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

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#201

Post by ChrisNorstrom » Wed, Mar 20, 2013, 12:52 PM UTC

Am I the only one that disagrees with the decision? Correct me if I'm wrong:

So imagine you're a publisher and you sell a math book in the USA for $60 and in a 3rd world country for $20 so that more people can afford it and you can establish a presence there.

Is it fair for people from that 3rd world country to sell the book back to the USA and for you to miss out on your profit?

I know most of us here love having the freedom to do whatever we want but we need to look at the RESULT of the decision, not the EMOTIONAL return of the decision. Sure it makes us feel good to know we can sell what we want to where-ever and whom-ever we want. But what if the result of that action is a bad thing?

I think it's quick sales like this that will push more publishers to:

1) Move towards digital only distribution with heavy DRM.

2) Increase prices in the USA to make up for the loss in profit.

3) Increase prices in other countries to discourage the overseas exporting.

4) Retract themselves entirely from smaller markets.

Am I missing something, or not seeing the benefit? Seriously critique my thoughts, I want to see both sides to this.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#202

Post by sonabinu » Wed, Mar 20, 2013, 1:00 PM UTC

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #201

Am I the only one that disagrees with the decision? Correct me if I'm wrong: So imagine you're a publisher and you sell a math book in the USA for $60 and in a 3rd world country for $20 so that more people can afford it and you can establish a presence there. Is it fair for people from that 3rd world country to sell the book back to the USA and for you to miss out on your profit? I know most of us here love having th…

As a student, I feel text books are priced way too high. If the international version is just a few dollars less that the one sold in the US, no one is going to go searching the web for a cheaper book. The problem is that the price variance is too much and these are required text books. I sometimes spend hours to look for a used text book that is cheap. If I sold my used text book, I will get a max of 5 $ from a text book vendor but to buy it back is around 50 $. It is always the student who seems to be at the losing end.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#203

Post by cbs » Wed, Mar 20, 2013, 1:06 PM UTC

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #201

Am I the only one that disagrees with the decision? Correct me if I'm wrong: So imagine you're a publisher and you sell a math book in the USA for $60 and in a 3rd world country for $20 so that more people can afford it and you can establish a presence there. Is it fair for people from that 3rd world country to sell the book back to the USA and for you to miss out on your profit? I know most of us here love having th…

Is it fair for people from that 3rd world country to sell the book back to the USA and for you to miss out on your profit?

The law should only be concerned with fairness insomuch as it informs "right vs wrong". Nobody is entitled to a business model.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#204

Post by roc » Wed, Mar 20, 2013, 1:38 PM UTC

tanzam75 wrote: post #192

roc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I have no idea what they will do." Stall. Send out some FUD. Maybe lobby for higher duties (as compared to tariff rates). But most of the goods that have sufficiently large price discrepancies are going to a digital manifestation anyway. So region-coding, DRM and the DMCA will (continue to) be the order of the day.

> Maybe lobby for higher duties (as compared to tariff rates). Not sure I see the distinction. According to the WTO, "customs duties on merchandise imports are called tariffs."

I think the point would be to codify a distinction and change (increase) rates on customs duties accordingly.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#205

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 20, 2013, 2:18 PM UTC

abraininavat wrote: post #198

_delirium wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That answer is essentially, "each professor should write their own textbook", since an extensive series of notes intended to be used in a course of study, along with practice problems, is pretty much a draft textbook. That could be an interesting solution, but is mostly practical if you already have tenure, since it is a quick way to not get tenure otherwise. If you spend your junior professorship time writing a text…

That answer is essentially, "each professor should write their own textbook", since an extensive series of notes intended to be used in a course of study, along with practice problems, is pretty much a draft textbook. You never learned to share?

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#206

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 20, 2013, 2:20 PM UTC

abraininavat wrote: post #198

_delirium wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That answer is essentially, "each professor should write their own textbook", since an extensive series of notes intended to be used in a course of study, along with practice problems, is pretty much a draft textbook. That could be an interesting solution, but is mostly practical if you already have tenure, since it is a quick way to not get tenure otherwise. If you spend your junior professorship time writing a text…

That answer is essentially, "each professor should write their own textbook", since an extensive series of notes intended to be used in a course of study, along with practice problems, is pretty much a draft textbook. You never learned to share?

