Textbooks With EULAs 743
overshoot writes "We all knew it was coming, didn't we? Now Princeton University and nine others are introducing DRM'd textbooks. For a 33% discount, students get a 5-month node-locked e-book instead of all that glossy paper. Maybe Congress should just get it over with and change the law to allow EULAs on printed works?"
Five months? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Five months? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Arrive at uni and buy E-books (profit)
2. Months in the course starts
3. Books 'run-out'
4. Re-buy book. (profit)
5. Course finishs
6. Book run-out again
7. Exam timetables come through
8. Start revising
9. have to buy books again (profit)
a bit of a change to the normal list, but 3 times the profit!
Re:Five months? (Score:4, Funny)
Or... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Richard Stallman's famous parable [google.com.au]
Re:Or... (Score:3, Interesting)
Who gives a damn if it's illegal or not? Once I buy a book it's mine to do with as I please. If I want to sell the book to another, I shal do so. If I want to scan the book in to my computer so I may transfer it to a portable device or make it easier to search and index, I shal do so. If I want use it as a book end, I will do so. If I want to lend or give the book to someone else, I will do so. If I want to put the book in the middle of my living room and piss on it, I will do so.
Just another one o
Re:Five months? (Score:4, Funny)
1. Arrive at uni and buy E-books (profit)
2. Months in the course starts
3. Books 'run-out'
4. Rip E-book
No step 5.
Re:Five months? (Score:3, Informative)
2. Months in the course starts
3. Books 'run-out'
4. Rip E-book
No step 5.
and maybe no degree either. copying the ebook is a crime and students can be punished for it. as far as the government is concerned, your plan is no different than a student who currently:
1. arrives at uni
2. holds up liquor store
3. buys text book with the proceeds
Re:Five months? (Score:5, Insightful)
holds up liquor store
Except that the punishment for holding up a liquor store is probably less than that for violating a cheesy DRM scheme. And chances of getting parole are probably better too!
Crime? (Score:3, Interesting)
People keep saying this, but I've never seen any evidence for it.
Re:Crime? (Score:4, Informative)
It references Title 17 Chapter 1 Section 106 [copyright.gov]. Hence we see that making a copy is copyright infringement, and the copyright owner can take action against the copier. The content of an e-book is definitely copyrightable material. I'd quote statutes if you want it, but I don't think that's necessary.
Re:Five months? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's how it works: the professor gets the new course book every year, possibly for free. With that book comes software that allows a teacher to easily post quizzes online, something similar to Blackboard. In order for a student to use this, they have to have this year's book/software combo, otherwise they can't take the test. There are other schemes floating around out there, too, like students will take tests in-class by answering questions on a projector screen using an RF/IR "clicker".
How do I know this? I work for a textbook publisher and our president informed us that this is the way the entire textbook industry is going. Our company is all in a tizzy right now about DRM as well. They simultaneously see digital books as a threat and a potential boon.
Re:Five months? (Score:3, Insightful)
And think of this: with the moderating effect of the used textbook market gone, the sky's the limit for textbook prices. The $500 book is a-comin'.
And think of this: the entire publishing cost for the paper book is gone, which means the book becomes pure profit. And they will raise the prices over and over again...
Opportunity (Score:5, Insightful)
If ebooks become accepted as teaching materials, then this is a prime time for someone to jump in and disintermediate the marketplace, as the barriers to entry (presses, distribution) have just been dramatically lowered.
Someone should start a publishing company with the idea of a) furnishing inexpensive books to education, and b) of offering writers of said books a fair split. Go to the top minds in a field and ask them to write a textbook. Tell them they'll get a 50/50 split on each book sold if they write it and help promote it.
Then sell it for $10-20 DRM'ed. iTunes has shown most people will accept reasonably fair DRM if it occurs at a reasonable price. And a $20 book is a much easier pill to swallow than a $100 one.
If the current crop of publishers get too greedy the market will punish them for it. Heck, there's probably someone in India right now wondering how to put a bunch of their PhDs to work...
