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• I'm a university student at Yale in the year 2010. Yale distributes all their books on a single DVD, which has an access control mechanism to prevent students from using the book during periods when they are not enrolled. I am blind, but the company that provides Yale's antibooks doesn't have text-to-speech capability. My enrollment is deferred while they wait for text-to speech.
• I'm a university student at Yale in the year 2010. Yale distributes all their books on a single DVD, which has an access control mechanism to prevent students from using the book during periods when they are not enrolled. During my internship, I break the copy protection to try to sneak in a little extra studying. I am caught, and imprisoned for 10 years under the DMCA.
• The year is 2006, and nobody really has a VCR anymore. I've been making single-off, low-budget films for years - about 100 at a time. I used to make them on VHS, but I can't afford a DVD-CCA license, and my audience is increasingly complaining that they don't own VCR's. What do I do?.
• The awesome Arnold Schwarnegger movie, "Conan the Librarian - 2002", is released exclusively on DVD in 2002. It includes a 20 minute long advertisement for the 2002 Toyota Camry which cannot be skipped. The year is 2065, and I'm showing my grandson the movie. He keeps asking me what a "car" is.

• I'm a university student at Yale in the year 2010. Yale distributes all their books on a single DVD, which has an access control mechanism to prevent students from using the book during periods when they are not enrolled. I am blind, but the company that provides Yale's antibooks doesn't have text-to-speech capability. My enrollment is deferred while they wait for text-to speech.
• I'm a university student at Yale in the year 2010. Yale distributes all their books on a single DVD, which has an access control mechanism to prevent students from using the book during periods when they are not enrolled. During my internship, I break the copy protection to try to sneak in a little extra studying. I am caught, and imprisoned for 10 years under the DMCA.
• The year is 2006, and nobody really has a VCR anymore. I've been making single-off, low-budget films for years - about 100 at a time. I used to make them on VHS, but I can't afford a DVD-CCA license, and my audience is increasingly complaining that they don't own VCR's. What do I do?.
• The awesome Arnold Schwarnegger movie, "Conan the Librarian - 2002", is released exclusively on DVD in 2002. It includes a 20 minute long advertisement for the 2002 Toyota Camry which cannot be skipped. The year is 2065, and I'm showing my grandson the movie. He keeps asking me what a "car" is.

See http://vitalviewer.com/files/impsites.ht ml. Apparently, VitalSource will be concentrating on the health sciences for their textbook system.

Granted, if any attempt is made to force such textbooks on people, I'd be in the front rows of the lynching mob. Other than that I have no objections to having a choice between a $120 paper textbook and (hopefully) $20 time-limited DVD.

Get the rope! From vitalviewer.com/files/pubpartners.htm l:

Publishers are guaranteed 100% market penetration at partner schools who opt to implement the Vital Source system. Purchase of all included titles is mandated by the universities.

But professor, this book contains material that supports my arguements. However, you'll need to pay $399.95 in order to read it. I could let you read it, but then I'd have to have you arrested.

Among the obstacles:

• Students receive information from myriad sources, many coming from within the university, many more from beyond the boundaries of campus. Materials in this model are inconsistent in terms of quality, unpredictable in structure and organization, and are completely isolated from one another.

Publishers are guaranteed 100% market penetration at partner schools who opt to implement the Vital Source system. Purchase of all included titles is mandated by the universities.

In the VSTi model, students are mandated by universities to pay a yearly fee lciensing their reference curriculum.

By implementing the VSTi system, however, universities contractually agree to require at least three titles per curriculum topic. Therefore, the number of titles used by students increases significantly.

VSTi will control the Universities. The Universities will control the students. This shit will be mandated, and the Universities will have to sell every student at least three books per class!

NYU (linked above) requires it's students to purchase an Apple notebook to use this system(and highly recommend purchasing it through the campus bookstore). In a year or so, the entire system will be required of the students!

