Art School's Expensive Art History Textbook Contains No Actual Art 371
Dr Herbert West writes "Students at Ontario College of Art and Design were forced to buy a $180 textbook filled with blank squares. Instead of images of paintings and sculpture throughout history (that presumably would fall under fair-use) the textbook for 'Global Visual and Material Culture: Prehistory to 1800' features placeholders with a link to an online image. A letter from the school's dean stated that had they decided to clear all the images for copyright to print, the book would have cost a whopping $800. The screengrabs are pretty hilarious, or depressing, depending on your point of view."
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Global Visual Culture From Preshistory to 1800 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Global Visual Culture From Preshistory to 1800 (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't just go into a museum and take a picture of something and have it be good enough for print. You need the proper lighting, etc, etc.
That and presumably the museum could refuse you access if you were going to take pictures for commercial purposes.
Re:Global Visual Culture From Preshistory to 1800 (Score:5, Insightful)
Even a poor snapshot is better than a blank white square.
Re:Global Visual Culture From Preshistory to 1800 (Score:5, Insightful)
Even a poor snapshot is better than a blank white square
You forgot one thing -
A book filled with poor snapshots will not make Slashdot
A book filled with blank white squares ... will
Re:Global Visual Culture From Preshistory to 1800 (Score:5, Funny)
Have you guys seen the new art history book I wrote?
It's waaaaaay better than that Canadian book. I've embedded the pictures right in the book:
A Brief History Of Art [google.com]
(Please send me $180 if you click on it)
Thanks!
Sure, here you are, with a $20 tip. (Score:5, Funny)
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumblarge_374/12368051426X3544.jpg [dreamstime.com]
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumblarge_374/12368051426X3544.jpg [dreamstime.com]
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Err in light of the topic of the debate, THAT IS A GOOD THING.
Museums don't let you (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't go into a museum and take a photograph, BECAUSE THEY DON'T LET YOU. They'll provide photographs if you want, but only under license.
So the paintings are out of copyright, but the DRM, erm phyical barrier to them, WILL GO ON FOREVER. This is necessary to encourage Picaso to paint more painting, Van Gogh needs to be rewarded to paint more.
Re:Museums don't let you (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Museums don't let you (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. From the Art Institute of Chicago...
Photography
You are welcome to take photographs of the permanent collection and selected loan exhibitions. Please respect signage in exhibitions prohibiting photography of specific works of art. Photographs must use existing light (no flash photography) and are allowed with the condition that the images are for personal, nondistributional, noncommercial use. Flashes, tripods, and video cameras are prohibited.
Members of the media should contact our Department of Public Affairs at (312) 443-3626 or aicpublicaffairs@artic.edu to arrange shoots for still photography and film.
Emphasis mine. I'm not sure what the arrangements would look like for commercial use, but I'd guess they're usually expensive and very specific. As a side note, any school that makes it mandatory to purchase a $180 art book with no photos should suffer a lack of enrollment. That's disgusting, even beyond the usual, disgusting text book scam.
Re:Museums don't let you (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what the arrangements would look like for commercial use, but I'd guess they're usually expensive and very specific.
Yes, that's what their sign says. But it doesn't have the force of law. They can make it physically hard for you to take the photos, but if you manage to take a photo of a painting 100 years old, the copyright of the photo belongs to you 100%. You can do anything you want with it.
Re:Museums don't let you (Score:4, Interesting)
Taking this approach is well and good if you're an individual who wants a photo as a souvenir.
If you're a textbook publisher and you want well lit, high quality photos you can include in a textbook - and you're going to need hundreds of such photos because it's an art history book - you realistically have two choices:
- Hire a couple of photographers (Eeeks! Expensive)
- Send them to every museum you can think of that has works that are worth photographing.
- Ask them to take photos as discreetly as possible. With a couple of studio flashes, a good quality lens, an SLR and a tripod. And keep going back when they inevitably get kicked out until they've built up enough photographs.
- In the case of sculptures, remove them from their glass cases and spend ages arranging the lighting so the whole thing appears clearly without getting thrown out and/or arrested.
