Textbook publishers want you to be inconvenienced
Colleges’ e-reserves making big publishers worry: That was the first headline I saw in this morning’s paper. Here’s the deal:
Universities around the country have been setting up “e-reserves” at their libraries. Instead of having a number of books that the students have to go to the library and wait in line photocopy the section of whatever book they need (a practice that is clearly legal under the Fair Use clause), they just log into the university network, give a username and password, and read the section online.
Obviously, students love it. And just as obviously, publishing companies are against it:
And publishing companies are worried precisely because of that ease and convenience — it’s another way for publishers to lose sales.
The Association of American Publishers already has contacted one school, the University of California, San Diego, claiming “blatantly infringing use is being made of numerous books, journals and other copyrighted works.”
I’m really having trouble stirring up any sympathy for the publishing companies. Maybe if I wasn’t expected to pay upwards of $300 on textbooks every semester because of price gouging from the publishers, I’d be a little more sympathetic.
As it is, nein.
May 23rd, 2005 at 10:37 pm
Yup, have to agree with you there. Absolutely no reason schools shouldn’t do this. On the other hand, I’ve heard of some state schools that have their textbooks online and charge a flat textbook fee; students don’t really like that, as some aren’t made to read a computer screen for hours on end as I’ve done with textbooks. There’s a fine line, and I think if publishers realize that the printed media will never truly go away, they’ll be fine.
May 23rd, 2005 at 11:20 pm
Yeah, that’s not quite right either… For me, that’d be great, especially if I could transfer the textbook to my PDA.
They *ought* to offer them online at a steeply discounted rate (after all, you can’t claim that the expensive glossy paper and 4-color printing is at fault any more), but still offer the paper textbooks for the
Ludditesold-fashioned types.July 6th, 2005 at 8:40 am
Do remember that textbooks normally require teams of writers working for several years in order to publish. So a publisher needing to recoup its investment on something like that is a bit different than a single author needing to recoup his expenses. And then the market is much smaller (Macmillan’s Cell Biology is never going to be a best-seller, therefore never a commodity item, and therefore never cheaply made). You can’t expect a fat, hardback textbook which has to scrupulously comply with a gazillion state and national guidelines to be as cheap as a paperback off the shelf in Barnes & Noble. If you’re looking for someone to blame, the government’s a good place to start.
They’re the ones who have instituted all the guidelines in the first place (unreasonable things like that copyright dates must be within 5 years old or the book is considered invalid, etc.–the copyright date limit changes depending on the type of book).
July 6th, 2005 at 1:26 pm
I should have known the government had something to do with it.
But still, the textbook publishers do have some culpability. For example, I neither need nor want the CD’s the come with virtually every text book these days, which I’m sure are expensive to write and produce. Also, textbook publishers could stop printing their books on glossy photo paper and go with a slightly lower-grade paper. I could do without 4-color printing and unnecessary illustrations/cartoons (which, I’m sure, are licensed at a considerable fee).
They could stop releasing new editions every other year that contain no substantive improvements over previous editions.
That’s the price gouging I’m talking about.