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#207

Post by mindcrime » Wed, Mar 20, 2013, 2:44 PM UTC

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #179

mindcrime wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're teaching at the very cutting edge where new research is emerging regularly, (in which case I imagine you'd be teaching from your own notes and journal articles anyway), then how about just intentionally using an older text and write your own exam questions? There are usually plenty of copies of "recently out of date" editions of most texts on the second-hand market, and the fundamentals of the material…

>how about just intentionally using an older text ... Tried it. Those god-damned greedy SOB's buy up all the previous editions and shred them. It's hard to find copies even on the internet after a couple semesters. I still list previous editions of texts on my syllabi though, but students who are on fin-aid are herded toward the campus bookstore.

Ah, interesting. I've seen older texts listed on Amazon.com many times and had always assumed that getting them was pretty easy. OK, well, nix that idea then. :-(

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#208

Post by mpyne » Wed, Mar 20, 2013, 2:46 PM UTC

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #201

Am I the only one that disagrees with the decision? Correct me if I'm wrong: So imagine you're a publisher and you sell a math book in the USA for $60 and in a 3rd world country for $20 so that more people can afford it and you can establish a presence there. Is it fair for people from that 3rd world country to sell the book back to the USA and for you to miss out on your profit? I know most of us here love having th…

> Is it fair for people from that 3rd world country to sell the book back to the USA and for you to miss out on your profit?

Yes, and no better reasoning is required other than "It's my book now and I'll do whatever the fuck I want with it."

If you restrict what people can do with their own stuff just because of the indirect effect on a current business model then you'll simply snuff out other (better) business models.

Free and open-source software may have never become popular if MS had been able to complain that it was eating into their business model and affecting their ability to "give away" software to universities and schools, and that's just one example.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#209

Post by SEMW » Wed, Mar 20, 2013, 2:56 PM UTC

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #200

PeterisP wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What could possibly be "hard experience" with rules lawyering? Just say no. At least here if a student believes to be seriously wronged, he can take a re-exam in front of a committee with other prof's, not involving the teacher; and prove that his knowledge is really superior to the grade given, and this has happened; but it definitely isn't the easy way out - it works in cases of malice or prejudice, but not for laz…

>What could possibly be "hard experience" with rules lawyering? Just say no. If you have a weak department leadership, and a strong dean of students (one who favors student excuses), you can have a lot of students who will successfully challenge grades on dubious grounds.

How odd (from a British perspective). Successfully challenging an exam result here would involve going to the Examination Board with proof of extenuating circumstances. And never happens as a result of people disagreeing with how their exam script was marked, for a start because we're not given our exam scripts. (I think a few unis do allow you to request copies, but they make it very clear that there's no possibility of disputing the mark you're given. Which seems unfair, but presumably they just don't want to have a precedent - if someone successfully challenges a mark, everyone will start doing it).

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#210

Post by jeffdavis » Wed, Mar 20, 2013, 3:48 PM UTC

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #201

Am I the only one that disagrees with the decision? Correct me if I'm wrong: So imagine you're a publisher and you sell a math book in the USA for $60 and in a 3rd world country for $20 so that more people can afford it and you can establish a presence there. Is it fair for people from that 3rd world country to sell the book back to the USA and for you to miss out on your profit? I know most of us here love having th…

"Am I the only one that disagrees with the decision? ... we need to look at the RESULT of the decision"

That is not the job of the Supreme Court. They are supposed to decide based on what the law says, regardless of the result. If you disagree with the law, then write to Congress.

But it's fair to ask whether this will produce better or worse results. It's a good observation that this will cause publishers to shift out of poorer markets and increase the use of DRM[1].

The previous situation was not perfect though, either. To interpret that statute geographically would be a major restriction on trade; and if not, would create a lot of ambiguity. Nobody wants to purchase something from another country if they are worried that the manufacturer will come in later and take it away because it had some copyrighted design (which could be anything) on it somewhere.

I believe the results will be better overall (by a lot) under the new interpretation of the law. Clarity and simplicity about where you stand as the owner of property is incredibly important.

One way to think about it is that nothing has changed. The publisher can still create a contract with the buyer that says they won't resell it in another region. It's just that the "default" purchase contract does not give the publisher that right. And we should make defaults match expectations as closely as possible, otherwise people are entering into contracts they don't understand. The notion of purchasing a product has many expectations that go with it that have been developed over millennia. To allow the publishers to inject extra terms that contradict those expectations just to fit their particular business model is ridiculous.

[1] Though DRM wouldn't be nearly as bad if there were no DMCA and if the sellers were forced to call it "licensing" rather than "buying". Again, the default purchasing contract should match the expectations of both parties.