Re:This IS NOT a bad thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems to me that 40 years from now, our CDs and DVDs will be difficult to read as well, and that's assuming that the media itself doesn't degrade.
And of course if something is DRM'd to expire in five months, it's not supposed to be readable in six or more months, which would include 200 years later. And even if it's DRM'd but not set to expire, the odds of it being totally unreadable after just five years (because you can't get keys for it (company went under), or can't run the software, etc.) are very high.
This is one reason why I refuse to buy DRM'd music, for example. All the vinyl, tapes and CDs I've bought in the last 30 years, I can still listen to them today (if I hook up a turntable or tape player anyways.) mp3s I made ten years ago are still readable as well, as long as I didn't put them on any media that's hard to read.
But any DRM'd music that I paid for and downloaded today, the odds are very good that I won't be able to even listen to it a few years from now. The DRM software won't run on my new computer, or the purchases will be tied to that computer, or the disk will have failed and the DRM files were tied to that specific disk, or ...
Screw that. I'll buy CDs and make my own mp3s or oggs. Downloaded music from places like iTunes isn't even really signifigantly cheaper, but yet the quality is lower and the usability is much lower.
Personally, there's no way in hell I'd buy 5 month DRM'd electronic textbooks for only a 33% discount. 75%, maybe. But 33%? Screw that -- I could save more than that by buying used and selling back to the store when I'm done. And for a text book, dead tree format is likely to be more convenient than e-book format anyways. And sometimes I like to keep my books for use in later classes ...
Though I suspect that if you pay the extra 33% or so, they'll extend your DRM license for a year or so. Blech.
Change computer clock? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Change computer clock? (Score:5, Funny)
DMCA Violation (Score:3, Insightful)
That makes clocks a "circumvention device" under the DMCA. The RIAA and MPAA hereby order everyone to stop using time.
Re:Five months? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Five months? (Score:3, Interesting)
But there are lots of college students who already sell back their textbooks to their school's bookstore after they're done with the class, and this is sort of the same thing - you essentially get back 33% of your book's purchase price, and you save yourself a trip to the bookstore. The question is whether the purchase price is actually a ripoff since you get
Stallman was right up to this point ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stallman was right up to this point ... (Score:5, Interesting)
What surprises me most, really, is that I have never come across a repository of free textbooks available in some standard electronic form - say PDF. If there were enough such books available and written by reputable professors there would be a movement towards making them the standard texts in classrooms.
This is not as implausible as it may seem. There are many cases in which authors have released print versions of their text alongside or after having released electronic versions. In the majority of cases, the freely available electronic text bolsters sales of the print version. Also, e-texts can be revised and distributed easier. With a wiki dedicated to errata and addendums, the e-text could supplement the print version as being up to date and an indisposable reference in some cases. The author, in turn, gets free editing and peer review.
Finally, the success of other free software projects at the university level suggests to me that a free text-book program would be quite welcome. The students would certainly put quite a bit of pressure on the university and its faculty to implement it regardless.
Anyone know if something like this exists?
Re:Stallman was right up to this point ... (Score:3, Informative)
MIT open courseware site
Re:Stallman was right up to this point ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Stallman was right up to this point ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to see them reprint a series of classic textbooks that are now out-of-print, from the days when publishers didn't waste paper on fluff.
Re:Stallman was right up to this point ... (Score:3, Informative)
You mean like this [freetechbooks.com], or this [techbooksforfree.com]? Those are just the two I happen to have bookmarked. I'm pretty sure there're a few more out there. Admittedly, not everything they link to is in PDF format, but a lot of it is.
Re:Stallman was right up to this point ... (Score:3, Informative)
See my sig.
Re:Stallman was right up to this point ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK seems not to have this problem. This is one of the (comparatively few) areas where the USA would benefit from taking our lead.
