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Expensive Books Inspire P2P Textbook Downloads
jyosim writes "A site called Textbook Torrents is among the many sites popping up offering free downloads of expensive textbooks using BitTorrent or other peer-to-peer networks. With the average cost of textbooks going up every year, and with some books costing more than $100, some experts say that piracy will only increase." Having just completed graduate school, I can attest that quite a few books are in that more-than-$100 range, and that they're heavy besides. But the big-name textbook publishers are much less interested than I am in open textbooks, even if MIT has demonstrated that open courseware is feasible, and Stanford and other schools have put quite a bit of material on iTunes.
I only had one professor that required us to buy a book that he had written and it was actually one of the best text books I bought. The book was paper back so it was light and not a pain to carry, it cost $20 and it was actually relevant to the course.
I doubt he even made a profit on it, he seemed more interested in providing us a fairly inexpensive valuable learning tool. Too bad other professors couldn't be bothered.
Textbook torrents are specifically for the purpose of education!
Title 17 of the United States Code
107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use40
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.
Yarrgh! Victory in sites, Captain. Yo ho ho!
Once this is easily demonstrated, music will be as easily demonstrated next. Knowledge Is Power!
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
Nowadays, most profs aren't allowed (by either law, Board of Regents ethics codes, or by school policy) to require their own authored textbooks for taking their own classes.
OTOH, this hasn't stopped a "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" racket where two profs teaching the same subject in different schools or states will each require the other's authored textbook (at some pretty hefty prices) as part of the coursework.
(IIRC, it depends on locality, and some may have a limit on what they can charge otherwise for the things).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
My record was a published-on-site book by the professor, $276. Useless. We opened it ONCE in class, and maybe 4 times out of class. By the 2nd week i returned it to the book store claiming i got the wrong one, and 4 friends and i shared one. The prof drives a Cadillac. He doesn't need my money. I do. Tuition is $38,000/yr. He's one of those guys who thinks engineering should be expensive and hard to learn so there are less in the field, so they can charge more.