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Textbooks With EULAs
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?"
I don't understand some people's (companies') obsession with e-Books. They didn't catch on. People don't like them. They're a royal pain in the ass. The article says that there are roughly $3.2 million dollars worth of e-books sold every year. $3.2 million?!? That's essentially -zero-. So why are companies still trying to push what has been proven time and time again to be a product that nobody wants? It ain't gonna work.
I don't respond to AC's.
For the record, Princeton University has not signed on to this program. Only the bookstore is involved, and it is not affiliated with the university.
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.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The way to a man's heart is through the left ventricle
No reason to panic, we know what to do. It's all detailed in The Right to Read.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
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 long as you cannot make that yourself for less than the retail price, you will happily pay an amount that covers both elements of the cost.
But digital is different: you can duplicate it yourself for free. So the incentive to buy it at retail prices must be something other that a financial one. The same problem would arise with other things if we had matter duplicators like we see in sci-fi, no-one would want to pay for their food, and we would have to have DRMed meals.
So, it looked like I had paid $60+ for a book that I could not even use!
Instead, I had to break the law and find someone with a Windows computer, "unlock" the PDF files, and then "print" them through a "PDF print filter" to remove the DRM part.
This really pissed me off for a couple reasons.
What is the point??? If DRM excludes a single legitimate user, then it should not be used!
Also, if DRM is so easy to circumvent, what is it stopping? The only thing the DRM did for me was make me waste a couple hours of my study time.
-- Windows security? Sure, which ONE would you like? -me
Speaking as the manager for a textbook department for a university affiliated bookstore at a 30,000 population sized university, I have to say that I don't think you don't know very much about how much margin is in used vs new textbooks, nor what the average margin at all. The insane prices you are paying and the constant edition changes are due to one source: the publishers. Not your local campus bookstore. The bookstore is making roughly 25% on new and 35% on used. Those margins on a $8mil/year basis will not sustain a bookstore; ask any business major and they will tell you that that enterprize will float for a while and then sink like a rock. What causes the prices to go up constantly and more new editions in a shorter length of time is actually the used book market: the publishers get zero return when we sell a used book.
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.
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
The people behind Wikipedia are working on something like what you describe, but it's a long, long way from existing yet.
I've upped my standards, so up yours.
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.
Well, it's not QUITE what you're describing, but MIT started a program a little while ago called "open courseware". Basically, they open sourced their course material and published it on the internet. A lot of the stuff really is quite fantastic. I've used it a few times for reference and just for general reading and the stuff in there is really quite good. The best part is there's a really wide range of courses covered, but the comp/elec eng section is really quite expansive.
MIT open courseware site: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
...no two people are not on fire.
...Wrong. Go get involved with the FCP (Free Curriculum Project), write your books, release under the GNU free documentation lisence, get a printing company involved and sell bound copies. Someone else makes modifications, releases them in whatever way - and you, of course, are perfectly free to include their modifications, as you see fit, into your print version. ...Not at all impossible to profit from; just position yourself to start a distribution.
I've purchased exactly one "e-book" from Spiderworks. Their e-books are very inexpensive--about 1/3 of the cost of similar books on the shelf--and much more useful. They aren't DRM'd either. Supposedly your name is embedded in the document's code, so if you redistribute it, they can track who leaked it. I'm sure it can be stripped out if you know how. You can download it as many times as you need on different computers, and they're Adobe PDF's.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
You sound like you are looking for Wikibooks. They are developing and disseminating free open content textbooks, manuals, and other texts.
The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -Einstein
Princeton professor Felten's Freedom to Tinker blog has a good analysis of this. I like his attitude:
I hope he's right ...
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Actaully in the mid-1920's Harvards tuition was ~$400/year while the average salary in the same time frame was ~$2400, thus Harvard cost for one year roughly 1/6th of an average persons salary... Today the average salary is more like $44,000 and Harvards tuition (yearly) is ~$32,000 or something like 3/4 of an average persons salary. (Data from Harvards web page = $28,752, Health Services Fee $1,370, Student Services Fee $1,975 or about $31975 for everything other than room and board, books and personal expenses)
So schools in the US have increased at a significantly higher rate than income (e.g. income has multiplied by a factor of ~10 in 90 years while school tuition has multiplied by a factor of ~80, or 8 times as much as income)
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
2 1337 4 u!
The textbook is already overpriced due to the political system of textbook publishing. I read once about the actual system to produce something like a math or history book--it is too convoluted too remember in detail. It entails looking at every other publishers book and then morphing that with just a little bit of your own work -- so that it is unique, but in a way that is bland and acceptable. Large bulk purchasers like California and Texas seem to set the tone for how every other publisher tailors their work. The Academic bureaucracy that purchases books is also a convoluted and political animal that doesn't necessarily make good decisions, but does help to make the process even more resemble a dog chasing its own tail. Anyway, there have been 3 billion classes on physics and calculus yet we still get new books every other year -- like they were any better than the books from twenty years ago.