If they want this system to work, they'll have to make some serious adjustments. First off, they need to seriously slash the price of the books. They won't be able to complain that they have to keep them in stock anymore, so that cost is gone. They won't have heavy books, and therefore high shipping costs. They won't need massive shelf space. The publisher gets it's money from one nice source. All of these are good reasons to slash the prices dramatically. But what do you want to be that the price of books won't go down a bit? "These books are more convenient! They let you search! They are small! They fit in your pocket! You should expect to pay *more* for these!"

But in addition to that, they're going to have to let students loan or give their e-books to other people, just like with paper books. There can't be a restriction on that, or this system will fail.

We'll have to fight it if they don't make the system flexible, and beneficial!

--SpookComix

This is right from their site. Here is the URL: http://www.vitalviewer.com/files/macsupport.html#A nchor-11481

They specifically say it is illegal to even let a friend or upperclassman use you book. It isn't saying anything about copying, it is saying unauthorized use is a copyrgiht violation. This is serious people. I'm a pessimist, but even admittedly had trouble believing it could be this bad until I saw it for myself.

We need to get Open Content (open source for books) going, and fast!

These guys have to compete with real textbooks which, among other things, have resale value....

Granted, if any attempt is made to force such textbooks on people, I'd be in the front rows of the lynching mob.

Publishers are guaranteed 100% market penetration at partner schools who opt to implement the Vital Source system. Purchase of all included titles is mandated by the universities.

Go read VitalBook's page on the subject. Their list of "features" includes mandated purchases by schools (and NYU's Dental school is doing exactly this starting in 2001), and the removal of used book sales. They aren't competing with printed books. Frighting stuff. Given the current attitude of "save money at any cost" at universities, I can certainly see this spreading.

This really does mirror what RMS describes. Frightening. Here's what VitalBook's FAQ says:

3. Who can use VitalViewerTMand can I share VitalViewerTM with a friend or with upperclassmen?
Only registered students and faculty are legally allowed to use the VitalViewerTM application or the VitalBookTM DVD. Any unauthorized use or distribution of the VitalViewerTM software is a major Copyright Violation and is subject to legal action. Please don't make us do that.

Wow. I used to just laugh at some of RMS's rhetoric. I think I can take him much more seriously now.

Now it seems that even knowledge is becoming ISO9xx-ied.
Have these guys actually found somebody to share their pretentions with them ?
Let's take a look to their partners list...
Jeeesus... They don't need partners, they construct theirs !
It is also strange to see Mac Powerbooks on all of their Vital Book-related pages though I am sure this will rather run on MS platforms.

Grrr...
PS: When will the toilet paper also be subject to non-disclosure-agreements ?
Maybe when electronic noses will be there to check who did uses one another's.
--

Now it seems that even knowledge is becoming ISO9xx-ied.
Have these guys actually found somebody to share their pretentions with them ?
Let's take a look to their partners list...
Jeeesus... They don't need partners, they construct theirs !
It is also strange to see Mac Powerbooks on all of their Vital Book-related pages though I am sure this will rather run on MS platforms.

Grrr...
PS: When will the toilet paper also be subject to non-disclosure-agreements ?
Maybe when electronic noses will be there to check who did uses one another's.
--

What if I decide I don't like the VitalBook? First of all, the VitalBook has been extensively pilot tested and a beta-version was out for some time before the application was completed - that means, we don't believe you won't like it!

Sure, the FAQ does go on to say that you can return it if you're not satisfied, but students starting in 2001 are told "It is our position that ALL dentists must have excellent computer skills to maximize their skill and knowledge as dentists." To help them build excellent computer skills, Apple PowerBooks and VitalBooks are mandatory.

Meanwhile, back at VitalBooks themselves, they comment:

Publishers are guaranteed 100% market penetration at partner schools who opt to implement the Vital Source system. Purchase of all included titles is mandated by the universities.

Here at VitalBook, we've taken care of little details like choice. Heck, you don't even need to be taking a given course to charge people for it:

Because the service is a global curriculum application, the fee comes in from each student each of the four years of their studies, regardless of whether they are taking that course that year.

In the VSTi system, publishers...do not compete against used copies of their own books....

My biggest hope is that as companies get increasingly... well... evil, it will become clear to everyone that this must be stopped. I don't want to live in a world where I license everything and own nothing.