Actually, there are many proffessors in the USA who will stick with one book and keep requiring the exact same version (saves on having to re-write course notes and such). This was in the Engineering courses, though.
From experience, it has been the freshmen level "101" courses that this occurs in (chem 101, bio 101, phy 101) and some various writing courses. I did not come across any upper level engineering courses where the books changed all that often. In one case, a professor was going back to an older version because she like it better.
So, it's not all the courses that have this, just the ones where the used market gets flooded every year. You know, those classes that everybody has to take where you're probably not ever going to use the books again unless you are majoring in the subject.
Sometimes, we're just worried about students (Score:3, Interesting)
I've responded by allowing prior editions. In my stat syllabi, there are even alternate homework sets for prior editions.
Also, most (but not all) universities have hoops to jump through before a professor can
And for a dollar more (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And for a dollar more (Score:5, Interesting)
So how is it that they can do it without worrying about copying while no one else can? Maybe if you treat your customer with respect, they will return the favor?
I understand that they don't do textbooks. But you could do a whole lot worse for textbooks than O'reilly.
Re:And for a dollar more (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And for a dollar more (Score:4, Funny)
Learning? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sad sad sad...
Re:Learning? (Score:5, Insightful)
You must be new to the US - welcome!
Here, we do whatever we can in the name of corporate profit. This includes screwing the students, which we have been doing since the advent of education.
Re:Learning? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, here we do whatever we can to get professors tenure, and to make sure that every insane book that they think you should buy is part of the curriculum. Never mind DRM'd e-books, just look at the texts that you have to buy in good old fashioned paper format. Why does a book like that cost $100? Because they only print a very small number, because everyone knows that the only audience FOR that professor's expensive hard bound book is going to be the students that he says have to buy a copy. The actual publishing of the book is costly, but it wouldn't happen at all if there wasn't an artificial market set up in academia.
Or, you could look at it another way. Say the books ARE worth $100. Who should be paying? The student, or taxpayers? It's pretty much one or the other. Which corporate profit, by the way, are you referring to... the university presses that are woven into this entire incestuous little ecology? It's a completely false economy that could only exist in a college setting. If it can be made to be cheaper by using e-books, so much the better.
BTW, don't forget that a paid-for-by-the-student education, including students buying their materials, goes back long before this country ever existed. Your little US=Bad rant is a little short sighted. Obviously one thing you didn't read was one of those expensive history books.
Re:Learning? (Score:3, Informative)
Then you know nothing about how schools manage required books for courses. If a professor assigns thier own book then s/he fore goes all profits from their book. To do otherwise would open the school up to all sorts claims and attacks to it's accreditation, something that would get a professor fired, tenure or no tenure.
Re:Learning? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a professor, I attempt to select the best possible book for the course that I teach. I have published books but I have never required one of my books for a course (actually I have distributed electronic versions of portions of text to students to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest by requiring this).
I try to take into account the cost of texts but there are many other considerations and while I might hate requiring a $100 book, what am I to do if I decide this book is superior to an $50 book?
I am not sure what "artificial market" you refer to although I suspect you are referring to the fact that the people incurring the cost aren't those making the selection of the product. While true, this does not necessarily constitute an artificial market. Many products and services (and while I am loath to refer to education as a product but for the sake of argument) have other costs that you may be liable for once you've purchased the original product or service. Think cars and car repairs.
I dont' like the shape of market forces in the textbook industry and many professors feel the same way. Many of us take steps to mitigate these costs (I push fair use to the absolute limit in making electronic resources available to my students at no cost). We simply have so many constraints that the end result is always a compromise.
Finally, I recommend avoiding statements like "Everybody knows..." Its usually a clear sign that what ever is coming next is vastly oversimplified, self-righteous, or just plain ignorant.
