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High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

torrentfreak.com

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Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#241

Post by nickpeterson »

Jiro wrote: post #217
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Administrators, to stop us academics from doing our jobs too productively. >That pretty much answers the question of why we don’t have teleportation devices or antigravity shoes. Common sense suggests that if you want to maximize scientific creativity, you find some bright people, give them the resources they need to pursue whatever idea comes into their heads, and then leave them alone. Most will turn up nothing, bu…

We don't have teleportation devices or antigravity shoes because making those things is not possible, and you can't make impossible things possible by throwing money at them. And of course this becomes worse if you're using other people's money. If you're throwing your own money at an impossible task, you'll run out (or your investors will run out). If you're collecting the money as taxes and then throwing it at the…

You sound like a paid shill for big gravity.

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#242

Post by LionTamer »

Robotbeat wrote: post #73
AHOHA wrote: post #70

Almost everything in North America is criminally priced with almost zero regulations, and all political parties are responsible for that: wanna buy a house, enjoy your 70y mortgage, wanna study, enjoy your student loans and expensive textbooks, oh you actually got sick, how rude?? Pay a hefty price or enjoy your 10hrs waiting time in the ER, Restaurants?! Pfft, pay the inflated prices for garbage food and don’t forge…

Gas is insanely cheap in the US compared to almost any other developed country. Food is fairly inexpensive as well. Housing has major problems in part stemming from over-regulation via zoning, NIMBYism, etc.

> Food is fairly inexpensive as well

Really? I admit that this is anecdotal, but as an American when I studied abroad in Europe I was consistently pleasantly surprised by how much less expensive eating out was. In particular I felt like it was much more affordable to get healthier food at restaurants compared to the US, and also much cheaper to get alcohol drinks at restaurants. There were a few exceptions (Copenhagen, Paris) but even major cities like Rome, Munich, & Barcelona had pretty well priced restaurants (which included tip).

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#243

Post by lolinder »

ncallaway wrote: post #61
vanilla_nut wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but this feels like it'll cause even more issues. Today, clever students can share books, buy used, share electronic copies, or skip the book entirely if they don't think it's necessary. With this system, every student is forced to buy their textbook indirectly through tuition, which will of course rise significantly based on the cost of a textbook for an average class. It's kind of like m…

That’s the thing, any mandatory costs (textbooks, meal plans, etc) should be bundled into the standard tuition price. It needs to be bundled into the top line price that people are actually aware of when they’re making their “purchase decision” (where to go to college)

As OP notes, though, textbooks aren't mandatory costs. A few classes will actually use the books extensively. Most others will deliver all the information in the lecture, with the textbook being referenced in the syllabus and never talked about again.

I'm an auditory learner who only ever used the books when there were homework problems out of them. I saved a ton of money in college by getting good at guessing which types of classes/professors would actually require the book, and I would not have appreciated seeing the books bundled with tuition.

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#244

Post by cultureswitch »

RecycledEle wrote: post #185

ChatGPT has made this argument obsolete. First, ChatGPT can generate textbooks that can not be copyrighted. Second, ChatGPT makes textbooks obsolete by replacing one-size-fits-all text with custom answers to questions. Source: I'm a teacher.

Not quite, as ChatGPT will also very confidently say something wrong within the first paragraph.

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#246

Post by cafard »

gnicholas wrote: post #208
drowsspa wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, back in my university it was the teachers themselves who provided the pirated materials. In Humanities it was the full scanned books, in STEM at least they always scanned at least the exercises so it wouldn't be necessary to get the specific edition.

Sometimes this is done via course pack, which is handled by the university/library/bookstore. The course packs aren't free, and the cost goes to printing the materials and also royalty payments where necessary. Some profs may electronically distribute materials separately, which would likely sidestep both of these costs.

Yes, about 1990 one could show up at a copy shop on Rte. 1 in College Park, Maryland, mention course number and section, and get a fat stack of photocopied material. I believe that I purchased the ones I did during the last year or two such such packs were available: after that, the publishers leaned on schools to make the professors stop providing them.

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#247

Post by cultureswitch »

IshKebab wrote: post #109
xur17 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you can use 15% from each "edition" (since they're all basically the same anyways).

No. The law generally doesn't stand for "aha, but what if I ..." tricks.

It's an interesting question though. Because the publishers will invariably argue that each edition is different. If the editions are different, then surely you can get 15% of each.

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#248

Post by sthatipamala »

beej71 wrote: post #21
raincom wrote: post #18

Culprits are always the instructors/professors who teach courses. Aren't they happy with their salaries? How much royalty do these instructors get from selling $200 textbook to their students? These professors should be ashamed of themselves in involving this scammy behavior, while at the same time these unethical/immoral professors ask their students to sign honor code.

I'm not a professor, just a full time instructor, but my salary is 40% what I'd make in industry. But it's worth it for the great health insurance and 4 months off per year. And for the fact that teaching is what I love. The salary is frankly embarrassing to share with my peers in industry. But not all of us take it out on the students. I find free books whenever I can for my courses. I even write books and let the s…

Are you THE beej of the network programming guide?

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#249

Post by irrational »

cafard wrote: post #246
gnicholas wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes this is done via course pack, which is handled by the university/library/bookstore. The course packs aren't free, and the cost goes to printing the materials and also royalty payments where necessary. Some profs may electronically distribute materials separately, which would likely sidestep both of these costs.

Yes, about 1990 one could show up at a copy shop on Rte. 1 in College Park, Maryland, mention course number and section, and get a fat stack of photocopied material. I believe that I purchased the ones I did during the last year or two such such packs were available: after that, the publishers leaned on schools to make the professors stop providing them.

I finished my undergraduate in 1998 and graduate school in 2000. Our university was still using photocopied course packets (that we purchased in the campus bookstore) that entire time.

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#250

Post by cultureswitch »

fallingknife wrote: post #24
PreachSoup wrote: post #4

Besides bleak job market, horrible healthcare, being potential homeless due to skyhigh housing cost, stark contrast to the boomer's easy life, the more extreme weathers and the climate change, textbook is probably an afterthought. It's not even in top 10 things to worry about

Millennials have more money than boomers did at the same age. There was no "boomer's easy life." That's a myth. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/millenn...

Complete bullshit. "adjusting for inflation" doesn't include the price of housing and the price of education, both of which increased at least one order of magnitude faster than salaries.
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