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Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

torrentfreak.com

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21–30 of 116 posts

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#21

Post by glogla »

IvoDankolov wrote: post #9

No access code means a lower grade, all in the best interests of science. I ... no. I can't even... I'm sorry, but I find it very hard to summon an inkling of sympathy for the publishers' plea against piracy when I see measures like that. When I failed calculus because I didn't prove a theorem the way it was in the lecture notes and then was insane enough to argue the point, I thought it was pretty stupid. Here, I do…

I'm pretty sure that exact formulation is irony on part of torrentfreak author, not actual formulation of the "professor" (sorry, but if you pledged to promote science and knowledge and then do this, you get quotes around title).

Still, I agree completely.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#23

Post by simonbrown »

Wilya wrote: post #8
simonbrown wrote: post #6

I'm somewhat confused as to how this would work. Surely the university is responsible for awarding the degree and academic staff choose a supporting textbook to help students? So I assume universities wanting to use a textbook don't have to adopt the system.

The guy is a Professor and publishes textbooks. My guess is that he wants a way to force his own students to buy his book instead of copying it.

I'm surprised the university would allow him to do that, since he's effectively charging an additional tuition fee.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#24

Post by tassl »

I have always thought that Universities should offer self-contained courses, with original homework and practice, specially in technical courses. Books should be considered as reference/reinforcement materials, never a requirement for anything.

After the irruption of Coursera and Udacity, I heard a couple of professors in my university talking about the impact those courses can have in the future. They saw themselves in the future as TAs of those courses, where the students only "use" them to clarify concepts.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#26

Post by IvoDankolov »

glogla wrote: post #21
IvoDankolov wrote: post #9

No access code means a lower grade, all in the best interests of science. I ... no. I can't even... I'm sorry, but I find it very hard to summon an inkling of sympathy for the publishers' plea against piracy when I see measures like that. When I failed calculus because I didn't prove a theorem the way it was in the lecture notes and then was insane enough to argue the point, I thought it was pretty stupid. Here, I do…

I'm pretty sure that exact formulation is irony on part of torrentfreak author, not actual formulation of the "professor" (sorry, but if you pledged to promote science and knowledge and then do this, you get quotes around title). Still, I agree completely.

Well, yes, and the scathing tone of it is pretty thick, at least when I read it in my head. I was commenting on the idea, not the exact wording of it. It's just the first appropriate quote that I grabbed from the text.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#28

Post by wizzard »

It's been my experience that the people who share/photocopy textbooks aren't doing it to screw publishers, they do it because they cannot afford to buy the book themselves. It is a lot of extra work to pirate textbooks this way; I doubt anyone would bother without a good reason.

Once again, it seems like all it's going to do is make legitimate customers jump through hoops, while the pirates find loopholes or simply fail... neither of which results in additional revenue for publishers.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#30

Post by benmanns »

I believe professors at my university may already be infringing on this patent. I was required to buy a $90 "workbook" authored by the course professor to access a "course survey" worth 10% of the final grade. Granted, you could share the book and access to the material online, but not if you wanted an A.
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