7 ms·

As a fellow European, my experience is similar (though our prices were higher but still substantially lower than the big-name commercial publishers.), but I su

by jabl 10y ago

As a fellow European, my experience is similar (though our prices were higher but still substantially lower than the big-name commercial publishers.), but I suspect it would never fly in the US (communism, boo!).

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
patrickmn 10y ago
It just needs to be spun as a free market thing (the professors are entrepeneurs and competition brings down prices) :) And then cross your fingers nobody gets sued into oblivion.
beerbajay 10y ago
Textbooks which are essentially the same are available in europe for like 1/3 of the price of the american versions. I bought $70 books for my master's courses in Sweden that would have been $300 in the US (where I did my undergrad). The "invisible hand" of capitalism at work!
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > I bought $70 books for my master's courses in Sweden that would have been $300 in the US (where I did my undergrad). The "invisible hand" of capitalism at work! I personally believe free markets ("invisible hand" of capitalism) work well in nearly all cases (yes, there exist cases of market failure, but these are IMHO rare). The problem rather is that copyright laws prevent a free market, since the copyright holder has a monopoly (i.e. opposite of free market) on the work.
  - SolarNet 10y ago
    By that logic we should get rid of property, since the property holder has a monopoly on the property. I would put "(i.e. opposite of a free market)" sarcastically, but I'm being serious. Go read an economics text book on the definition of a free market, and while you are at it, what properties they have (muh freedom is not even a primary one) that make us want them so much, and what the requirements are (natural monopolies are a problem, but copyright and property are not monopolies; run-away patents are though) to have them. The person you are replying to is wrong, the free market is what allows for corrections that are starting to happen (e.g. cheaper better books, student groups publishing their own books, etc.) it's just that Sweden has a free market with better conditions than many free markets in the U.S. so they get faster reactions in their prices. But you are wrong in a worse way, you don't even understand what you are advocating for. Edit: To expand on the copyright is property argument. Copyright allows you to own the result of your work. If someone happens to make something very very similar without ever seeing your copyrighted work, they have the copyright to their work, and you to yours. Like property you only have that which is yours (e.g. if I built a house on my land that looks exactly like my neighbors, I still own my property and the house; but if I took their house and put it on my property I wouldn't); this is why certain techniques like Clean Room development allow companies to build very similar products that are all protected by copyrights assigned to each company. The problem you have is with patents which allow the patent holder to claim all work done that matches the patent (even if the patent holder never actually made something that matched the patent; which is especially absurd).
    - Nullabillity 10y ago
      > e.g. if I built a house on my land that looks exactly like my neighbors, I still own my property and the house; but if I took their house and put it on my property I wouldn't Uhm, no, that's exactly what copyright prevents (or tries to, anyhow).
      - elviejo 10y ago
        Again that is the difference between parents and copyrights. With a patent you can't make a copy. With copyrights you can't claim you made something. For example if I see a dress in a magazine I can make one, what I cannot claim is that it is Dolce and Gabbana...
        kbutler 10y ago
        > if I see a dress in a magazine I can make one, what I cannot claim is that it is Dolce and Gabbana That's actually trademark, which is distinct from copyright or patent. And notably, clothing designs are not copyrightable, because they are "useful articles", not just creative expressions. https://www.copyright.gov/register/va-useful.html https://www.copyright.gov/register/va-useful.html Patent: Practical invention, prevents sale even of independent re-invention. 17-20 years. Copyright: Tangible expression of original authorship, prevents duplication and derivation except for fair use, common stereotypes, etc. Does not prohibit independent re-invention, does not prevent re-use of ideas, just the expression. Has grown to progressively longer term (currently life + 70) Trademark: Prevents false claims of source of product, even of "confusingly" similar designs. Includes "trade dress" (packaging/presentation). Valid as long as the trademark is used. Design patent: hybrid - prevents duplication of ornamental design of a functional product, so it is like copyright, but has a duration similar to patent - 14-15 years.