OR
- Buy photographs that the museum has already got at the fee the museum wants, on the understanding that the photographs will go into a printed book for students to look at.
I'd say the second one is a lot cheaper, and a lot less likely to guarantee you'll never work with a museum again.
Re:Museums don't let you (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't understand how its even possible for the photograph to be copyrighted. As far as I know, copyright only applies to original works. If I take a photo of a 100 year old painting, my photo isn't an original work. It's just a copy. How is that copyrightable?
I could use it in a collage or something, transform it in some way, and make something out of it that's copyrightable, but I don't see any way that a straight-up photo of the painting can be. Does not make sense. (But then, there's a lot about copyright law these days that doesn't make sense to me.)
Re:Museums don't let you (Score:4, Informative)
Choice of lighting, positioning, focus, shutter speed, filters used, etc. all can have a significant difference to how a photograph turns out, and that's before you do anything drastic. It's not hard to show that there's a lot of creative effort involved in a good photograph.
Re:Museums don't let you (Score:4, Informative)
Incorrect. As the GP stated, the art is out of copyright, and their vague sign has no force of law (if they could even prove you saw and/or agreed to it), Even trying to come after you for Breach of Contract would be fruitless; there are no actual damages they can prove (they don't hold copyright to the paintings, so they can't claim damages for copying), so the worst they could do is refuse to let you back in.
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Not in my state. That sort of thing is called felony abduction. You can't just hold someone against their will because you don't like what they do. If they are suspected of theft, you can detain them until the authorities arrive, but if they are just taking pictures and you decide to hold them, I'd be looking for a good lawyer. You can kick them out, keep the admission, and refuse t
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No it isn't. You cannot unilaterally declare something illegal and hold someone against their will because YOU say it's illegal. You can make it a condition of admittance and remove those who do not follow your rules, but you can't just imprison someone because you don't like their LEGAL behavior.
ORC 2905.02 Abduction.
(A) No person, without privilege to do so, shall knowingly do any of the following:
(1) By force or threat, remove another from the plac
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The copyright to the original paintings hanging in a museum expired some years after the painter died.
Art produced before the 20th century usually went out of copyright BEFORE the artist died; copyright lengths used to be reasonable. OTOH, 20th century paintings are almost all still under copyright, and a lot of these will be in art textbooks.
But $180 for an artless art book? I'd never attend a university run by anyone so stupid. I have several high quality art books with very large pages and very large rep
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that's why photographers use a 'step tripod' or string tripod. a string that is attached to the camera, runs to the ground and you step on the string and pull UP on the camera for taughtness.
it helps. that, and the self-timer, goes a long way toward getting rid of camera shake.
also, todays cams go to quite high iso's.
its do-able.
but the point is what a shame things have gotton to, when stuff like this is a barrier to common education. its hard to get my brain around why we think that only the priviledged
Re:Museums don't let you (Score:4, Informative)
They don't let you use flash because it can cause chemical degradation to the pieces. Many xenon discharge flashes are many times brighter than the sun, so over time people photographing the works with flash illumination would be just as devestating as leaving the works in the sun.
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There are two reasons I actually like a "no pictures" policy.
1. Tourists taking pictures are annoying. Just look and enjoy. Your camera gets in the way of that.
2. Most people taking pictures would be too brain-dead to realize they need to turn off the flash.
Bonus: If having to pay for a postcard in the museum gift shop helps keep that museum open, it's worth it. Though it sounds like they may be charging textbook makers too much. (Also: Why is the license to show them on a website more expensive than th
Re:Museums don't let you (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it, if your text book has 750 pictures in it, and you have to wrap a dollar bill around each image for licensing, your book in now $750 above your cost to publish it. Ergo an $850 test book. Which just goes to show you that the world is now officially Bat Fuck Crazy. Since the kids have to go to the web anyway to see the images, just turn the book into a webpage, with WORKING LINKS, and force each student to pay $180 to access the website for a semester. After the end of the semester, as a gift, they can have one of these image free door stops as a thank you for having taken this ridiculous class... or they can save the trees and waste of all other human resources and forgo dead tree version.
