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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?"
The Right to Read
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
Ok so what of the academic ideals of spreading knowledge and learning? This is a result of american school industry.. It is unfortunate that learning has become a profit commodity for a privileged few in what is supposed to be a land of equality and opportunity for all...
Sad sad sad...
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
So, any money on how long before the DRM is cracked, and the textbook is "Available now, on a P2P Network near you!"
They allow EULAs on shrink-wrapped software and shrink-wrapped DVDs already, what makes books any different?
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...
Game dev and music blog
Selling old books was a nice source of cash for me at the end of each semester. Buying used books at the start saved a lot too. I'm not sure a 33% discount will be enough.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
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.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Paying 2/3 retail for a book you can't mark in, underline, or ceremonially BURN after the class is over?
I tended to use books a bit longer than 5 months as reference for later work for example. I think that Princeton is a bit short sighted on this one. The idea I thought was to educate people in how to use material, not in how to cram everything in your head so you do not need the book anymore, apparently since you have the material in your posession for only a limitted amount of time, you will have to remember it all , and if you have to remember it all anyway, why not just copy it (They do make you remember it (out of study perspective), so it is in your mind, so what is the difference with a hard or soft copy, or are you not allowed to remember it either once you have to return your e-book? (tricky laws those copyright laws).
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
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.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
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)
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I was about to post a snide comment about how anyone smart enough to get into Princeton will also eb smart enough to buy a used copy for a discount and then sell it back after it's not needed and save much more than 33%, but then it occurred to me...
If I were filthy rich, I might consider buying one of these things in addition to a real paper version. Some of those 800-page physics and biology texts don't have the best indices in the world, and frequently your mind recalls an interesting turn of phrase from the section you need to look at, but you can't remember what page it's on. A searchable electronic version would put you in the right place instantly.
Sounds to me like a really well thought out idea.
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!
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
I refer back to more than a few of my old textbooks regularly. (Do others?) Even if the same information is available online, I know exactly where to look in my familiar textbooks, and my old notes are often helpful too. I'd hate for all that to be lost.
Even though textbooks are frightfully expensive, the loss of personal history isn't worth 33% off. Even though some information becomes obsolete, basic principles have lasting value. To me, these EULAs are only an admission that the product being purchased doesn't have lasting value. I think that's more true about the publishing executives and lawyers who come up with these ideas than it is about the books themselves.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
You are talkning about illegal distribution which is only one side of DRM. Illegal use is another side which doesn't have a counterpart in the analog world because EULAs (and DMCA) don't exist there.
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 digital world? These schemes makes owning something of the past. Licencing is the new world order, or as I see it ju another word for good old fashion renting.
Want to explain how being able to Write to the 5 1/4" floppy was going to unprotect it?
I'm really surprised to see the large outcry against EULAs in general in all the comments. I'm pretty sure the GPL is a EULA and everyone cries when it is violated. So, what makes the GPL different and puts the right of the author to put that agreement on a piece of software in so high regard vs. someone elses right to put a different type of agreement on their works? Is there a fundamental difference, or is it a case of "I can do it, but you can't" type of thing? I really do want to know if I'm missing something here. Discuss.
Bookstores are ALWAYS affiliated with the University, I've worked at two of them. Don't think you can just plop a brick and mortar building in the middle of a college campus and not be affiliated.
They are given near exclusive rights to sell the schools merchandise and work with the instructors on books. Rarely do you see more than one competitor off campus selling the used books. The non affiliation means they can waste good money on stupid souvineer crap like cheesy light up pens, and they also carry a lot of the medical and art supplies for those students.
Affiliation is always there with a campus book store sitting in the student union.
...::----::...
I am in no way affiliated with this sig.
So this is like:
1. Buy ebook for full price
2. Sell it to students for 35% discount every term
3. Get the ebook back at the end of the term
4. goto step 2
I marvel Princeton's money making tactics.
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.
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.
Explain, please, how the introduction of this DRM e-book diminishes or eliminates availability of the following:
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 $20.
I wouldn't be all that surprised if they just closed the book stores and sold you the eBooks directly, adding the cost to your tuition. ("Sure the tuition is more expensive, but at least I get free* eBooks!")
=Smidge=
If you are always going to be the named source, you're not likely to try anything unethical.
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You must never have seen Wikipedia. Course material can easily be made from it's contents and it's already better than most texts.
Profs and schools get major payola from the textbook publishers. That's why the prices go up and up and you never schools publish their own texts, which would save students a fortune.
No they don't and that's not the reason. Writing a textbook is a work of love with few rewards for a professor. Textbook publishers have their pick of material and don't need to reward anyone. The mechanics of dead tree publishing don't work out for small runs, so you won't see any but the largest and most well known universities printing books. Electronic publishing is another mater and I expect that to become huge.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
With that logic, though, overlooking the purpose of the key, it should be legal for me to generate and feed the program false keys. It isn't.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
Because I hate with a passion any device that has been designed with a feature that has no purpose other than to reduce its utility.