      - SolarNet 10y ago
        Again, you are thinking patents or trademarks. My house may look the same, but it's been built by different people, different electricians, on different land. It probably has a different internal structure, different materials, and slightly different external marks, because it was rebuilt from the ground up. Copyright would apply if I used the exact same blueprints, but if I hired an architect to make blueprints with the same external design as another house that would be similar to clean room design and not a violation of copyright. Like how Google can make a copy of the Java API (they only got hit for having the same implementation written by the guy who wrote the version oracle had copyrighten in the first place). In the analogy it would be theft if I took your house, put it on my land, and claimed it was mine. And that's what it is to commit criminal copyright violation (e.g. you distribute copies for profit, claiming you own it). Yes in the digital world copies don't deprive the other of anything tangible, but like stealing a house, it does deprive them of the work that was invested to build that expression in the first place.
swimfar 10y ago
At my US university the school had a (free) text book rental program. I never had to buy any books. edit: Obviously the initial cost of the books is paid for by tuition, but it's much less than the cost of each student buying their own book.
- gcb0 10y ago
  lucky you. California universities living largely on subsides just moved to Pearson's online homework. Requiring every single student (even the ones taking a extra language class for a single semester) to buy $300+ dollars text books just for the online access code for the lame online homework website. you simply cannot pass any class without the $300+ ticket from that publisher. Oh yes and the actual books are old and full of misogynistic cultural commentary. The riches generated in this illegal scheme is definitely not going to improve or update the books. Few student organizations from UCLA tried to fight it, the result was that some graduate students that did not sign the petition won all the TAships next year and that was it.
  - sitkack 10y ago
    The autograder homework hack by Pearson is epic. I wonder how many people from ticketmaster and comcast started working at Pearson?
tnecniv 10y ago
In the math and engineering classes I took, the prof normally just distributed his notes via PDF.
- pirocks 10y ago
  I read this as the "prof had normally distributed notes".
a3n 10y ago
Having been a US citizen for all of my 60 years, and often wondering "why things so fked up?", I've come to understand or believe this about the US: If it makes money, it's good, regardless of whether it's good or bad for people or the environment. Once something is making money, it becomes a god-given right (cheap labor, insurance companies as health-care middlemen, etc). If you propose something that inhibits the above, you will be opposed with all available resources by elected members of government at every level. That people are the ones suffering and electing is a mystery that I don't think I have enough remaining years to understand.
- taeric 10y ago
  Being opposed by elected officials is one thing. What truly baffles me is being opposed by the very people that are adversely affected. Many policies are literally convincing poor families that it is in their best interests to help support the frail legacy of billionaires. How!?
  - supremesaboteur 10y ago
    Poor people are lifted out of poverty when they get jobs. Jobs are created by incentivizing job creators.
    - mattnewton 10y ago
      One of the biggest job creators is the government, with their massive budget and public needs. Yet we are often lead to believe that we need to coddle billionaires so that they feel comfortable enough to lay a few more jobs, and starve the federal government of revenue and responsibility.
      - a3n 10y ago
        Indeed. The government, like poor people, spend every dollar they take in, which allows that money to circulate. To use a cliche, a billionaire can only buy so many yachts, pieces of art or gold bricks; at some point, the excess is going to land in an offshore account or otherwise be underutilized. Billionaires grudgingly create jobs.

