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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?"
And just what happens when you need to revise for exams? This sounds like a very badly thought out idea that someone didn't want to work.
The Right to Read
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
They can bribe a CS major into unlocking the book forever!
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
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 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.
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
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.
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
It's a new option that they're offering. If you think hardcopies offer a better value, keep using them. A 1/3 discount may not be enough to make this a roaring success, but they probably have some upfront costs to defray. If the market balks at their price, I'm sure they can get it down to 1/2 before too long.
I kept many of my college texts. In fact, right now, I'm looking at an almost 20 year old copy of my Gwartney and Stroup Econ book as I prepare to teach econ this semester in high school. It's not that I forgot (my BA is econ), just looking for the much better explanations and examples than the text we use.
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.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
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 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,
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.
The way to a man's heart is through the left ventricle
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.
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.
Sorry but textbooks are a screwjob from start to finish. I mean think about it. They cost five times what normal books cost, They have a built in captive market of well defined size thats know before the first one is printed, and near zero advertising costs. (very limited need to strip unsold copies) With all that going for them a textbook should cost about what the average paperback does.
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
BTW they start the article by mentioning a book which I believe is no longer covered under copyright law (copyright expired a long long time ago): Dante's Inferno.
b _rdr_next3_fm1/102-2757971-7030535?_encoding=UTF8& p=S002&ns=1#reader-page
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?
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
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?
Like a lot of other people have noted, 5 months is no way near enough to have a reference textbook available to you.
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.
Would rolling the clock back on your computer give you instant access again? I know it works with some "free trial" software.
Ignorance is not a crime; neither should it be a way of life
Congress control $ = inmates run the asylum
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.
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.
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
1. Books are downloaded. 2. Digital screen shots of photos are taken. 3. Digital screen shots converted to Word document using Tablet text recognition software. 4. Free text books. Not saying that's what should happen, but I wouldn't be suprised if it did.
if you aren't already part of the hacker underground, you should really look into making your way in. talent like yours shouldn't be wasted.
I got a COMPLETE copy of Mad Magazine once, and as I looked through it I laughed and, I showed my dad, who got me the gift, now he was a Mad fan from LONG ago before the magazine started going down hill (this was before they added needless color)
Anyways my dad said to me, that's nice you can see it all, but it doesn't have the same feeling. I of course laughed at it, but he continued about how he can't feel the page as you flip through it, everything is automated and so on.
Now my dad is a pretty technical guy, he loves his computer, he used to be a stock trader, this is a guy who is no computer newbie. However he was rejecting the format. And a couple weeks later I realized the same thing.
It's really the same with manga and e-books, I can read Dante's inferno on a computer, but with out holding a book in my hand it feels unreal, and phony, I don't feel the same. It is cheaper to make an E-book but it just doesn't work in the same way as a real book, where you're careful with the pages, you can feel the weight, and each word feels tailored to you.
This might work for the cheapest of all parents or for a class where you really don't need the book, but personally I'm glad I have the source material for my entire life for some of my C++ classes,and wish I had the Java source book we had (I didn't need it really, everything for java was on the web)
Personally I'll take a real book EVERY time, I don't care what people think.
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 $20.
I wouldn't be all that surprised if they just closed the book stores and sold you the eBooks directly, adding the cost to your tuition. ("Sure the tuition is more expensive, but at least I get free* eBooks!")
=Smidge=
My digital image processing class is going to be pretty math intensive --- probability, statistics, integrals, vectors, Fourier transforms. I will be referring constantly to a math textbook I used two terms ago. If it had expired at the end of the semester, I'd be fucked this term.
This is not my sandwich.
If you are always going to be the named source, you're not likely to try anything unethical.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
You must never have seen Wikipedia. Course material can easily be made from it's contents and it's already better than most texts.
Profs and schools get major payola from the textbook publishers. That's why the prices go up and up and you never schools publish their own texts, which would save students a fortune.
No they don't and that's not the reason. Writing a textbook is a work of love with few rewards for a professor. Textbook publishers have their pick of material and don't need to reward anyone. The mechanics of dead tree publishing don't work out for small runs, so you won't see any but the largest and most well known universities printing books. Electronic publishing is another mater and I expect that to become huge.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Princeton professor Felten's Freedom to Tinker blog has a good analysis of this. I like his attitude:
I hope he's right ...
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.
Since you already have the basics (the course and the book), why do you not check if you can work together with MIT by integrating the book in opencourseware (I do not know if the content matches what MIT opencourseware stands for sofar, but else I think their are other places, or it is a nice startingpoint. That way you get a bigger audience, and hopefully more funding to keep up this work.
I think schools, colleges & universities should be more selfsupporting in this anyway.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Nevertheless, I'm highly opposed to the "subscription" model and clearly see the badness down the road. So, to that end, I've been working (alone now, but hopefully soon to gain colleagues) on a free textbook for my field in the form of a wikibook. In my professional opinion, wikibooks--not commercial EULA-bound e-books--are the "right thing" for academic textbooks. We can all work on them, and it's in everyone's best interests (students and profs) to ensure that these texts are accurate, clear, and monitored for vandalism (which, if it is existed at all, would likely be from paid agents of the textbook syndicate).
I doubt that I'll be able to convince many of my esteemed colleagues too soon, though, because (a) textbooks aren't counted towards tenure and (b) lots of professors make good money writing the damn things (want that new car? Write a textbook for us!) Meanwhile, the textbook reps are knocking on my everyday depositing free textbooks in my office--though they tend not to mention how much they'll cost the students should I assign one.
Little do they know--I'm using these textbooks to help me construct the wikibook intended to destroy them! (sardonic laughter...)
