7 ms·

4. Digital copies are often available online for free.

zanny 9y ago
Students should feel absolutely no guilt in pirating textbooks. The whole industry is a racket, designed to exploit kids in a situtation where they have no choice. I did things the "normal" way my first year of college back in the day and realized how stupid paying $400 a semester in books was before I just nabbed pdfs (and finding them was a challenge in the days before The Book Bay was a thing).
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  > Students should feel absolutely no guilt in pirating textbooks. False. > The whole industry is a racket, designed to exploit kids in a situtation where they have no choice. True. But your previous sentence does not follow from this. The bad actions of others do not justify your own bad actions, no matter how tempting it becomes to think otherwise.
  - HarryHirsch 9y ago
    The bad actions of others do not justify your own bad actions, no matter how tempting it becomes to think otherwise. Dunno. 15 years ago all the Ivy League libraries campaigned against Elsevier's pricing and achieved precisely nothing. We had to wait for Scihub.
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    I have yet to hear a valid argument why pirating educational matetials is a "bad action" in the first place
  - Can_Not 9y ago
    If you think the right to education trumps the right to property, then you've done nothing wrong.
- thephyber 9y ago
  > Students should feel absolutely no guilt in pirating textbooks. Textbook publishers aren't really hurt by this as much as the legitimate textbook purchasers (your fellow students). The solution isn't to pirate/steal the content. It's to vote with your feet before you go to a post-secondary that chooses expensive copyrighted books when there are free or very affordable alternatives.
  - darpa_escapee 9y ago
    The thing about children is that they generally don't have the experience or knowledge to make decisions like this. Besides, voting with your dollars is a fallacy.
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      voting with your dollars is a fallacy. Howso?
      - petermcneeley 9y ago
        Game theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsBvI9oSD1g&feature=youtu.be&t=747 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsBvI9oSD1g&feature=youtu.be...
        dredmorbius 9y ago
        Good video ;-) https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/6UShLKP3BxK https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/6UShLKP3...
    - colemannugent 9y ago
      We're not talking about children, these are college students. They can weigh the risks/benefits of piracy. >voting with your dollars is a fallacy What do you mean by that? Are you suggesting that companies will survive without any customers buying their product? The only situation in which voting with your wallet doesn't work is when you have no choice. In this situation, the students do have the choice to pirate the books, buy used books, or bite the bullet and buy the book.
- rfrey 9y ago
  Old guy question: what is the book bay? None of the search engines helped me, and I don't know anybody under 72 years old that I can ask.
  - castle-bravo 9y ago
    Parent post may be referring to the infamous Pirate Bay, from which you can obtain links to torrents of textbooks. Another source is Library Genesis, which is a russion site hosting many technical books - the URL changes sometimes, but a quick search should help you find it. For journal articles, check Sci-Hub. Happy reading!
munk-a 9y ago
5. Buy the east asian english edition of the textbook. This was all the rage when I was in school, especially since our bookstore sold at retail price (or about 80% for a used copy) and _generously offered_ to buy the books back at the end of the semester for 3-10% of list price. College bookstores are a racket.
- thephyber 9y ago
  > since our bookstore sold at retail price (or about 80% for a used copy) and _generously offered_ to buy the books back at the end of the semester for 3-10% of list price. College bookstores are a racket There are already business models that have started to chip away at this type of racket. Chegg and Amazon rentals are decent examples. Sadly I'm unimpressed with the progress it has made. I'm convinced replacing expensive formally published textbooks with cheaper or freeware digital books is superior. The problem is with department deans and professors that hawk their own books in their courses.
- HedgeSparrow 9y ago
  Yeah, absolutely don't buy from your college bookstore. Hell, just purchasing the book from Amazon cut the cost by at least a third for just about every item.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Students should feel absolutely no guilt in pirating textbooks. The whole industry is a racket, designed to exploit kids in a situtation where they have no choice. I did things the "normal" way my first year of college back in the day and realized how stupid paying $400 a semester in books was before I just nabbed pdfs (and finding them was a challenge in the days before The Book Bay was a thing).

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
> Students should feel absolutely no guilt in pirating textbooks. False. > The whole industry is a racket, designed to exploit kids in a situtation where they have no choice. True. But your previous sentence does not follow from this. The bad actions of others do not justify your own bad actions, no matter how tempting it becomes to think otherwise.
- HarryHirsch 9y ago
  The bad actions of others do not justify your own bad actions, no matter how tempting it becomes to think otherwise. Dunno. 15 years ago all the Ivy League libraries campaigned against Elsevier's pricing and achieved precisely nothing. We had to wait for Scihub.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  I have yet to hear a valid argument why pirating educational matetials is a "bad action" in the first place
- Can_Not 9y ago
  If you think the right to education trumps the right to property, then you've done nothing wrong.
thephyber 9y ago
> Students should feel absolutely no guilt in pirating textbooks. Textbook publishers aren't really hurt by this as much as the legitimate textbook purchasers (your fellow students). The solution isn't to pirate/steal the content. It's to vote with your feet before you go to a post-secondary that chooses expensive copyrighted books when there are free or very affordable alternatives.
- darpa_escapee 9y ago
  The thing about children is that they generally don't have the experience or knowledge to make decisions like this. Besides, voting with your dollars is a fallacy.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    voting with your dollars is a fallacy. Howso?
    - petermcneeley 9y ago
      Game theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsBvI9oSD1g&feature=youtu.be&t=747 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsBvI9oSD1g&feature=youtu.be...
      - dredmorbius 9y ago
        Good video ;-) https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/6UShLKP3BxK https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/6UShLKP3...
  - colemannugent 9y ago
    We're not talking about children, these are college students. They can weigh the risks/benefits of piracy. >voting with your dollars is a fallacy What do you mean by that? Are you suggesting that companies will survive without any customers buying their product? The only situation in which voting with your wallet doesn't work is when you have no choice. In this situation, the students do have the choice to pirate the books, buy used books, or bite the bullet and buy the book.
rfrey 9y ago
Old guy question: what is the book bay? None of the search engines helped me, and I don't know anybody under 72 years old that I can ask.
- castle-bravo 9y ago
  Parent post may be referring to the infamous Pirate Bay, from which you can obtain links to torrents of textbooks. Another source is Library Genesis, which is a russion site hosting many technical books - the URL changes sometimes, but a quick search should help you find it. For journal articles, check Sci-Hub. Happy reading!

munk-a 9y ago

5. Buy the east asian english edition of the textbook. This was all the rage when I was in school, especially since our bookstore sold at retail price (or about 80% for a used copy) and _generously offered_ to buy the books back at the end of the semester for 3-10% of list price. College bookstores are a racket.

thephyber 9y ago
> since our bookstore sold at retail price (or about 80% for a used copy) and _generously offered_ to buy the books back at the end of the semester for 3-10% of list price. College bookstores are a racket There are already business models that have started to chip away at this type of racket. Chegg and Amazon rentals are decent examples. Sadly I'm unimpressed with the progress it has made. I'm convinced replacing expensive formally published textbooks with cheaper or freeware digital books is superior. The problem is with department deans and professors that hawk their own books in their courses.
HedgeSparrow 9y ago
Yeah, absolutely don't buy from your college bookstore. Hell, just purchasing the book from Amazon cut the cost by at least a third for just about every item.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]