So now we need to beat the author, the School Administration, and perhaps kill all the lawyers involved in passing the laws resulting in the absurdity. Then as a fitting finale, we can bring all the people responsible for this body of legal atrocities and who've put their profit ahead of the future education of our society and launch them to the moon without benefit of a space capsule. When their collective bodies hit the lunar surface we can rename the region Mare Stultitia et Avaritia, The Sea of Stupidity and Greed. We can take a picture of it. Put in a book at no cost and show our children this is what happens to scum sucking pigs. Its a dream, I know, but its a good dream.
Re:Museums don't let you (Score:4, Insightful)
Which just goes to show you that the world is now officially Bat Fuck Crazy.
Have some perspective: we've stopped talking about mutually assured thermonuclear destruction as if it were the most natural thing ever. We're starting to end the prohibition of pot, and haven't tried nationally to ban alcohol in decades. The west has not had anything quite at the level of the crusades in quite some time.
One idiotic committee at one shitty school who made a very stupid decision about copyright doesn't mean the world is heading to legal hell in a briefcase. That said, I do think the idea of lynching some lawyers to set an example has some merit.
Re:Museums don't let you (Score:5, Insightful)
Or better yet, download all the images off bittorrent for free, put them on a CD with html, and give it to them free. Or even better, print the book with these pictures and just give it away free to all who enroll in class. In completely unrelated news, some other miscellaneous university fine or fee just went up $20-30.
Or just use an older textbook... the class in question is an art history class ending at 1800, with nothing more recent. I'm pretty sure, given that I've taken such classes as electives in the past, that there are other textbooks exist which don't cost anyhere near that much, and which cover the period in question. Of course, then the class wouldn't be using the textbook which was written by their prof, and they wouldn't make money off it! Had a lot of that when I was at university....
Re:Getting caught has nothing to do with it (Score:5, Insightful)
It can't be a breach of contract. I didn't agree to anything when I paid them money for the ticket. I certainly didn't agree to have conditions imposed on me after the sale. (I can't see a ticket until I pay money for it...) That's like, "by opening this package, you agree to the terms of the license enclosed". No, no I don't! Especially if I can't see the license until I pay money.
Also, how are they really going to enforce "no commercial use"? Let's say I take a picture with their permission under the no commercial use. I then turn around and give (not sell) the copyright to that picture to someone else. They can then use that picture commercially because there is no agreement forcing me to force any future copyright owner to agree to the conditions.
I'm sure the same argument would apply in national parks and similar, except that they are generally run by people with access to guns and prisons and such. Still, if I'm in country B, and I then return to my original country A, there isn't much the authorities in country B can do to stop me selling my pictures or using them for advertising or whatever.
Re:Getting caught has nothing to do with it (Score:4, Informative)
It's actually fairly common to have enforcible contracts where some terms are not evident until after the parties have agreed to enter it. So long as there is an opportunity to exit the agreement after having had a chance to review the additional terms, with the parties being restored to their pre-contract conditions, then it's considered acceptable.
Of course, adhesive contracts is an area of law that is badly in need of strong consumer protection reforms, but good luck with that these days.
Re:Global Visual Culture From Preshistory to 1800 (Score:5, Interesting)
This is how many public domain works end up recopyrighted. Nobody is allowed to take photos of the original, and the only existing photos are copyrighted. This especially happens after an historic work of art has had some work done to restore it to its original glory. The old photos all show the unrestored version, and all photos of the restored version are recent and copyrighted. It's an ugly practice and needs to be outlawed.
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You're wrong. It's NOT possible to copyright photographs of two-dimensional art. Copyright law only allows copyright on "original works of art". And photographs of text and pictures are not original. And there's not only the law (just about anywhere in the world, including the US and Canada) which doesn't give them copyright, but there are also court decisions support that.
This doesn't keep photographers from claiming copyright, but actually, what they're doing is FRAUD. And the people doing that book could
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But the problem is that the only available images of the original work in its current state are copyrighted.
Re:Global Visual Culture From Preshistory to 1800 (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, while such slavish copying would not result in a copyrightable photograph here in the US, the school and textbook in this case are Canadian, and it is likely that photographs of public domain works in which nothing creative is added by the photographer are copyrightable anyway for some reason.