Re:Learning? (Score:3, Insightful)
My problem with the ebooks is the implicit expiration. That might not be a big deal if the books were far less than their physical counterparts (say, 15-30%), but to charge nearly the cost of a used book is a bit outrageous. I have many
Re:Learning? (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously the economics involved are complex and some of the responses to these harsh economics are also liable for complaints. There are many reasons that Academia is a funny kind of market place. Some of it is blatant inefficiencies but
Re:Learning? (Score:3, Insightful)
The publishing industry is going to love DRM, and I don't blame them. They saw the music industry get screwed over by wide-spread cultural acceptance of piracy, the movie industry then went through the same thing and now the book industry is about to experience the same thing.
Simply put, if people ca
Re:Learning? (Score:3, Insightful)
But knowledge (and that is what text books are about) that build the foundation for our society should not only be free (as in speech) but be affordable to anyone who wants to aquire it.
The idea that this knowledge should be kept behind lock and key in order to "ensure" that pubslishers are well off is just outright stupid. It does limit the access for the common person to this knowledge and thus (in the long run) will damage society a
Re:Learning? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, no, higher education has not *always* been a for-profit activity. However, in the absence of popular activism and resistance, and insistence on education as a fundamental right, not to mention a devotion to higher principles among the people engaged in the educational endeavor itself, that is what it will become.
Re:"privileged few"? (Score:5, Insightful)
First, let us not try to gauge any impact on existing media, but rather the future of media if this becomes the norm.
- libraries, which are generally cost-free to the user, can provide access to books, magazines, technical/medical journals, and the Internet
How do you lend someone a DRM'd eBook without defeating the purpose of DRM? How do you handle licensing issues when before the library could only lend to as many people as it had physical copies? If you restrict the total number of copies, what happens to people who don't "return" the DRM'd copy? etc etc
bookstores selling inexpensive new books (e.g. paperback)
Again, this is current way of doing things. The new way would be via eBooks. Publishers are not likely to reduce the cost of their $100 book all that much regardless of the fact that it costs nothing to reproduce, plus there will be DRM which I'm sure they will add to the price even though it costs them nothing extra.
bookstores selling used books, often at a small fraction of the original price
With eBooks there is no such thing as "used" anymore. eBooks will not wear out like a physical book will. All copies are new copies even if the DRM license is somehow recycled to a new user.
information available on reputable web sites (for access issues see Libraries)
That information is not a replacement for a textbook, unless the book author or publisher has created an online version. Web sites are great supplements, but when the professor tells you to read chapter 5 for the test next week a website isn't going to help.
Not that DRM'd eBooks make any difference in that respect, so I'm not entirely sure why you brought it up.
People that want to learn will find a way. Whether that learning takes place inside or outside the halls of academia depends on the individual.
Ah, that's why. Too bad universities also offer things you can't find easily on the "outside" - like access to laboratories, materials and other facilities and equipment, direct communication with people knowledgeable in the field (professors, lab technicians), and accreditation recognised by potential employers (or clients if you plan to work for yourself).
No one is required to buy the e-books, so your classist argument falls rather flat.
No one is required to buy the eBooks... yet. Or rather, they are still offering the printed versions because they want to see if they can get away with all electronic versions without too many headaches. If they can sell you a printed book for $100 (With like $70 profit) they will gladly sell you a $80 eBook for nearly $80 profit, since cost of duplication and distribution is virtually nil. You'll buy it because you'll save $20.
I wouldn't be all that surprised if they just closed the book stores and sold you the eBooks directly, adding the cost to your tuition. ("Sure the tuition is more expensive, but at least I get free* eBooks!")
=Smidge=
Re:"privileged few"? (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a link (warning, PDF) [nacs.org] Summary breakdown:
%32.8 Publishers paper, printing, editorial costs.
%11.8 Authors Income
%10.2 Publishers general administrative
%15.6 Publishers marketing costs
%7.
Ah, the joys of copy-protection... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ah, the joys of copy-protection... (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe this [com.com] is the case youre referring to.
And yes, ebooks have been cracked, and will be again. Particularly when you foist them upon a young, rebellious, smarter than average, and technologically savvy demographic group.
