Slashdot Mirror
Major Textbook Publishers Sue Open-Education Textbook Start-Up
linjaaho writes "Three major textbook publishers have sued a startup company making free and open textbooks, citing 'copyright infringement,' as the company is making similar textbooks using open material. From the article: 'The publishers' complaint takes issue with the way the upstart produces its open-education textbooks, which Boundless bills as free substitutes for expensive printed material. To gain access to the digital alternatives, students select the traditional books assigned in their classes, and Boundless pulls content from an array of open-education sources to knit together a text that the company claims is as good as the designated book. The company calls this mapping of printed book to open material "alignment" — a tactic the complaint said creates a finished product that violates the publishers' copyrights.'"
Since you can't copyright facts and figures only their presentation and form, as long as the arrangement, structure and alignment is different, they don't have a leg to stand on.
From the Article:
To illustrate this claim of intellectual theft, the publishers’ complaint points to the Boundless versions of several textbooks, including Biology, a textbook authored by Neil Campbell and Jane Reece. The Boundless alternative, the complaint alleges, is guilty of copying the printed material’s layout and engaging in what the complaint calls “photographic paraphrasing.” In one chapter of the printed book, for instance, the editors chose to illustrate the first and second laws of thermodynamics using pictures of a bear running and a bear catching a fish in its mouth. Boundless’s substitute text uses similar pictures to illustrate the same concepts—albeit Creative Commons-licensed images hosted on Wikipedia that include links to the source material, in accordance with the terms of the open license. (The end of each Boundless section also includes links to the text’s source material, which often includes Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia of Earth, and other Web sites.)
The complaint goes on to allege that Boundless’s choice of bear photographs in that chapter reflects “only the previously made creative, scholarly, and aesthetic judgments of the authors and editors of Campbell’s Biology.”
(Bolded by me)
So... is that wrong? I don't get it. If it's Creative Commons, doesn't that allow this sort of thing, by definition?
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
It's bad enough that profs happily write textbooks and have a partner do a quid pro quo arrangement (each prof in a pair requires the other's pricey textbook in a given class to get around the rules forbidding you to require your own). It's worse that textbooks "change" from year-to-year (often with no substantial content changes at all) in order to keep a revenue stream coming in. It's worse still the practices used to hamper the used textbook markets...
Now students have to deal with crap like this?
Glad I left academia years ago. :(
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
From the article: Those "Thieves" just copied our work, reworded stuff so it's not a direct copy, and now give it away! The question is how much do you have to re-word factual content in order to not be copyright infringement. There is a limit to how far they can differ and still cover the same (factual) material.
I thought educational use was exempt from copyright restrictions.
"Waitress I need two more boat-drinks..."
... pulls content from an array of open-education sources to knit together a text that the company claims is as good as the designated book ...
A noble intention but I am suspicious of "as good as". Pulling stuff from various sources and slapping it together quickly is not a strategy known for producing "as good as" products. Perhaps a "good enough" product though.
However is the "knitted together" text better than, or even different from, just googling and reading some of the top sites, reading various topics on wikipedia?
Also with respect to "as good as" I am *not* counting the missing homework problems against it.
how long is it going to be before the state and local governments figure out that commissioning a single book that they own the rights to as a group starts becoming more cost effective? Would it not make sense that there isn't anything particularly new in geometry or algebra that forces the need for a new rewrite of textbooks every 2-3 years? Or to avoid the $100/book charges being made for dead tree editions of textbooks? Would it not make sense to have one definitive book on the subject, and holding the copyright in common for all to use? As the cost continues to rise at rates exceeding inflation on textbook materials, it becomes more and more attractive to own your own curriculum materials so you don't continue to pay for them over and over again. I feel it is just a matter of time before this happens, particularly give the finanical squeeze occuring in state and local governments.
I don't know whether this lawsuit will succeed or fail, but many open source and open materials are based on proprietary materials.
For example, much of Wikipedia is graduate students and college students taking ideas from their textbooks, compiling them and putting them into their own words.
Linux is based on a commercial operating system, and many of its best software packages are either clones of popular Windows software packages, or enhancements to academic projects (like Apache and Mozilla).
The two need each other it seems.
The point of that is that it makes sense for us to keep a profit motive for development of new proprietary materials, and over time, to migrate older knowledge to the realm of free and open learning.
The companies are complaining not because the textbook is actually copying them (which would be a violation of copyright), but because the free texbooks are copying their ideas. The example TFA gives is that the copyrighted textbook uses a picture of a bear to illustrate the laws of thermodynamics, and the open-source version uses another different but similar picture of a bear (properly licensed under a CC license).
Basically, the companies are claiming they hold the copyright to the idea of using a bear to illustrate a law of thermodynamics. I call that "bullshit." They don't have a leg to stand on under copyright law, IMO (well, they shouldn't, IANAL so I cannot say for certain). Ideas can, infact, be freely copied: you cannot copyright them, and you never could.
Now, if they'd patented that idea, it'd still be bullshit, but maybe they'd have had a case legally speaking.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
What's funny is that this sort of "alignment" has been taking place for *years* in dead-tree textbooks.
An example: Back in the 80s I was taking a class in differential equations and was having some trouble. So I went down to the library to see if different textbooks might have different approaches that could help me out. I pulled down four textbooks (different authors) and sat down to read. Turns out EVERY SINGLE ONE of them presented exactly the same concepts in exactly the same order with pretty much the same descriptions. Didn't help me one bit, but it shows how a math professor can make a few extra bucks for very little effort... #include
I'm a college student. I hate that my textbooks are hundreds of dollars, and would love open textbooks.