Re:Global Visual Culture From Preshistory to 1800 (Score:4, Interesting)
The cost of hiring a professional photographer to travel to all these museums (and probably a bunch of private collectors) and take all these photographs is probably higher than just buying these photographs from someone.
Anyway at $180 a book one would expect to be able to get photos in it. The $800 each for copyright clearance as TFS claims sounds totally unrealistic to me. Works that are in museums should have photos available at low cost; privately owned works maybe a little more but also not too much. It's mostly stock photo work after all.
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Anyway at $180 a book one would expect to be able to get photos in it. The $800 each for copyright clearance as TFS claims sounds totally unrealistic to me.
Perhaps it was just a small run book for one specific class at a specific school. So while the licensing fee for copyright clearance could be nominal, it might still be a lot of paperwork to be done, and a prohibitive cost for a book that might sell 60 copies a semester...
It would cut down on a lot of legwork, to just not bother with printing ima
Re:Global Visual Culture From Preshistory to 1800 (Score:5, Insightful)
Although, of course it devalues the textbook as well (IMO)... for no pictures or diagrams, the book should be less than $50 a pop.
Are you mad! An art appreciation book with no pictures... here let me frame this in a context you might better grasp. You go to an adult bookstore. You see a hot little DVD, the clerk says "Oh, great choice, this is so hot, that'll be $180." You say $180! How can this possibly be! Is it that good?" He assures you it is, so you put down your money, and go home, pop it in the player and every time someone is about to consummate the boom chicka wow wow, the image is replaced with the URL pointing you to a site where you can see people engaging in sexual acts. Now, tell me, how are you feeling? How much is that DVD worth? Would you say that DVD is now worth only $50? Would "Devalue" even be the first word that popped into your head?
This is education as rape. This is copyright gone bug fuck. This is student abuse in no uncertain terms and a dark cloud that threatens to extinguish education as we know it. What this is not is the devaluation of a text book. This is the devaluation of future society.
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Re:Global Visual Culture From Preshistory to 1800 (Score:5, Insightful)
Its worse, even the original publisher will now have to pay for the authorized use of controlled content items otherwise in the public domain. Uses will conflict, law suits will fly like flocks of birds on the wing and ultimately every thought, every word, every idea will be locked down tighter than Lady Guinevere's chastity belt. You so much as hum more than 3 notes in public and a duly appointed officer of the court will pull you up so hard and so fast, you'll need to check to if your feet are still in the shoes. The stupid is accelerating people. It was fine a hundred years ago when your stupid only meant you'd have to learn to walk without the toe on your left foot anymore... damn farm machinery. Your neighbor couldn't even hear you scream curses, nobody was disturbed. Things worked just fine in spite of the stupid, because the percentage of stupid per unit mass was low.
Flash forward a century and now I can pay some imbecile to go to Washington, to have another imbecile pass a law that will require people have to drive with their children glued to the roof. And they'll do it, sure as Gawd made little green apples these crazy fucks will try to pass this law, and if I throw enough money around it'll pass, and the Supreme Court will find it Constitutional. We now live in a time where you can make people do anything if you just throw money around. You can remove consciousness from future generations by making it pay per view. You can put all our rights in little jars and show them in a museum. You can even turn flesh and blood people into "Human Resource Assets". Makes you want to throw up just a little, doesn't it? I don't know any more where to get off this bus, but I want off. Either someone please steer this thing in a sane direction or let me off at the next stop thanks.
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Old art works are not copyright protected of course. Everyone is free to make their own copies of such a work - make an identical painting, make a photo, print that photo.
However the newly made painting and photo do have copyright on them. Just like you can not copyright a building or a person, but you can copyright a photo of that building or person.
Re:Global Visual Culture From Preshistory to 1800 (Score:4, Interesting)
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Making a photo of an existing painting is creative, as you created something that wasn't there before.
You are probably thinking of the popular definition of "creative" which means doing something original, special, and not obvious. That's another meaning of the same word. Luckily the makers of copyright law were smarter than that.
And even though I wouldn't call your comment special or anything, you still own the copyright on your comment for the simple reason that you created it.