This bright idea is doomed to failure, and I for one am going to enjoy watching it go down in flames.
Well, why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I think EULAs are a crock, and the issues of liability and usage they may or may not cover should be dealt sensibly in some different way. Possibly, in the case of software, by companies taking some responsibility for their products. In the case of DVDs, I don't think there should be a license of any kind. But maybe that's just me...
EULAs on books (Score:5, Informative)
I can't wait. The reason is that the US Federal courts have a long body of case law on the "first sale" doctrine. A publisher tried to put the equivalent of a EULA on a book back in the 19th century and got shot down, big time.
If someone makes the argument in court that they should be able to have a EULA on a book because they manifestly can on an e-book and there's no fundamental difference, the court is either going to have to twist itself into at least two additional dimensions to avoid either shooting down EULAs on e-books or overturning more than a century of fundamental copyright law.
Sale vs lease (Score:3, Insightful)
If they don't transfer ownership they can require whatever they want.
Re:EULAs on books (Score:3, Interesting)
The FSD, IIRC, was originally a side effect of the way the nineteenth century copyright laws were written. Publishers claims that used book sales amounted to copyright violations and were ruled specious, because the law as then written did not grant any exclusive rights to them other than the right to copy. This was explicitly written into the law in the 1970s.
However, Article 1 section 8 gives con
Re:EULAs on books (Score:3, Insightful)
I was referring to books -- the things with paper pages.
Re:Fix the law (Score:3, Informative)
...
Buy the copy, use the software. Ignore the EULA.
I'm afraid my government is headed in the exact opposite direction and using strong-arm tactics to push others (yours included, I regret to say) down the same drain.
Re:Well, why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh wait... Maybe they should just allow copyright and trademark law to allow them protection instead of saying I can't watch my DVDs however I like.
So much for selling used books (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So much for selling used books (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So much for selling used books (Score:5, Interesting)
If this works, they won't care if you sell it used, because the web code is no longer valid, so the book is useless, unless you buy a new code for $15. They get their cut no matter what. If you fail the course, and have to re-take the class, you owe them another $15. If you give it to your younger brother, $15. They always get their cut.
Their web content often includes web-supported and web-submitted homework and quizzes so if faculty buy in, students will have no choice but to pay. Kind of sad.
MIT opencourseware (Score:5, Interesting)
I think schools, colleges & universities should be more selfsupporting in this anyway.
Re:So much for selling used books (Score:5, Informative)
Contrast that with buying a tshirt or hoodie at a 50 to 60% margin, and you have what keeps almost all college bookstores afloat these days.
Additionally, our bookstore does buyback everyday we are open. We also automatically discount all new textbooks 10% from what the publisher's list price is. So: if a $100 MSRP book is being carried, we sell it for $90. If we have a used copy of that book, we sell it for a 25% discount from MSRP, so this book would be $75. At the end of term, we know that book has been adopted for the following term, we will buy that book back for $50, making your total cost on this book $25. Yes, you have to work for it by coming in early to get the used copy, and you have to have a little luck on your side when the adoptions roll around, and a little more in hoping that the book doesn't change editions (again, that's a publisher thing through and through), but it is possible. By my reckoning, you got ripped off shopping online, at least from a long-term perspective.
YMMV.
Re:So much for selling used books (Score:4, Interesting)
half.com is doing it. I got all my books during a recent semester for $200, in good condition. I went through the bookstore and totaled up what they would have cost new: $750.
You have just become the embodyment of the real fear of media compaies in the digital age... loss of control. As the internet brings us closer together, distribution channels change. PSP only available in Japan? No problem, I'll buy from Japan. Books expensive at the student book store? Got it covered, I'll buy from half.com.
Make no mistake, DRM is only partialy about copying. The other part is plain and simple control of distribution. DVD region codes do nothing to stop illegal copying. Putting a time limit on your new e-book is not a copy protection gimick. In the first case they want to control who buys when so they can build buzz on their terms and get the maximum manipulation of the audience. In the second case they want to make sure that everybody buys a new book so they can maximize their profits. All of a sudden, half.com is irrelevant and "pirates" aren't even a tiny part of the equation.
