SCOTUSblog analysis: http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/03/opinion-analysis-justices-...
Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
31–40 of 217 posts
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#32It 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,…
That's the whole point of the Supreme Court and of the balance of powers. Congress is free to pass whatever law they want, it's up to the Court to decide if the law is valid or Constitutional. If the Court thinks the law is a bad idea, they're free by all means to throw it out, that's the reason they exist.
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#33It 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,…
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Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#34Earlier 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…
I'm involved in academic publishing, and this is exactly what will happen. Publishers will simply stop selling the cheaper international versions. Those cheaper prices aren't sustainable, they only exist because the investment in the book is already made up for by the US/first world market. The cheap international pricing is subsidized by the more expensive markets and the international sales don't (historically) cannibalize the US/European sales. If that changes and the international copies flood the US market the international copies will simply stop being created. They aren't (economically) worth doing on their own.
You can complain about publishers all you want, but the net result of this change will simply be less affordable textbooks sold to the developing markets. Maybe that's just a short term result and new entrants will figure out how to profitably target the developing world with high quality material, but the short term affect will be a decrease in those low-cost editions sold overseas.
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I think this is how more textbook publishers are going to go.
My wife bought a "textbook" for a language class and it was, and I kid you not, 300 loose pages with binder holes punched in them. See, it's a textbook AND a workbook! And sure, some of the pages were workbook pages. But there's no way any bookstore would buy that back as soon as the shrinkwrap was broken.
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#36It 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,…
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Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#37Honestly 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.
It seems to me that this SCOTUS has actually had a pretty good track record on civil liberties and these underdog kind of cases (Citizens United notwithstanding)
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#38The 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…
Don't even bother reordering the chapters.. just change a few of the homework/exercises listed in the book. A cursory check will confirm to people that they have the same version and then it bites them later on.
At my undergrad, there were some profs concerned about files of old tests.. the obvious solution is to vary the test. The more subtle solution is to use the same test but switch which numbers are where. It still trips people's "I've seen this before!" feeling but if they try to memorize it, they're sunk.
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#39SCOTUSblog analysis: http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/03/opinion-analysis-justices-...
Grouping useful stuff together:
The opinion itself: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-697_d1o2.pdf
The dissent is perhaps most interesting.
Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks
#40Earlier 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 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.
I'm upvoting your comment for your professor. Please serve as proxy and go deliver the upvote to him. He sounds like "good people".