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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.
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.
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
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.
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=
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
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.
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.
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.
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.