New Bill Proposes Open Source Requirement for Publicly Funded Books

fsufitch writes "On September 30th, the 'Open College Textbook Act of 2009' was introduced to the Senate and referred to committee. The bill proposes that all educational materials published or produced using federal funds need to be published under open licenses. The reasoning behind it takes into account the changing way information is distributed because of the Internet, the high price of college and textbooks, and the dangerously low college graduation rates in the US. Will a bill such as this endanger publishing companies in the same way Internet journalism endangers traditional journalism?"

Comments

Seems fair to me.

[WiiVault]

If the public pays for the research and creation they should have access to the intellectual product for no additional fee. It's silly that it isn't this way now. Of course we can all thank our corrupt congress critters for that.

Re:Seems fair to me.

[causality]

If the public pays for the research and creation they should have access to the intellectual product for no additional fee. It's silly that it isn't this way now. Of course we can all thank our corrupt congress critters for that.

Look at the reasons given in the summary:

The reasoning behind it takes into account the changing way information is distributed because of the Internet, the high price of college and textbooks, and the dangerously low college graduation rates in the US.

Those are all reasons of convenience. There is no principle in them. I don't fault the summary or its author for viewing it this way, as I believe it just reflects where we're at in this superficial society. As you say, there is an overriding reason why any textbooks produced by open funds need to be released with open licenses: because the public is paying the tab and therefore has a right to it. If the publishers don't like that, they can produce and sell goods on their own with no such assistance like almost every other company. This is the outcome that should happen regardless of whether it's convenient or inconvenient for anyone. It sure would be nice if that were more widely appreciated.

Re:Seems fair to me.

[TheSpoom]

Of course we can all thank our corrupt congress critters for that.

Which is why there is precisely zero chance that this bill will pass.

This is the best type of bill: one that's put forward because someone sees that something being done now could be done in a better way. But publishers have lobbyists and cash, and those always trump the public interest in the US House of Representatives.

Re:Seems fair to me.

[zolltron]

If this bill passes, it won't change anything. The professors that write these books will simply reject the U.S. funds

That's just not possible. Almost all universities run on federal funds. If a given professor's research isn't sponsored by federal funds, the cost of the building in which she works almost certainly is (at least in part). The concept of "rejecting" U.S. funds is like rejecting your paycheck, you worked hard to earn it, you take it.

and get money from other places like IBM, Microsoft, Ford, and so on.

These places are giving out money for biology, chemistry, theoretical high energy physics, english, history, philosophy, sociology, psychology?!? Maybe a little, but not much.

Professors want to be reimbursed for their many hours of work, not give books away for free (or cheap).

First, we (professors) are reimbursed, we're paid by our university to produce exactly this sort of work. So, professors who are being paid for their textbooks are (in a sense) double dipping. We are also grossly underpaid for the amount of work and the level of qualifications, so I can't really fault someone for this, but it is double dipping.

Second, we don't get much for books. We do give them away for cheap.

Re:Seems fair to me.

[slinches]

or the taxpayers get to keep more of their own money

Re:Seems fair to me.

[cetialphav]

The professors that write these books will simply reject the U.S. funds

What kind of a world do you live in where professors reject money? That just doesn't happen. Being a researcher means being on a constant quest for funding much like being a politician means always seeking campaign contributions. Professors make very little money from publishing a textbook. They do it for the prestige of being the person who literally "wrote the book on the subject." There is no financial reason for a professor to turn down funding because the text will have to be freely available. All academics want their work to be easily available and widely referenced. It is the publishers that want to tie up the content.

Yep

[Trailer Trash]

Will a bill such as this endanger publishing companies in the same way Internet journalism endangers traditional journalism?"

Yep. That's why it'll never pass - expect large amounts of money to flow into key campaign coffers to put an end to this nonsense before it gets started. At some point we need to have congressmen who aren't bought and paid for by special interests.

By the way - for those of you who say "yeah, but this open source stuff is a special interest, too", no, it isn't. It's a *general interest*. It benefits everybody but a select few, rather than benefiting a select few at the expense of everybody else.

Don't know, don't care

[Just Some Guy]

Will a bill such as this endanger publishing companies in the same way Internet journalism endangers traditional journalism?

If you accept public money, you have to accept public obligations. I'd have no sympathy for a publisher that received federal funding but disliked the conditions put on it.

Seems like a good idea but strange motivations

[JoshuaZ]

At a philosophical level, this is a really good idea. There's no good reason that taxpayer money should go to things which aren't available to taxpayers. This is the same logic as making publicly funded research need to appear openly. However I'm puzzled a bit by the summary:

The reasoning behind it takes into account the changing way information is distributed because of the Internet, the high price of college and textbooks, and the dangerously low college graduation rates in the US

The fraction of the population that has gone to college had been steadily increasing over the last 50 years. One major result of that is that what constitutes a college education has in many ways been reduced. There are good and bad arguments about what has happened with college education over the last few years but there's no plausible way to describe the college graduation rate as dangerously low unless one thinks that a priori everyone should graduate college like everyone should graduate high school. That's not an easy case to make.

Killing publishers

[FuegoFuerte]

Will a bill such as this endanger publishing companies in the same way Internet journalism endangers traditional journalism?

We can only hope it will kill the publishers, the way they've been killing US college kids for years. Do you think college kids would eat such a steady diet of ramen noodles if they weren't spending all their money on textbooks? Have you ever compared the cost of textbooks in the US to the SAME books overseas? Take a look at amazon.co.uk sometime and compare a textbook there to the same book in the US. The only difference is likely that one says "international version" on the cover. Oh, and it'll be less than half the price.

No, a bill such as this won't endanger publishing companies... publishing companies have endangered themselves by pissing off their customers with insanely high pricing. Maybe something like this would finally bring competition to the textbook industry and help make school a little more affordable.

Pattern here.

[TheWizardTim]

I noticed a pattern here with Congress.

Step One. Propose a law that would hurt an industry.
Step Two. Receive large campaign donations to stop that law.
Step Three. ???
Step Four. Re-election!

Re:Not worried...

[NoYob]

It's not the government's job to protect particular business models or industries from technological innovation.

I'm in the:

• Steel
• Automotive
• Banking
• Farming
• Airline
• Fishing
• Teaching
• Semiconductor
• Defense

industries you insensitive clod!