Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks • Hacker News Board

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#21

Post by slaxman » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:40 PM UTC

greenyoda wrote: post #18

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The 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 lectu…

The worst offenders are the professors who write their own textbooks (even though there are dozens of better ones already available) and then use them in their courses, making money off each student. Maybe there should be conflict of interest rules in universities. The heroes in this game are the instructors who are creating open-source textbooks.

I don't think it is wrong for a professor to recommend his book for his course. But it is definitely wrong for him to force his students to use them. We had a lot of profs in college who had written books and recommended them. But if you attended the classes you really didn't require the textbooks in the first place.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#22

Post by r00fus » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:40 PM UTC

jug6ernaut wrote: post #4

Honestly 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…

Or, publishers will take pains to make the Thai version incompatible with the American one (a much better implementation of region-coding).

If this case went the other way, it would have had all sorts of negative impacts to used item markets. I'm relieved the business-friendly supremes didn't cough up another loss for the consumer.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#23

Post by tjr » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:41 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #17

jug6ernaut wrote: post #4

Honestly 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…

Publishers are merely exploiting the highly school-like nature of university education in the US. When I was in university, over in Europe, a long time ago, on the first day of lectures the professors would wheel in a cart of textbooks, saying these are suitable texts, go and pick the one that suits you best. But in the US, students demand that their education is like high school, with a set text and all, and if the…

Taking university multi-variable calculus (in the US), I grew disappointed with the explanations in the prescribed textbook. They happened to be renovating the math department building that year, and some staff were dumping out old "evaluation copies" of various textbooks. I sorted through a pile of them until I found one that I liked better, and used it for the remainder of the class, doing similar problem sets to the ones assigned.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#24

Post by mbreese » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:43 PM UTC

greenyoda wrote: post #18

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The 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 lectu…

The worst offenders are the professors who write their own textbooks (even though there are dozens of better ones already available) and then use them in their courses, making money off each student. Maybe there should be conflict of interest rules in universities. The heroes in this game are the instructors who are creating open-source textbooks.

I had a prof who wrote his own textbook and it was one of the best I ever had. It was sold at a little more than cost, so he made like $1 from each of us.

It all depends on the prof and the content.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#25

Post by chaddeshon » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:43 PM UTC

It is great that students will be able to get cheap text books. But, are we not concerned that the court seems to be throwing out a law passed by Congress in an area where the Constitution grants them explicit power to act merely because they think the law is a bad idea?

Title 17 of the U. S. Code Section 602(a)(1) “Importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title, of copies or phonorecords of a work that have been acquired outside the United States is an infringe- ment of the exclusive right to distribute copies or phonorecords under section 106, actionable under sec tion 501.”

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#26

Post by zacksjoden » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:45 PM UTC

greenyoda wrote: post #18

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The 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 lectu…

The worst offenders are the professors who write their own textbooks (even though there are dozens of better ones already available) and then use them in their courses, making money off each student. Maybe there should be conflict of interest rules in universities. The heroes in this game are the instructors who are creating open-source textbooks.

In maths at my local community college the teacher made lesson plans for the 3 latest editions of the book, allowing students to be able follow along with whatever one they had/could afford.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#27

Post by drucken » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:45 PM UTC

throwaway1979 wrote: post #14

mrchucklepants wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree. After I buy it, it is mine to deal with as I please.

Not necessarily. I was from a modest family in Asia and went to high school (actually, I skipped most of high school as I studied on my own). I remember paying a few thousand rupees for a textbook. Most of these were printed on low quality paper and had soft or generic covers. I never thought that these books were cheap ... until I moved to North America. I noticed many books for my undergad costed over a hundred dol…

some books might become inaccessible by the poor in developing countries. But what about the poor in developed countries, you ask? Hard question to answer.

Isn't the exact reverse more likely? You only ever need one copy of a book to make more copies. All that this could lead to is a (futile) continuation of the trend of US publishers changing versions of a book sold directly in other countries. But developing country cheap copy publishers can just copy a US version and/or a domestic version of the book.

So, a "stratification" of books (US version, domestic version + digital versions) will be continue to be available to developing countries and pirates.

The real difficulties will be the poor/legal prices in the US. I suspect students photocopying library books will only increase in fashion.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#28

Post by readme » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:45 PM UTC

jug6ernaut wrote: post #4

Honestly 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…

The ruling is important because it's about "first sale" rights. It's about whether I can tell you what to do with my product, after it's left my hands and entered yours. Economic effects and hypotheticals aside.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#29

Post by sib » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:46 PM UTC

greenyoda wrote: post #18

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The 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 lectu…

The worst offenders are the professors who write their own textbooks (even though there are dozens of better ones already available) and then use them in their courses, making money off each student. Maybe there should be conflict of interest rules in universities. The heroes in this game are the instructors who are creating open-source textbooks.

I had a professor who was a co-author on the textbook that we used in his class. It was the "standard" work in the field, so it would have been ridiculous to use a different one. Nonetheless, he acknowledged the potential conflict, gave us an accounting of his earnings per copy (well under a dollar per), and bought food for the class out of his own pocket. Good solution, I thought.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#30

Post by freehunter » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:47 PM UTC

mbreese wrote: post #24

greenyoda wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst offenders are the professors who write their own textbooks (even though there are dozens of better ones already available) and then use them in their courses, making money off each student. Maybe there should be conflict of interest rules in universities. The heroes in this game are the instructors who are creating open-source textbooks.

I had a prof who wrote his own textbook and it was one of the best I ever had. It was sold at a little more than cost, so he made like $1 from each of us. It all depends on the prof and the content.

My biology prof did this, with the exception that she had written a workbook and our homework was filled out on the pages. This meant we were paying for paper to turn our homework in on and the book was unable to be sold back.