I can't even imagine using e-books in college. The best part of buying used text books is that previous students highlight the important parts and even add useful notes in them. This is one area were "old school" is better than bleeding-edge technology. Plus, can you sell you e-books back to the book store for beer and Arby's money? I didn't think so.
I don't know how many times my college kids have come home with the key software for specific courses installed as demoware. They get 30 or 60 days to use it and rush like mad to get the work done before the demo expires.
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
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!!!"
Do you mean it isn't really 1997, and my free copy of Paint Shop Pro isn't really free?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
By reading this EULA you have agreed to pay BooksRUS(TM) the amount of $100 per day.
"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.
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.
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.
How is copying an e-book a crime? Under what statute? (and don't say DMCA, that only applies to people distributing software, not using it)How is copying an e-book a crime? Under what statute? (and don't say DMCA, that only applies to people distributing software, not using it).
People keep saying this, but I've never seen any evidence for it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
All this is why me and a friend of mine started up our website ScrewBookPrices.com. It allows students to buy books from other students on campus. Its a WIN WIN alternative. The student selling the book gets more then what the school would buy it back for and the student buying the book gets it for cheaper then the book store would sell it for.
Sadly in todays society its "acceptable" to ream students. People complain about the high book prices but very few actually do anything about it so the cycle continues.
I hope this doesn't just get regarded as a plug.
http://seanism.com/
Why? Because sometimes unlimited time paper is better than crippled e-versions of documents.
By crippled I mean not being able to print out more than a couple of paragraphs per section, etc. I suspect most will just pay the full price and get the book.
Let me amend that last paragraph. After one cycle of buying the e-version they'll see profit drop off. First off, someone will figure out how to un-cripple it. Of course expect the publisher to employ the might of the DMCA against that but it'll be too little, too late.
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
Ity seems that all the books in my fields (statistics, economics) have gone to a three year cycle, with no purpose other than to defeat used textbooks. I've told book reps that I'd take the next book with a wirtten guarantee that it would stay in print for five years, ant they're just not interested.
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 use his own book. These tend to involve giving up the royalties or proving that there is no viable alternative.
hawk
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.
...
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,
nononononono!!
the trick was to set your clock forward many years when you installed.
You have 3012 days left of your 30 day free trial, would you like to register? was the greeting from my terminal program before I connected to a BBS.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Needless to say, depending on how popular your subject may be, you can pay upwards of $150 for a [required, mandated, don't have it you're screwed] textbook. Now I understand that much of that money is in fact pure profit to go pay the publishers/authors for their time/research. After all, I can buy a book of the same dimensions at Chapters [Canadian bookstore] for about $40.
I've learned that University is a business, and nothing else. Aims of 'higher morals' were simply a fantasy taught in schools. But if a standard author can be content with the profits from his $40 sell, why can't a university professor that authored the book? Especially, since by the virtue of being introduced in any one university, his sells increase exponentially? Think of it: 3,000 students a year at University X are forced to buy his book. And thats just in one year. Who else can enjoy such market permeation?
Anyways - my thoughts are that textbooks are ripoffs. And just when I thought that it was at its worst - it got even more abysmal.
So - you now pay $100 instead of $150. But you also don't have anything tangible - no books. Therefore, the cost of producing this eBook on CD is nada. Maybe $2 at best. They cash in $98 in pure profits. Now such figures are pure speculation on my part, but needless to say that the final figures won't be all that far off.
Not only that, but that $100 purchase is essentially deleted in 5 months by the author (DRM). Now with a normal book at $150, I can at least resell it for $70... if the new annual edition isn't out [another ploy]... or if I fail the class [as I have], I can at least reuse it.
Not so with 5-month DRMed books. This is an exercise in pure greed if ever I saw it, and the fact that the administration of Princeton sees nothing wrong with this exploitation is even worse. My faith into the integrity of universities suddenly dropped.
I should note that price is normally somewhat irrelevant to me. I am fortunate enough that I can still live at home while I attend. That said, all my money goes to pay university. All of it, so that I may not be caught with a $20,000 debt when I get out. I have bought stuff yes - but pretty much all of it was with either tips I get in the day (I'm a tourguide), and a second job I did a month ago (which went to pay off my previous debt).
But price - is not irrelevant to my friends. Take Corie, and a million of my friends. They're returning here in Ottawa to continue their studies. Most don't live at home because their home is hours/days away. Here they are, now paying rent. That's $400 a month. Plus living expenses. That's what... $200 a month? That's the equivalent of a month's parttime paycheck at a standard lowly job. They are below the poverty line. If they weren't attending university - then they could at least work fulltime. But they can't because university schedule takes up some prime working hours. Then in summer, if they live in Ottawa, rent/living-expenses takes up much of their profits. They'll save up maybe half of whats needed to pay off this year's tuition, if that. They have to take loans, and go further in debt. Maybe they're about $10,000 in debt already. 19/20 year olds.
And this university wants them to buy $100 CDs of text that will go bad in 5 months?
This is precisely why I lost faith in the institution.
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.
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.
It's after the Sodom and Gomorrah episode and Lot's two daughters get Lot drunk so they can have sex with him. (It always seems they stop reading the Sodom and Gomorrah story a couple of verses too early.) It's in Exodus. Somewhere.
GPL gives you rights. EULA takes rights away.
They don't have the power to enforce such orders. However, time is a unit of measure, and thus according to the US Consitition Congress may fix the Standard of Measure thereof... say, by mandating that all computers sold in the US be designed to automatically reset their clocks via the WWVB radio signal.
Watch for this new legislation, coming soon from a legislator near you!
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
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.