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Don't pretend that your definition of "creativity" is the same as copyright law's. Just because you produce something that wasn't there before doesn't make it subject to copyright law protection, not in the U.S. at least. There are plenty of things that you can make that weren't there before that won't be subject to copyright protection, and making faithful scans or photographs of flat art is one of them. What usually happens is that even though the photograph may not be subject to any protection, the terms
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You are not allowed to make an identical painting. That would be punished as counterfeit.
You are indeed allowed to make an identical painting, so long as the original isn't under copyright protection and you don't try to pass it off as the original.
Make an exact copy of the Mona Lisa and sell it as a reproduction, legal.
Make an exact copy of a Rothenberg, punished for copyright infringement.
Make an exact copy of the Mona Lisa and sell it as the original, punished for fraud.
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If a book with images costs $800 and one with blank placeholders costs $180, imagine what a book would cost that was printed on 1/4th the amount of paper and just included URL's instead of blank placeholder boxes.
In fact, why not just sell a $0.01 Post-it with a download link to a PDF file written on it?
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Re:Global Visual Culture From Preshistory to 1800 (Score:4, Funny)
"A professor I knew who taught anatomy at the local medical school said they were using Grey's anatomy texts."
Hardly. They would use the book from Henry Gray and not a script from a bad TV show.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray's_Anatomy [wikipedia.org]
Hmm. (Score:5, Funny)
This is what great art has come to in our time: Michaelangelo's "Broken Link"
So (Score:5, Insightful)
They seem to believe that a url where you can see it online is as good as having it printed right in fromt of you. Were I one of those parents I would just hand then a piece of paper with a link to a picture of $180. Fair is fair.
Re:So (Score:5, Informative)
They seem to believe that a url where you can see it online is as good as having it printed right in fromt of you. Were I one of those parents I would just hand then a piece of paper with a link to a picture of $180. Fair is fair.
Oh, I don't know... a printed image in a book has a pretty limited resolution. An on-line image can offer a lot more... take a look at the very high resolution imagery provided by http://googleartproject.com./ [googleartproject.com.] You can see the work as a whole or if you'd like to you can zoom in to see more detail than you could see if you were standing in front of the real piece.
OTOH, I have to agree that having the images the text is discussing right next to the images would be much more useful if you want to, for example, study art history.
Re:So (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I don't know... a printed image in a book has a pretty limited resolution. An on-line image can offer a lot more...
Including a hyperlink or button to open a high-res version of an image on a reliable site (no Geocities or john doe's website, that might be down tomorrow, or replaced with advertising) could be acceptable on an e-Book, intended for consumption on a tablet with a high-def display, with an internet connection available at all times.
You could read the eBook, and view the image in the same browser without exiting the book or 'breaking' your reading session or stream of thought; so it's as good as if the image were in the book.
However, in a print work, for an art class a picture of the art in the book itself, is indispensable, should be considered mandatory.
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How much work can it be to click a link really?
Oh, right.
Re:So (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So (Score:5, Funny)
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To which the school will respond by sending you a link to a picture of your transcript.
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If a pictureless art history book is the best it can do, the picture of the transcript probably IS just as good as the actual transcript, just cheaper.
College textbooks a scam? (Score:4)
Schools don't care, because they are making filthy money off of them, that have no incentive to do anything to reduce the prices.
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Are the schools to blame though, or rent seeking stock photo sources? Some of the licences these guys try to pull are insane.
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Are the schools to blame though, or rent seeking stock photo sources?
The stock photo sources didnt put a gun to the schools head and make them choose this textbook.
In the case of Ontario, the Minister of Education creates a list of acceptable textbooks called the Trillium List [gov.on.ca] which the schools may then choose from.
The question is, do you believe that this was the best art history textbook on the list? The guilty party depends on the answer.
Re:College textbooks a scam? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think that list is relevant to colleges and universities.
The Trillium guide explains that "School boards may select textbooks from the Trillium List and approve them for use in their schools." but the Ontario College of Art & Design is a university with a board of governors (6 individuals appointed by the Ontario government, 2 elected by the OCAD U Alumni, and 9 by the Board itself), not a school with a school board.