by jabl 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

patrickmn 10y ago

It just needs to be spun as a free market thing (the professors are entrepeneurs and competition brings down prices) :) And then cross your fingers nobody gets sued into oblivion.

beerbajay 10y ago

Textbooks which are essentially the same are available in europe for like 1/3 of the price of the american versions. I bought $70 books for my master's courses in Sweden that would have been $300 in the US (where I did my undergrad). The "invisible hand" of capitalism at work!

wolfgke 10y ago
> I bought $70 books for my master's courses in Sweden that would have been $300 in the US (where I did my undergrad). The "invisible hand" of capitalism at work! I personally believe free markets ("invisible hand" of capitalism) work well in nearly all cases (yes, there exist cases of market failure, but these are IMHO rare). The problem rather is that copyright laws prevent a free market, since the copyright holder has a monopoly (i.e. opposite of free market) on the work.
- SolarNet 10y ago
  By that logic we should get rid of property, since the property holder has a monopoly on the property. I would put "(i.e. opposite of a free market)" sarcastically, but I'm being serious. Go read an economics text book on the definition of a free market, and while you are at it, what properties they have (muh freedom is not even a primary one) that make us want them so much, and what the requirements are (natural monopolies are a problem, but copyright and property are not monopolies; run-away patents are though) to have them. The person you are replying to is wrong, the free market is what allows for corrections that are starting to happen (e.g. cheaper better books, student groups publishing their own books, etc.) it's just that Sweden has a free market with better conditions than many free markets in the U.S. so they get faster reactions in their prices. But you are wrong in a worse way, you don't even understand what you are advocating for. Edit: To expand on the copyright is property argument. Copyright allows you to own the result of your work. If someone happens to make something very very similar without ever seeing your copyrighted work, they have the copyright to their work, and you to yours. Like property you only have that which is yours (e.g. if I built a house on my land that looks exactly like my neighbors, I still own my property and the house; but if I took their house and put it on my property I wouldn't); this is why certain techniques like Clean Room development allow companies to build very similar products that are all protected by copyrights assigned to each company. The problem you have is with patents which allow the patent holder to claim all work done that matches the patent (even if the patent holder never actually made something that matched the patent; which is especially absurd).
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    > e.g. if I built a house on my land that looks exactly like my neighbors, I still own my property and the house; but if I took their house and put it on my property I wouldn't Uhm, no, that's exactly what copyright prevents (or tries to, anyhow).
    - elviejo 10y ago
      Again that is the difference between parents and copyrights. With a patent you can't make a copy. With copyrights you can't claim you made something. For example if I see a dress in a magazine I can make one, what I cannot claim is that it is Dolce and Gabbana...
      - kbutler 10y ago
        > if I see a dress in a magazine I can make one, what I cannot claim is that it is Dolce and Gabbana That's actually trademark, which is distinct from copyright or patent. And notably, clothing designs are not copyrightable, because they are "useful articles", not just creative expressions. https://www.copyright.gov/register/va-useful.html https://www.copyright.gov/register/va-useful.html Patent: Practical invention, prevents sale even of independent re-invention. 17-20 years. Copyright: Tangible expression of original authorship, prevents duplication and derivation except for fair use, common stereotypes, etc. Does not prohibit independent re-invention, does not prevent re-use of ideas, just the expression. Has grown to progressively longer term (currently life + 70) Trademark: Prevents false claims of source of product, even of "confusingly" similar designs. Includes "trade dress" (packaging/presentation). Valid as long as the trademark is used. Design patent: hybrid - prevents duplication of ornamental design of a functional product, so it is like copyright, but has a duration similar to patent - 14-15 years.
    - SolarNet 10y ago
      Again, you are thinking patents or trademarks. My house may look the same, but it's been built by different people, different electricians, on different land. It probably has a different internal structure, different materials, and slightly different external marks, because it was rebuilt from the ground up. Copyright would apply if I used the exact same blueprints, but if I hired an architect to make blueprints with the same external design as another house that would be similar to clean room design and not a violation of copyright. Like how Google can make a copy of the Java API (they only got hit for having the same implementation written by the guy who wrote the version oracle had copyrighten in the first place). In the analogy it would be theft if I took your house, put it on my land, and claimed it was mine. And that's what it is to commit criminal copyright violation (e.g. you distribute copies for profit, claiming you own it). Yes in the digital world copies don't deprive the other of anything tangible, but like stealing a house, it does deprive them of the work that was invested to build that expression in the first place.

swimfar 10y ago

At my US university the school had a (free) text book rental program. I never had to buy any books. edit: Obviously the initial cost of the books is paid for by tuition, but it's much less than the cost of each student buying their own book.

gcb0 10y ago
lucky you. California universities living largely on subsides just moved to Pearson's online homework. Requiring every single student (even the ones taking a extra language class for a single semester) to buy $300+ dollars text books just for the online access code for the lame online homework website. you simply cannot pass any class without the $300+ ticket from that publisher. Oh yes and the actual books are old and full of misogynistic cultural commentary. The riches generated in this illegal scheme is definitely not going to improve or update the books. Few student organizations from UCLA tried to fight it, the result was that some graduate students that did not sign the petition won all the TAships next year and that was it.
- sitkack 10y ago
  The autograder homework hack by Pearson is epic. I wonder how many people from ticketmaster and comcast started working at Pearson?

tnecniv 10y ago

In the math and engineering classes I took, the prof normally just distributed his notes via PDF.

pirocks 10y ago
I read this as the "prof had normally distributed notes".

a3n 10y ago

Having been a US citizen for all of my 60 years, and often wondering "why things so fked up?", I've come to understand or believe this about the US: If it makes money, it's good, regardless of whether it's good or bad for people or the environment. Once something is making money, it becomes a god-given right (cheap labor, insurance companies as health-care middlemen, etc). If you propose something that inhibits the above, you will be opposed with all available resources by elected members of government at every level. That people are the ones suffering and electing is a mystery that I don't think I have enough remaining years to understand.

taeric 10y ago
Being opposed by elected officials is one thing. What truly baffles me is being opposed by the very people that are adversely affected. Many policies are literally convincing poor families that it is in their best interests to help support the frail legacy of billionaires. How!?
- supremesaboteur 10y ago
  Poor people are lifted out of poverty when they get jobs. Jobs are created by incentivizing job creators.
  - mattnewton 10y ago
    One of the biggest job creators is the government, with their massive budget and public needs. Yet we are often lead to believe that we need to coddle billionaires so that they feel comfortable enough to lay a few more jobs, and starve the federal government of revenue and responsibility.
    - a3n 10y ago
      Indeed. The government, like poor people, spend every dollar they take in, which allows that money to circulate. To use a cliche, a billionaire can only buy so many yachts, pieces of art or gold bricks; at some point, the excess is going to land in an offshore account or otherwise be underutilized. Billionaires grudgingly create jobs.