Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
1–10 of 217 posts
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#2I'm glad, obviously. You should be able to do whatever you want with something after you purchase it.
But it just makes me sad this had to get to the Supreme Court.
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#3I'm glad, obviously. You should be able to do whatever you want with something after you purchase it. But it just makes me sad this had to get to the Supreme Court.
> But it just makes me sad this had to get to the Supreme Court.
Not being a lawyer, isn't this the best result possible for consumers in terms of establishing precedent?
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#4Honestly I don't know how i feel about this. As a recent grad i know full well how high prices are for text books, i would do everything possible to prevent having to buy them.
I personally thing the requirement to always have a new textbook(that years version) is more ridiculous then the prices they charge. I don't know where that requirement stems from, but in my opinion it is the real problem.
But with that said I don't see this ruling lowering prices, if anything it will increase the prices in the other regions where the prices were previously lower.
There is no kind of magic bullet with these kinds of things, companies are not going to just lower profit margins, they will always try to make it up somewhere.
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#5I'm glad, obviously. You should be able to do whatever you want with something after you purchase it. But it just makes me sad this had to get to the Supreme Court.
> But it just makes me sad this had to get to the Supreme Court. Not being a lawyer, isn't this the best result possible for consumers in terms of establishing precedent?
I would agree. After I buy it, it is mine to deal with as I please.
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#6Excellent for the native textbook industries of these countries.
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#7It is hard to overestimate the importance of this decision.
Had it gone the other way it would have been an utter disaster and contrary to every common sense
Still it concerns me that 3 judges sided with the publisher. In such a landmark decision even 6 to 3 seems to close a margin for comfort.
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#8Honestly I don't know how i feel about this. As a recent grad i know full well how high prices are for text books, i would do everything possible to prevent having to buy them. I personally thing the requirement to always have a new textbook(that years version) is more ridiculous then the prices they charge. I don't know where that requirement stems from, but in my opinion it is the real problem. But with that said I…
Potentially relevant bit from the Higher Opoprtunity Education Act's textbook provision:
http://content.efollett.com/HEOA/library/HEOATextbookProvisi... Provision C.1.c:
Publishers are required to provide [to the professor or other book chooser]...
>A description of the substantial content revisions made between the current edition of the college textbook or supplemental material and the previous edition, if any.
I'd like to see this information made public in a reliable manner. It's well and good that the professors should be enlightened about the relevant content changes, but the spirit of the HOEA is to make textbooks more affordable and purchasing more transparent. If that's really the end-goal, then forcing publishers to make that information public and consumer-facing should be the true requirement.
Until students have that, they're beholden to the professors (who may have ulterior motives) when making the purchasing decision.
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#9The publishers will just make sure to produce a different textbook between different regions now. Just re-order the chapters a little and re-order some questions/assignments. So even if someone ships in the foreign book it will be as useless as a previous edition.
In general the whole textbook industry makes me sick. But fact is that lecturers are entirely responsible for it. The publishers can only do what the lecturers let them do, and either through apathy or greed the lecturers have shirked their responsibility to their students.
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#10This will push textbooks more heavily toward digital distribution, where the content will be "licensed" to an individual user, without resale rights.
While I applaud digital distribution, the lack of consumer rights comparable to the first sale and fair use doctrines is a large and growing problem.