Re:College textbooks a scam? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. Nobody's holding a gun to your head. However, what if, in order to graduate, you must pass the class? And in order to pass the class, you must buy the textbook? In that case, the distinction is quite small.
It's similar to saying, "You don't HAVE to obey the law." It's technically correct. You're a free-will being, and you can make your own choices. However, there will be consequences if you decide to go that route.
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Schools don't care, because they are making filthy money off of them, that have no incentive to do anything to reduce the prices.
Schools don't make money from the sale of books anymore, if you're dumb enough to buy from the university bookstore without checking online first that's a reasonable stupid tax. Gone are the days of waiting 6 weeks in a 12 week course for the textbook you ordered from amazon. Also, maintaining a storefront on a university campus can be surprisingly expensive, and have shitty sales. You have a captive market of poor people who don't really want to buy anything they don't have to, and no access to foot tra
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Gone are the days of waiting 6 weeks in a 12 week course for the textbook you ordered from amazon.
It's not as great as you say... yet. My AI class starts next week and we only found out yesterday what the book would be. Amazon has the book for quite a bit cheaper than the school bookstore, but says, "this title usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks".... "usually"? Even all the used sellers say it will take a 2 or more weeks to ship; and this for a book published in 2005. I'm taking the gamble with Amazon, but
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AI Application Programming?
I thought, and admittedly, I'm purely a game AI guy, so I could be wrong, but I thought that book was replaced by that author with some newer variant (the systems approach one).
This is why we shouldn't recommend old books, just because you can get one copy cheap doesn't mean you can get a full class worth of them cheap. We had a prof at the last place I was that used to find textbooks from bargain bins to keep costs down. Unfortunately finding 150 or 300 copies of books that are
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That is indeed the book. Oddly enough, the teacher who last taught the course used the newer book you mention, so I got it earlier this summer when I saw it cheap on Amazon. I assumed the teacher this fall would use the same book. I don't mind having the newer book... again another gamble - maybe I should have taken the game theory class I dropped last spring term.
For this term, looking at the syllabus he's put out, I don't think there will be an urgent need for the older book in the first couple weeks.
A
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Second of all, none of my computer science books have computers in them
Do they have an empty spaces where a computer was meant to be, with a newegg URL so that you can buy your own?
lots of them don't have code in them.
Do they have empty spaces where source code was meant to be, with a URL?
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Do they have empty spaces where source code was meant to be, with a URL?
Yes, quite a lot of them actually.
Most coding books these days have an online presence where you get the actual source code, and the text itself just points you to it.
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Computer science textbooks don't have code. That's for computer programming textbooks. Even then, they don't necessarily have code if their purpose is purely paradigms, concepts and methodologies.
That book you bought for Comp Sci? It's for the practical application (programming) bit of your curriculum.
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to quote myself on the topic
Second of all, none of my computer science books have computers in them, lots of them don't have code in them. That is, believe it or not, not the point.
A comp sci book doesn't need to have programming in it because comp sci is not all programming. I specifically mentioned coding books as not having code in them.
An art book need not be about looking at art, it's about critique of art and discussion of the art. How representative the sample image is of the entire book I don't know.
Also, I develop the curriculum and choose the CS textbook these days. Which is why I have so many textbooks, and I'm still not sure if students end u
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Second of all, none of my computer science books have computers in them
Do your math books have numbers and mathematic symbols in them? If not, then they were exactly like an art history book without pictures.
An art book need not be about looking at art, it's about critique of art and discussion of the art.
It's an art history book. A critique of a work is useless unless you've at lest seen a representation of the work being discussed. An art book that teaches drawing (not the one under discussion) would need
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Some courses don't need pictures, you're right. But I think an art history book would be on the shortlist of those that do need pictures. If you look at the images on TFA, you can even see that the book has arrows pointing to various elements on the (not pictured) artwork.
Reading the summary (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Reading the summary (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they are teaching the Art History majors their most important lesson "You have wasted your money."
Normally it takes them 4 years of college and then a year or more working at Starbucks to learn that.
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Maybe they are teaching the Art History majors their most important lesson "You have wasted your money."