In some cases the DRM itself becomes the the control method. Since iTunes has an effective monopoly in online music distribution, the record lables can continue their practice of shaping how their message reaches the consumer. The promise of online music is that you can buy music from any source and put it on any device, but the practice of putting DRM on every track effectively short circuits this dream. Now the music companies get to control distribution in roughly the same way that they always have including the wonderful practices of price fixing and offering horrible contracts to bands because they have no other realistic way of making use of the distribution channels.
Did you read 'piracy' somewhere in that last paragraph? Neither did I. DRM is marketed to lawmakers and consumers as just this little, tiny inconvience to stop the horrible scourge of the evil pirates. If that was what we were buying, it might even be acceptable. But what what we're really buying, in this case, is the complete removal of an entire used book industry. In the case of music and movies, we're buying the continued presence of the distributor to control and overprice what we watch and hear. I don't want those things, but as long as the lawmakers and consumers keep hearing the message of "piracy", I'm gonna have little choice.
TW
Sounds like a bad deal to me (Score:5, Insightful)
The hardcopy version lasts years. The electronic copy is 2/3 the price and only usable for 5 months.
Fifteen years after I graduated I still refer to old textbooks from time to time. If you don't want to keep it you can always sell them after use, and probably recover more than a third of the original price.
Re:Sounds like a bad deal to me (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't like the idea that a crippled version is sold for a marginal savings when it shifts so many costs to the user. Saving to pdf or whatever is a lot cheaper than printing, and I want to see a much better share of that savings.
Re:Sounds like a bad deal to me (Score:3, Interesting)
My Ethical Issues in Computing class required almost $200 worth of text books. None were the same from the previous semester, and none were reused the next -- meaning
Re:Sounds like a bad deal to me (Score:4, Funny)
The only thing more ironic than that would be spending almost $200 for an Ethical Issues in Business class.
Re:Sounds like a bad deal to me (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sounds like a bad deal to me (Score:3, Insightful)
This sucks. (Score:3, Informative)
Frist Post? And What a DUMB idea (Score:5, Insightful)
EBooks are a failure... get over it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:EBooks are a failure... get over it (Score:4, Informative)
The difference is they offer a variety of formats, NO DRM, and you can redownload any time if you lose the original file. (I've done that a few times when I had to wipe out my palm and restore)
Ebooks will only catch on when they are convenient, and less expensive than the paper versions (the webscription model is about 5 books for 15 bucks US... certainly reasonable)
Compared to other publishers with onerous DRM, prices that frequently are MORE than a paper copy - and they have indifferent selection at best.... I can understand why most ebooks don't do well - but I personally hope baen keeps on doing what they are doing. (heck they've pretty much hooked me for a steady 15 bucks per month since I tend to buy every month when it comes out)
Sounds like the way to go. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:EBooks are a failure... get over it (Score:3, Insightful)
The biggest flop of the whole thing was they wanted to sell the books at hardcover prices. No one bought them.
Paying $130 or even $300 (when they first came out) for the gadget isn't any big deal today - look at iPod costs, laptops or whatever, but you have to have a resonable benefit to buying the ebooks f
Re:I think there is a market for maybe five comput (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, the difference is that eBooks have been tried coutless times over the past 5-10 years. The technology is there (how complicated can you make reading a book?). My point is that it's not a "new" technology by any stretch. They've not taken off for *many* reasons. Yes I read a Slashdot post about a "new" revolutionary "eBook" company every few weeks it seems, and of c
Use of text books for longer than 5 months (Score:5, Insightful)
not Princeton, only the bookstore (Score:5, Informative)
Re:not Princeton, only the bookstore (Score:3, Informative)
33% discount?? (Score:3, Insightful)
And how long until the electronic version is the ONLY version available? A few years?