But it seems like the companies arguing that the stuff in the book, in the order it's in, is copyrighted - which seems reasonable to me. If true, it doesn't matter if you use libre text and images - you're still "filling in" the template provided by the textbook. It's similar to a song cover - you're reproducing "your" version of the song, but it's still copyright of the original artist.
They do actually pay people to come up with the best stuff to include, and the order in which to present it...
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Not so much sue, but license. You will have to pay a "knowledge usage" fee each time you utilize your learned knowledge for monetary gain. With the correct "lobbying" this fee will be captured on your tax form and levied based on the work you do (engineer, doctor, etc) coupled with the money you earned (salary) and the cost of the education you paid to "gain" your knowledge.
If you just happen to be smart and able to have meaningful and well-paying employment, without any identifiable higher education, then you probably just stole the information and skills from someone and will be open to punishment.
Basically the lawsuit is because the text books company's don't want to lose massive amounts of profit. Textbooks are the biggest profit business in the worlds, for instance almost every year a new calculus and physic book gets published and for what reason?
as long as the arrangement, structure and alignment is different
They seem to be claiming that the structure is copied though i.e. you select one of their texts and the site collects "open source" information which covers the same material in a similar fashion. What is so ironic about this is that, at least where 1st year physics text books are concerned, the publisher's text books have almost exactly identical structures - sometimes even down to the level of chapter and section numbers. So, since I am certain that these publishers would never do what they seem to be accusing this company of doing, I can only presume that they must all pay a licensing fee for use of this format.
To begin with, I needed basic kinematic data on African and European bear species.
No brain, no pain.
Yea, is the start-up actually using any of the text from the established publishers?
According to the article, the start-up is accused of non-literal copying. The plaintiff's textbook illustrates thermodynamics with a non-free photo of a bear running and a non-free photo of a bear catching a fish. The allegedly infringing textbook illustrates thermodynamics with a free photo of a bear running and a free photo of a bear catching a fish. The claim is that apart from the copyright in the particular photographs, the choice of a bear to illustrate the laws of thermodynamics is itself sufficiently original.
I'll reply to you, because besides all the usual textbook games, you hinted at the *really nasty* copyright theme brewing - one so ugly the media has managed to distract us from even talking about it!
Entry Level Lectures in College/University.
Those are famously just "3d Videocasts" with Talking Heads writing things on White/Black boards. A "Class" consists of 25 "Episodes", plus the 1-3 course books, plus a "certification that you know the material". Price: Some $10,000.
If you can just get an alternative certification process down to validate people knowing their materials, then parts of the educational engine will crash, badly. I know, there's other parts of the "experience", but from the content side, Big-Ed has a really wrenching shakedown coming, maybe in five-seven years.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
This. This. This.
See what Khan Academy and CK-12.org are doing to K-12 teaching materials? K-12? HAH. College courses are next. The last nails in the coffin is an open certification body where you can go for testing without getting gouged, and an open marketplace for tutors/subject matter experts to work with you online.
As the SCO history has demonstrated, the Linux kernel is not based on a commercial operating system. It is a implementation of a POSIX style operating system with a clean source history. POSIX itself is an open standard. The user space is a mix of many packages some based on POSIX standards (e.g. shell, file utils) others based on common application needs. Many of those are indeed based upon open industry standards. Wikipedia material is not as well vetted IMHO and given the volume of material, there is a greater possibility of something being copied incorrectly. But much of the material we are discussing is basic scientific fact and could reasonably be based heavily on material available via sources like Project Gutenberg. Other material would be newer and likely could reference open sources. As for organization, the courses follow standard outlines so university programs can receive accreditation. And building up material from basic to advanced concepts in a framework that could only allow 8-16 chapters per semester doesn't allow that much variation.
there should be a mod down "your, you're, there, their, they're mistake"
I disagree. Grammar prescriptivism should go in an English textbook, not in Slashdot's moderation system. Some people who post to Slashdot speak something other than English as a first language.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
One of the textbook authors involved in this is a friend of mine, and he explained the situation in a little more detail.
These companies tell the students that in a course that requires Book A (at a cost of $100), they could buy open Book B (at a cost of $5) and that not only would all the same information be covered, but the page numbering will be exactly the same. The offset example boxes would be the same. The exact order of headings and subheadings, illustrations and charts would be the same. If the prof says, "Turn to page 256 and look at illustration 3," you will not spend minutes trying to find the correlating page in your cheaper book. It will BE page 256, and the illustration will be what the prof is referring to.
Textbooks are pricey. Sure. But this guy works hard putting out the best in his field every year. He and his staff spend a lot of time and effort creating the best product. These companies are blatantly violating copyright on a level that I think few slashdotters would be able to justify.
Lurker
If an open source data aggregator (my bad if that's the wrong way to phrase it) can use open source and non-copyrighted material to product almost the exact same result as a copyrighted textbook does that mean the copyrighted textbook is infringing on open source and non-copyrighted material? Seems to me that unless they can prove that they came up with those facts themselves then they're just gathering up the same information.
"Look and feel" is another concept entirely. Ask Lotus how that one worked out for them.
Who NOT to buy from:
Pearson including Penguin, SAMS, Addison Wesley and Financial Times
Cengage Learning including National Geographic Learning, Gale and Brooks/Cole
Macmillan Higher Education -- a major ebook publisher
Cengage Learning in Australia have changed their name to 'Open Colleges'
After this, I'll be avoiding them.
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