Normally it takes them 4 years of college and then a year or more working at Starbucks to learn that.
At least the Art History books have text related to art. The Liberal Arts one just has "SUCKERS" printed in big letters on the Index page.
Different Book (Score:2)
TFA doesn't say why they couldn't find another book (or I just did a poor read).
Art is hard to teach without pictures, just look at the examples given, "line, light, form, and color" without being about to see the line, light, form, and color...unless the placeholder borders are the lines, the form is the rectangle, and the color and light are combined by the stark white on the page where an image should be (God, it sounds like some obscure, abstract art already)..
Think about it like this, it is a programmi
It's a scam (Score:4, Insightful)
The book likely is authored by someone who works at the university. So they write the book with all the pictures. Publisher says "Pictures are real expensive we'll have to charge a ton." So they leave the pictures out, and require the students to buy the book anyhow.
You often find that the very worst textbooks are required by the teacher that wrote them (or they were written by the department head or so on).
Original Source (Score:5, Informative)
Link from summary - Salon: "This article originally appeared on Hyperallergic. "
Hyperallergic - "What is this, October!? According to a blog post"
Original Source: http://www.ashleyit.com/blogs/brentashley/2012/09/16/copyright-and-the-pictureless-art-history-textbook/
Forced? (Score:2)
Having attended University, I fail to see how someone is "forced" to buy a copy of the text. Borrowing a copy from the library, borrowing a copy from a friend, etc. are all ways to avoid being "forced" into buying a text.
Having made it through university without being "forced" to buy any texts for libral arts courses, I fail to see how the purchase of an art history text "forces" someone to actually buy the text.
That and it seems that the ebook edition has the pictures in it.
Stupid Canadian copyright law a
Re:Forced? (Score:5, Informative)
They've since invented codes that go along with the book - required to view online information and submit assignments, if the teacher is using their online framework.
Naturally the code is only functional for a single semester, so even if you buy a used book, or share a book, you need your own code to submit assignments.
They'll gladly sell you just the code, for the low fee of... almost as much as a new book+code cost.
Cancerous as hell...
Re: (Score:2)
They've since invented codes that go along with the book - required to view online information and submit assignments, if the teacher is using their online framework.
Sounds like a lawsuit, or an administrative complaint to be made to the school, about being requested to make unreasonable expenditures to participate in the class, beyond the standard used book cost.....
Re: (Score:2)
I fail to see how the purchase of an art history text "forces" someone to actually buy the text.
Generally it doesn't. This likely the parent of a first year who saw 'required' and thought 'required means required'. Not everyone knows these things, and it's not something you normally talk about.
It's also possible however that the textbook is supposed to be actively used in class (where, for example, he may have all of the relevant images on the projector).
I have had, in 1.75 undergrads, 2.5 masters degrees and most of the way through a PhD a few occasions where a 'required' textbook really did mean r
Re: (Score:3)
Bullshit (Score:2)
I call BS on the school. I took an Art History class in the US maybe 5 years ago, and it was chock full of really good reprints of famous works throughout history. The book cost me like $80.
Re: (Score:3)
OCAD is a very well known and respected school in Ontario. The school itself is not a scam. Having a textbook custom created by a company (Prentice Hall) is very expensive. And the economies of scale that come with a very large run for dozens of schools are not present. Especially if the photographs need to be licensed at a flat rate.
Re: (Score:3)
Sure, ok, but what makes more sense to give to art students: a book with a bunch of empty boxes, or an "off-the-shelf" book with pictures of the art? Whatever benefit they supposedly get from a custom-made book they should be able to get from lecture and teachers notes, at least compared to the bother and expense of the shite they ended up with.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
OCAD is a very well known and respected school in Ontario. The school itself is not a scam. Having a textbook custom created by a company (Prentice Hall) is very expensive.
And was it really necessary to have a custom-created Art History textbook?
Those two core Art History classes (covering pre-history to around the year 1400, and the second covering 1400 to 1945) are a requirement for literally everyone who studies Art, regardless of major or if they're pursuing a BA or BFA, painting, sculpture, or graphic design, etc. It's not like there weren't oodles of candidate textbooks for their curriculum to choose from.
