E-Reserves Under Fire From Publishers

RackinFrackin writes "Publishers Weekly has a story about a copyright lawsuit lodged against several faculty members and a librarian at Georgia State University. The case, Cambridge University Press, et al. v. Patton et al., involves e-reserves, a practice of making electronic copies of articles available to students. From the article: 'Rather than make multiple physical copies, faculty now scan or download chapters or articles, create a single copy, and place that copy on a server where students can access it (and in some cases print, download, or share). Since the practice relies on fair use (creating a single digital copy, usually from a resource already paid for, for educational purposes), permission generally isn't sought, and thus permission fees aren't paid, making the price right for students strapped by the high cost of tuition and textbooks, as well as for libraries with budgets stretched thinner every year.'"

Comments

IANAL but I think the school will lose

[Microsift]

They are basically acting like a publisher. Compare to Basic Books v. Kinko's

Re:The only thing I learned in college...

[AnonymousClown]

You know, when I was in school, my textbooks were always over $100 a piece - business textbooks - and some were less than 200 pages. Now, I'm pretty sure that there isn't much groundbreaking research being done in business where a textbook has to be updated every decade let alone every year. But yet, we had to have the latest edition. My group psychology textbook has shit from the 60s up to the 80s.

Then there's the cost. Why do much? Yet, graze in the computer programming section of any book store and you'll see up to date books that are less than $50.

But let's go back to business. There are Schaum Outline's for just about every topic and they cover every thing that's in a textbook for less than $20. It's the same with the first couple of years of science and engineering, math, english, economics, etc...

Why aren't they used?

In my school career, there were only 2 professors that used their own book and one of them just had us get a Kinko's version of his book at cost.

College costs are getting to the point where an average kid can't afford it. And no, borrowing money to pay for school doesn't count as affording it.Textbooks just add to the burden.

Re:Textbook Publishers

[GlassHeart]

You are, however, ignoring one problem on the other end. Copyright infringement is so cheap that it's not easy for publishers to compete, even if they were to price it "fairly". The iTunes Music Store is a successful example, but it was selling most of its songs at US$0.99 or so, which is cheap enough to make piracy seem like too much trouble. A textbook, even when reasonably priced, is not likely ever to be priced at a trivial sum.

I think the bigger problem is that each textbook in question is a little monopoly in the class you have to attend, which allows the publisher of that textbook to charge high prices. If courses were required to designate at least two or three textbooks from different publishers as "official", then we might see some price competition. Or, if professors were banned from unnecessarily requiring the newest edition, competition from earlier editions would serve a similar role in the market.

Re:Textbook Publishers

[DragonWriter]

In most other industries this would be considered illegal as a clear conflict of interest.

Outside of some areas of government work and a handful of tightly-regulated industries, "clear conflicts of interest" aren't illegal, and are, in fact, fairly common. Certain conflicts of interest may, while not illegal in and of themselves, be prohibted by particular contracts (particularly employment contracts), but most aren't even there (for instance, its a pretty clear conflict of interest to work for one company and to own stock in a competitor -- if its voting stock, there is a double conflict of interest -- but except in the case of an executive-level employee, this would rarely be prohibited.)

Re:Textbook Publishers

[uniquegeek]

The whole %0.5 of it, or whatever it is? Unlikely.

My University had a God-like math professor who wrote many texts. He encouraged students to buy the book, photocopy it, and return it. He said he barely got anything for them, and he would rather have the students in his class to have the book and be able to follow along in the lecture. "$150 is just stupid, I have no say in it."

Re:Textbook Publishers

[bigbigbison]

People always say this but I'm now a phd student and the only time I ever had a class where we used a professor's book was one class where the book was actually out of print so he just gave us photocopies of it. What subjects are people taking where this is happening?

Oh crap. And a comparison.

[supercrisp]

Well, there goes my ability to save my students trips to the reserve room. Like many others, I slap things on Blackboard (POS) or other CMS. Now that'll no doubt be prohibited. And here's the comparison. I had to sign away the rights to my dissertation in order to graduate. Why? Digitizing. Oh sweet irony! The library has a corp come in to do the digitizing of dissertations. That costs, so the library signed a deal where the corp gets the right to disseminate the material with little or no money coming back to me or the school. They digitize my work and then get to sell it to others for to cover their costs. Forever. If I become well-known, and my work becomes valuable (I should be so lucky!), they'll have my work to peddle in perpetuity. What's the point of comparison? The sore feeling in my bottom, and your bottom, and the bottoms of students and faculty across the nation.