend a lot of time and effort creating the best product. These companies are blatantly violating copyright on a level that I think few slashdotters would be able to justify.
It's easy to get emotional - and biased - when friends are involved.
Broader question would: why the books are SO fscking expensive? Do they really have to be the "best product" - while consumers would have been pretty satisfied with "medioc