I think other people are going to object to buying a book that they know is going to effectively cease to exist after an arbitrary time limit. Especially because an actual textbook has value. It can be resold, or it can be kept. This gives more choice. Choice is valuable.
Now, suddenly, the eBook reader will become a widespread piece of hardware. In a 2,000 buck Tablet PC running Windows.
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...
It would suprise the crap out of me. That's a lot of work and most college students aren't know for their studiousness, more like their uncanny ability to spend twice as much energy not to do something then to do it in the first place.
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!
I like the idea of digital books (especially if you can grep them!), I don't mind the DRM (if people will copy a $0.99 song they'll copy a $50 book), but the expiration thing is a show-stopper. I've referenced my best old textbooks many times since leaving school, and can't really imagine buying one that I know will "disintigrate" in 5 months. "Free" would be too expensive for such a book-- I'd rather buy a full-priced one that I could keep.
E pluribus unum
I know this is redundant...
Richard Stallman's famous parable
Does it go on forever?
As full disclosure, a member of my family works for a book publisher. I don't speak for anyone or any company. I just speak for my own opinionated self.
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.
Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.
It is already here. In my comp sci classes a thirty buck clicker was required material. The funny part was how the company that was making them got bought out and the product delayed until the second semester. Finally we get a working system and my prof goes and uses it about 3 times to take attendence and quizes that dont count for anything. The best part was how the prof informed us of the many uses of it. "It will be great for taking attendence and I can ask after I go over a topic if everyone understood. Then you all can say yes or no with the clicker and we can know if we can go on!" Mind you, this was in a class of 30...
Whatever happened to raising hands or asking questions?
Call me old fashioned, but I still prefer printed text books to eBooks any day. I think that one way this is likely to play out is someone will figure out a way to crack and then print out the pages of these electronic textbooks. Why? To have a nonvolatile completely portable version of the book that doesn't need electrical power and never crashes. Naturally this will be shared with friends.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Why even use the word "buy" anymore without transfer of ownership? This is renting.
Like we weren't getting ripped off textbooks before, this is even worse. We're paying for something that doesn't actually exist and that we don't get to keep. To whose benefit? Not mine.
Well, I personally think the REB1100 got it right in UI, but getting books for it is a pain. It's even harder to add user content, which I think is important, I originally bought mine to read fan fiction.
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 for it. Say an early release (they tried getting people with releases a month before hardcover) but it would also have to be a savings, I'd pay $2.50-$3 per book in electronic form. I'm not paying $25 for a book in electronic form.
For back catalog books it was worse. It was cheaper for me to order the paperback from Amazon and pay shipping than to get the electronic one.
All these companies seem to miss the idea that people have some notion of fair play. If you get less, and it's obvious with the electronic versions you are getting less (no shiny disc or bulky book), then the public will expect a savings equal to whatever they percieve the cost of the physical part is + physical distribution costs.
And to tip it over, it has to actually be less than that, it has to also make up for the hassle of a new method of doing things + any losses of the new format, like loss of resolution, color pictures, or underlining.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
I was referring to books -- the things with paper pages.
We're already well down the first three steps as case law in the USA. I await with fascination the progress down the rest of the way, which is doing the "boil the frog slowly" act. The content cartel is being cautious about getting too close to that last step because they're (perhaps rightly) afraid that if the courts start comparing movies and music to books too soon they won't support the lock-down of movies and music -- or even software.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
"Would rolling the clock back on your computer give you instant access again? I know it works with some "free trial" software."
That makes clocks a "circumvention device" under the DMCA. The RIAA and MPAA hereby order everyone to stop using time.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
As a textbook writer myself I can reveal that this is just a step on the path to our long-schemed glory. Ultimately we wish to move to knowledge licensing. Retention (in your head) of any information or knowledge that we impart will be subject to an annual licensing fee. If you fail to pay Mr Igor here pays you a visit and rummages about (in your head ... with this patented knowledge retrieval stick) and recovers the knowledge you have unlawfully retained.
Of course installing knowledge from other sources may lead to incompatibilities and conflicts that cause your brain to crash at... hmmm ... let's say the point you begin your final exams, so it is important to take out an annual knowledge support contract in case you need assistance at a critical moment.
Dont forget, now the publishers can eliminate those pesky used textbook sales. They won't have to create new editions and jumble up the pages and questions to force people to buy another new copy.
Simple, they should just lease the book/magazine, not sell it.
If they don't transfer ownership they can require whatever they want.
Ebooks might not be very usable just yet (and I think they work just fine on my PDA), but what's to say they won't be in the future?
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 course, they always flop. And not just kinda' flop... I mean *really* flop. I was wrong it my original post... it was $3.2 million in the last quarter. Still... that's a *tiny* amount. A single grocery store will do more business than that. I know that I, as a businessperson, wouldn't even bother with a market that tiny.
I don't respond to AC's.
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...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
GPL gives you rights. EULA takes rights away.