[IP] Re: BitTorrent now being used for piracy of textbooks

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

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From: Bob Frankston [bob37-2@bobf.frankston.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 10:28 AM
To: David Farber; 'ip'
Subject: RE: [IP] Re:       BitTorrent now being used for piracy of textbooks

Periodically we need to step back and ask basic questions like why are we using a particular funding system – in this case using text books as units for recovering the costs of producing the books with some profit incentive?  The current system is far from perfect and has other side effects such as letting states that purchase large volumes dictate policies – especially when a state like Texas may view science with fear.

In the old days professors would put together their own compendiums using a copying machine to copy the pages. Torrenting is just an incremental variation on borrowing copies of a text book from a library or buying a used volume. The result of these practices is to up the price for each purchased copy to compensate what could be considered lost sales of the arbitrary physical objects that are at the center of an arbitrary funding model.

Perhaps we can shift to a different funding model by taking advantage of the very same technologies to customize the tome to a particular class. Going one step further would be simply have a per-class surcharge to cover the salaries of all the behind-the-scene professors who produce the books and treating them as part of the supporting cast. Paying them by straitjacketing them into producing saleable artifacts is a very dysfunctional method of compensation. Of course, the supporting cast model has its own issue.

I’m not really arguing that we should bundle everything into a class fee though maybe it’s not a bad idea. One problem is reduced transparency and the idea of paying a different price for each class and even for each professor’s version. Yet that is precisely what happens when you have to buy particular editions of particular books. We’ve just created a system that works within the “book” story rather than the “cover the implicit overhead” story.

So, for now, we can consider Torrenting as push-back within the current model and watch as it plays out.



-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net]
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 09:32
To: ip
Subject: [IP] Re: BitTorrent now being used for piracy of textbooks





________________________________________

From: Seth Goldhamer [seth@goldhamer.net]

Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 9:15 AM

To: David Farber

Subject: RE: [IP] Re:     BitTorrent now being used for piracy of textbooks



The only people who can solve the problem are the professors who choose the

books. If they collectively let it be known that they are taking price into

account when they make their selections then maybe prices will become more

reasonable. If a lower-priced book is deficient the professor can make up

for it in classroom lectures.











-----Original Message-----

From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net]

Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 6:24 AM

To: ip

Subject: [IP] Re: BitTorrent now being used for piracy of textbooks





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From: Kenneth_Mayer@Dell.com [Kenneth_Mayer@Dell.com]

Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 10:26 PM

To: David Farber

Subject: RE: [IP] Re:  BitTorrent now being used for piracy of textbooks



I could not agree with Kris anymore! I recently started my first semester

teaching as an adjunct and I am shocked at what a student has to pay for a

textbook for networking. $165 bucks? Are you kidding me, that book is

outdated the day it is published. I have also been told I don't have a

choice whether to use a book outside of the schools jurisdiction, lest I

upset particular people. I feel bad for my students and I am still paying

school loans off that include textbooks. I have no sympathy for them either

as both a former student and now a teacher. If I would have had the choice

to get them off the web when I was in school, I may have considered it as

well.  Instead of embracing web by starting to use PDF's of textbooks or

downloadable courses, they continue to screw students over semester after

semester and then proceed to change the book for the semester. You know

these books actually rarely change when they have a new edition come out.

How many times can World War II actually change? (yes I am joking about the

lst one).



Ken







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