The best thing my compSci program did was standardize on regular computer texts (O'Reilly) that will be reused for years (or until the next update) rather than already outdated overpriced textbooks. Llama, Camel, UML in a Nutshell, Java Definitive, Interface Design and others still are used on an almost daily basis. Meanwhile, the $120 C textbook collects dust on the bottom shelf.
Re:33% discount?? (Score:3, Insightful)
The best thing my compSci program did was standardize on regular computer texts
Your course standardised on a particular text? Am I the only person who has a problem with this entire concept? The course is supposed to teach you a particular area, not the contents of a given book. If you need extra material, you should be free to choose which book
What's the problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is awful (Score:5, Interesting)
this is also horrible for another reason. how can students refer back to previous classes? all these people that think technology can cure all. sad really. nothing beats books. and by the way, my masters is in Ed. Tech.
Open Source Textbooks (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, Spitzer, when you're done reaming the music industry for payola, why not take a crack at textbook publishers? (Yes, the pun was intentional)
Re:Open Source Textbooks are already here. (Score:3, Interesting)
For each course there were a set of recommended text books, but these were mainly for people who w
This is all wrong (Score:3, Informative)
Everything is under control (Score:3, Informative)
BWAHAHAHAHA (Score:3, Interesting)
Now the other thing to ask yourself is why is the difference between successive editions usally just the questions ??
Welcome to getting screwed its not a surprise that the text book industry likes the idea of DRM
Students better watch out!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Would it not even be illegal to put a work from which the copyright has expired under a EULA, with that pretending that there even is a copyright?
Also look at amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0679433139/ref=si
It says: Copyrighted material. I think that is totally incorrect, can somebody confirm this please?
Re:Students better watch out!! (Score:3, Informative)
But (at least in my country, so I would guess in the US too) the law is more retarded than you think. Even if the copyright of the text has expired, the publisher can still claim copyright on the specific arrangement of the words on the page. So if you want to make your own copy, you have to find an old edition to make it from.
The timespan of utility. (Score:3, Interesting)
I could understand it if there was a minimal fee (a few pennies), and it was treated as a library withdrawal. I don't mind paying a little to borrow a book.
However, as most of my old coursebooks cost about £40 or so, I really draw the line at spending about £25+ to borrow a reference book.
Whoever thought out the timespan is a tad on the nuts side, even if it is for University use.
You tend to use a particular book for a couple of months, then it stays on the shelf until it's time to revise.
Perhaps it'll also be referenced in the next year from time to time. Also for a few weeks/couple of months, then sit on the shelf until revision.
That means there's a good likelihood of someone rushing out to buy their coursebook, using it for the course. Finding it expired at revision time, having to rebuy it again (now cost 133% of the original dead tree version). If it's needed in the future, the economies just get worse.
The idea of technical reference books is that they're kept around to reference. It's not like a story, where you pick it up, read it, and vaguely remember the story for ever more..
You need the detail.
If the books were priced at 0.1-0.5% of the cost of the actual dead tree, with a limit of, say one month, they'd have a great line going in the book lending area.
For sales under their current scheme..
I'd love to know what reality they live in, but it sure doesn't look like the one most of us live in (without pharmaceutical intervention).
Just to add to that, in every job I've had since leaving my degrees, a fair quantity of the books I used back then have sat on a shelf, and have been referenced quie extensively. That's after around ten years.
That 'deal' is one I wouldn't touch with somebody else's bargepole.
Way to expensive for what you get. (Score:3, Insightful)
Given those restrictions, there's still books I'd consider buying as E-books, those I'm fairly sure I'll read once and forget about. But even then I'd have to get a *lot* more than 33% discount, that's a total joke. It means the e-book is still a lot more expensive than buying a used book, or buying a new book and selling it when you're bored of it.
Like Borrowing from a Library, only more expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Time-limited access to a book is a known concept, that's what libraries are for.