So now, with the ebook, you aren't killing trees and for one penny, rather than perhaps $5, the publisher gets a lot of savings (no stock, no printing costs, no overprints). Of course, to save any money on these already overpriced books, the student will most often get the ebook (most people want to forget the class soon after). Once the real book is eliminated, what will the supposed 33% discount be based on? They will be able to charge more for the ebook, because they don't have to compete with used books still in circulation.
I'm all for ebooks -- but not allowing people to own something is absolutely wrong.
Eventually, due to competitive pressure and science, people will get perfect memories -- only a matter of time. A PDA or other accessory computer can almost be considered part of your memory -- but what will be the legal distinction when something like this is "a part of you"? Can copyright law basically demand money every-time you have a memory? Perhaps Disney will blur out the perfect recollection from that copyrighted visit you took to Disney World.
The eBook is fine if it is forever for one person and is transferrable like a real book. Otherwise, copyright will become the new slavery. Because information will become part of our experience.
The other reason this sucks is that it removes a free market. The current situation with college textbooks is a study in collusion and extortion. Why? Because, you can't buy any math book -- you must buy a specific math book chosen by your college or professor. Rarely is this a book that has been around for more than 4 years-- you are lucky to find a used one for a measly 20% off. If you don't buy it, you risk failing in a class that you spent a lot of money on and that could ruin your grades and your wallet. With the millions of $ spent on textbooks -- it would be truly awesome if such big bucks stakes didn't result in pressure and incentives for Universities to choose one vendor over another. If I were a state, paying $1200 to subsidize a $400 semester class for a student -- wouldn't I want a generic and copyfree book on Calculus. I mean, how many Billions could be saved in education if the colleges themselves made royalty free textbooks? Why is this never brought up? What better use of resources than to have PhD graduates adding to the State History book with peer review? I suppose there is too much money involved in regurgitating the same stuff in slightly different form and re-selling it to wave after wave of students who are trying to get a good job.
Here is another dirty secret. Testing companies like Kaplan are also involved in politics. They donate to a certain somebody's campaign and "bam" now we have mandatory testing throughout the country. They also teach how to pass their own tests in SAT Prep courses. Nobody else can sell you the test. Testing students is itself a $ Billion industry. While it is nice to know if somebody is learning, I am really skeptical that a generation of test-takers is really a useful thing for real world problem solving. When I create a presentation or a web site -- you know, there just isn't any multiple
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
You mean like this, or this? 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.
My wife had a college text book last year which had 'online content', (a CD and a piece of paper with a unique serial number). The ONLY thing the CD contained, was the url of a web site. Go to the web site, and register with your serial number and email address.
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.
At least it's optional. I finished a degree last year. In January '04 (with 5 classes remaining for me), the university I attended did the following:
1. Made all books into e-books.
2. Made them mandatory (had to pay for them to enroll in the classes).
3. No method of downloading them (had to be accessed over the web).
4. Prices were no cheaper than buying the actual book (usually $60 - $90).
It was bullshit, because up until then I hadn't bought a single class book (I had over a decade of experience in my field and just needed the "pedigree" for a promotion). So, I didn't need these books. Never accessed them, in fact. Yet I still had to pay for them.
This kind of bullshit should be illegal.
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.
See my sig.
Find free books.
If the publisher expects to sell 20,000 copies, (Number of copies taken from an example here, assuming first year cost recovery only) then if the $80 book still carries say $60 worth of "U" costs (Because R is essentially 0 for electronic formats) then that's a total of $1.2M paid for the production of the book.
Here's a link (warning, PDF) Summary breakdown:
%32.8 Publishers paper, printing, editorial costs.
%11.8 Authors Income
%10.2 Publishers general administrative
%15.6 Publishers marketing costs
%7.2 Publishers Income
%11.0 College store personel
%1.0 Freight/shipping
%6.3 College Store operations
%4.1 College store income
Total: 100%
%65.8 To the Publisher %11.8 To the Author %21.4 To the Store %1.0 Shipping
So how much does a publisher buy the rights to a book for?
A publisher doesn't buy the rights to a book. It pays roylaties on the copies sold. See that %11.8 above.
Original Source In a link on this page a group talks about what can be done to reduce costs (California Public Interest Research Group's (PIRG) much-cited January 2004 report Rip-off 101(pdf)). Should be an interesting read. Main problem seems to stem from printing new editions and extras.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
...
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.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Some company sells templates for making dovetail joints in wood. The template is just a piece of plastic with a pattern cut into the edge. You could easily use the template to make an identical template, but the template comes with a EULA that specifically forbids you doing that. The EULA also states that the template is for personal hobby use by the buyer only; you cannot lend it to someone else or use it to make anything to sell.
Next we'll have paper that restricts what you are allowed to write or print on it.
U.S.C. Title 17 Chapter 5
It references Title 17 Chapter 1 Section 106. 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.
DRM means handing control of both access and the life cycle of your data over to a third party and depending on their continued good will for both.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.