The joke of this story is that the Art History department actually went along with Prentice Hall on this scam, instead of turning right around and looking elsewhere.
What a load of... (Score:2)
...I picked up a DVDROM off the front of a magazine several years ago which had no less than 46,000 paintings digitally reproduced in printable resolution - including some of the more famous (Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Il Cenacolo or L'Ultima Cena, Van Gogh's Tournesols, Van Eyck's Adam And Eve and The Adoration Of The Lamb, to name but a few). I've still got that disc somewhere. If the school need a decent source, they should see me.
Re: (Score:2)
Having a source != having copyright clearance to use the material from the source. Not that you can't question their claim regarding copyright clearance, but simply having a copy of the photo available isn't sufficient.
Re: (Score:3)
common to most other similar material found on the front of computer magazines, the images were accompanied by public domain type licensing documents. Or restrictive licenses in the case of software (in this case it was a giveaway version of Paint Shop Pro which was also on the disc, free on proviso that the user registered for a free key). As it's always useful to have such documents attached to an image either via linking from source or as meta information, I tend to avoid copyright issues either by citin
qr codes (Score:2)
Egads. The least they could have done is print QR codes linking to online versions instead of blank space...
Too bad. (Score:2)
It's a crying shame that no other art history books have ever been written or published. Ever.
First Edition! (Score:5, Funny)
The photos of art are being licenced, not the art (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
You're only right for three-dimensional works of art. With two-dimensional ones, you're dead wrong. It's not possible to copyright a photograph, scan or photocopy of a picture or text, because it's lacking originality. Just read your copyright-law.
So anyone claiming copyright on a two-dimensional replication of a two-dimensional work he does not hold copyright on is simply trying to the DEFRAUD the copyright holder -- and if that work happens to be in the public domain, he's trying to defraud the public.
I'm
Re: (Score:2)
A US federal court decision is hardly relevant in a question of Canadian copyright law. (The Ontario College of Art and Design is, as ought to be clear from the name, located in the Canadian province of Ontario.)
Old news is old (Score:3)
The next Slashdot Idle story will be ready soon, but Fark users can beat the rush and see it early!
Copyright KILLS! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think U.S. Constitution applies in Canada. In many countries copyright is not set up to promote anything. Besides, you're presuming a whole lot. Namely that the book authors and publisher were competent. As far as I'm concerned, they were stupid as shit, and that's all there's to it. For all I know they could have crowdsourced the pictures of all the art they needed. You know, for fame and such, and the book could have been collaboartively done, etc.
Nothing New (Score:3)
Fraudulent claims of copyright requiring 'clearance' and (ab)use of gatekeepers to control access to public domain works, where no copyrights in the original works exist, is a common method of revenue raising that is well known and nothing new. "Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law" [copyfraud.com] by Jason Mazzone attempts to address this and other abuses of so-called "intellectual property" law with suggestion of ways to reform the law. Very US-centric but an interesting read anyway.
(I am in no way affiliated with the author or publisher.)
Linking Is Infringing in The Netherlands (Score:2)
the textbook for 'Global Visual and Material Culture: Prehistory to 1800' features placeholders with a link to an online image.
I hope they don't plan to publish in the Netherlands, since linking is infringing [pcworld.com] there now.
Free copy of this? (Score:3)
Why not just throw in a free copy of this [amazon.co.uk] and refer to the page numbers!!?
Seriously, I can walk into any local bookshop and browse through any number of books with reproductions of famous artworks, most of which are pretty cheap. They could do worse than picking up a copy of "The Story of Art" by Gombrich.
Failing that, could they not take the position that Wikipedia do: 'The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain, and that claims to the contrary represent an assault on the very concept of a public domain'?
It was an accident! (Score:5, Interesting)
It is pretty clear what happened. They are using a system that automatically
downloads and inserts the images at the time the book is typeset. On the final
run just before printing, someone accidentally switched on the draft mode.
Nobody checked the pdf file, and they ended with several hundreds printed textbooks with placeholders for all the images.
They wanted to throw them away, but someone had the brilliant idea to pretend it was done on purpose, because of copyright issues.