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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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
I have fairly extensive experience with academia, and I have never seen a school that would have a rule prohibiting professors using their own books. I have also never seen professors having an agreement like the one you talk about. When I was an undergraduate student, about half my professors required their own textbooks, that were mostly available at the university store for a nominal price as mimeographed copies.
As far as publishers coming up with a bogus "new" edition of a textbook every few years, I can assure you that professors hate that practice as much as students do.
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