Back when i was in college, library access for us students was free, and non-students paid a modest fee (you could call this a flatrate). You could borrow a book for a month and have that period extended (if noone else requested that copy) to up to three months. After that you had to return it, but could re-borrow it a day later.
Seems to me as if DRMed textbooks would compete with libraries. But if the customers have a choice between a) buying the book at full price, b) having DRMed access to it for 5 months at 33% discount, c) borrowing it from a library for 1-3 months for a small flat fee, this product seems vastly overpriced to me.
So, to be successful, these books will have to be a lot cheaper. After all, the market will determine what their price should be.
Same idea as using demo code (Score:3, Interesting)
Defending the Publishers (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no doubt that the cost of textbooks is completely unreasonable. While the publishing industry has to take its share of the blame for that, the publishing companies have several difficult problems to get around when trying to make a profit selling intangible information.
First, and slimiest, are professors that sell free examination copies to used booksellers. Sometimes profs order exam copies JUST to sell them to the itinerant bookbuyers. (These are the guys you see wheeling a big case on wheels around your profs' offices, flush with cash) This is completely unethical, but widespread.
Second are used book distributors. Profs expect a lot of support for these expensive books. They need desk copies, supplements, web site support, test banks, etcetera. The publisher has to support the book in use, even if the students are buying used text books. The used book dealer provides NONE OF THIS. They only value they add is storing the book during school breaks and driving it from one place to another.
So for an edition that comes out once every three years, the publisher has ONE CHANCE to make a profit - the first all-new run of the edition. Everything else (packaging with extra materials, sell-through, custom pub) is a rearguard action to try to stay afloat until the next edition.
You see, the value in the book isn't in the part that the used-book dealer sells. He's selling information that he didn't produce, support, or add to at all. The used book industry is essentially a giant leech on the butt of textbook publishers.
If there were NO used book industry, or if there were some sort of royalty paid for each resale, most textbooks could be almost as cheap as trade books.
Also, publishers don't like book coops, but don't mind them nearly as much. Because students sell to each other and there much less exam copy corruption.
DRM might be a fair way around this, but the DRMed e-book should be cheaper than a used book, IMO. It only makes sense that if there's NO resale value, that you should only pay for the info, not the media + resale value. To those that suggest they should sell DRM-free e-books, that's simply suicide. Let's be realistic - 90% of college students are not going to pay for a book they can just copy. My relative has seen students photocopying entire textbooks. (Even though the cost of copying was close to the cost of a new book.)
Publishers definitely need to step it up and figure out a way to make a better, cheaper product. They are a very old and traditional industry. (some might say hidebound) But they are generally good people trying to do good work. They will eventually adapt, authors will get paid, and prices will go down, one way or the other.
Re:Defending the Publishers (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with you on this point. I find the process disgusting. Of course, perhaps publishers should be less willing to give away copies of their textbooks.
Second are used book distributo
Crack And Print (Score:3, Insightful)
Already been done (Score:3, Informative)
They haven't spammed her, but they have prevented her from being able to sell the book along with the online content, unless she wants to give up her email address.
Yes, we should have made up a new free address. Didn't think it through fast enough.
Related real world example (Score:3, Informative)
Next we'll have paper that restricts what you are allowed to write or print on it.
Re:Difference. (Score:3, Informative)
When you buy something like a book, some of the price you pay goes towards the cost of duplicating the item, and some of it goes to paying off the fixed costs of the manufacturer (such as buying the printing press). Actually you would have been happy with a duplicate of the book, but so lon
Re:Difference. (Score:3, Insightful)
I can understand they don't want their work copied so the illegal distribution part of DRM is understandable. The illegal use part of DRM is totaly fucked up though. These books selfdestruct in 5 months?!? Music bought on iTms may only be played on apple aproved hardware?!?
Where went our consumer rights in this
Re:It's NOT a new idea - saw it in the 1980s (Score:3, Insightful)
I almost forgot (Score:3, Interesting)