arstechnica.com — The RIAA's extensive campaign against filesharing has drawn in a lot of individuals, but college campuses have remained a major target of the content owners' legal threats. It's pretty clear that there's significant expertise with filesharing on college campuses, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that this expertise has been put to use with other
Jul 2, 2008 View in Crawl 4
freexeJul 2, 2008
Why are the new editions required? Can't you just use the old edition and find the correct content you are studying via the index?Hell, are the books even required at all. Most of the content I studied was available in the library. I think I only bought one new book before realizing it was a scam.All the other books I just about broke even on, selling them to other students at about the same price I paid for them.
hapaxJul 2, 2008
How about someone comes up with some kind of diff package? Would contain:- What was added- What was removed- Something to calculate new page numbers and chapters (so this would most likely be software)This could be on some Wiki site so people could cooperatively fill it out for lots of different textbooks.
shibagardenJul 2, 2008
In my experience as a professor, the "upgrades" with each new edition are minimal at best. And often they appeal more to the instructor that they benefit students. A lot of it is just fluff (e.g. "now with a dozen more color photographs!") and too much errata goes uncorrected. And for me, after planning a course around a specific text's content, I really don't want to have to update a lot of my stuff to accommodate the new material. So when I choose a text, I do consider value to students, how frequently new additions appear (a 25th edition first published in 1999 isn't a good sign!), etc.Another culprit in this matter is campus bookstores. Our store routinely prices texts OVER suggested list price. Could you imagine how fast any other retailer would go under if they employed this practice? I encourage my students to utilize Amazon's z-Shops, half.com, and eBay to buy and sell. I've also told students about renting from chegg.com, but I haven't heard how well this works. Anyone out there use a rental service?
honoredmuleJul 2, 2008
Yes, I can see how getting off the bus has brought the whole transit system of progress to a screeching halt....except of course for the massive, endless supply of DRM-free ebooks proliferating through the internet which were not commercially produced. They can't make 2008 money while living in 1996 by refusing to sell the products that the market wants and others will provide. They WILL adapt eventually, be it with the innovative spirit of independent music artists, or kicking and screaming like the RIAA.
tiukJul 2, 2008
I buy almost all of my books off amazon (unless the price is the exact same at the book store, or I suddenly find out an will be open book and I don't have time to order) and have saved thousands. Even at retail I often pay slightly over half as much as my university's bookstore charges. Often if a book has been in print for a while I use amazon's "new & used" search and get the book from a reseller for 1/4 of the price. Amazon rocks and I recommend it to anyone I know who needs to buy textbooks.
Closed AccountJul 2, 2008
So why not just sell them at half price to the incoming students? Screw the school and the bookstore at the same time.
Closed AccountJul 2, 2008
they should give us the PDFs so we can search the text, cant fight the future baby
natenovsJul 3, 2008
hmm -- well, i graduated last year - so i don't think technology has changed that much. and lazydriver, f**k you too.
nephariJul 3, 2008
A lot of my textbooks are too obscure to sell them anywhere else but back to the bookstore. Also, the professors for the courses in my major switch around every year, so everyone's always using a new book.
beansforbooksAug 27, 2008
Textbook Torrents...students spending hours upon hours of their time and energy scanning thousands of pages from a textbook to upload onto a site to help other students. Is this really criminal? While I understand the problem here with copyright laws, I just can't understand why this problem can't be solved. Why can't students unable to purchase textbooks receive aid? I founded a non profit that awards textbook grants to college students, but it is only treating the symptom and not addressing the cause.
beansforbooksAug 27, 2008
Professor, thanks for your thoughtfulness. I am a high school student that founded a non-profit organization awarding college textbook grants to students. This is a topic near to my heart. I've just finished reading thousands of applications for our grants. It just boggles the mind that people so desperate to learn are facing obstacles such as textbook prices that have risen at twice the rate of annual inflation for the past two decades.