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I remember the costs for science/engineering textbooks at university were absolutely outrageous. On top of paying tuition in the thousands, textbooks could eas

I remember the costs for science/engineering textbooks at university were absolutely outrageous. On top of paying tuition in the thousands, textbooks could easily cost >$100/piece, and sometimes 1-3 textbooks would be required per course. And the professors would make us purchase the books they wrote, which cost a lot of money. For a group of students with limited-no income, usually that would mean resorting to torrenting PDFs, pooling money to buy a single textbook and make copies, or looking for international copies.

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tartoran 6y ago
If the books were decently priced nobody would resort to pirating, except for the very few who have the know how and who wouldn’t think that it’s not the right thing to do. But since most students don’t have an income and the books are priced so high they’re all are forced to find an alternative, that alternative being pirating if used books aren’t available. Back when I was in college I was always buying used books and was selling them afterwards. But the industry realized that and they started pumping out new editions more often. Books pirating wasn’t a think back then. I really have no idea what the situation is right now, are a lot of students workng off pirated pdfs?
- somethingsome 6y ago
  The situation is worse than ever in my opinion, there are very few used books and they cost as much as the new ones or more. The new books from previously well respected editions (eg Springer GMT) are now 'print on demand' directly by resellers, that means longer time to receive the books and often a very bad binding which last only a few years before falling apart. Of course they kept the same price.
StanislavPetrov 6y ago
>I remember the costs for science/engineering textbooks at university were absolutely outrageous. It wasn't limited to science and engineering. I remember in the 1990s being forced, as a poor student, to shell out almost $200 for a ~60 page book of poems written by the course professor (a book we barely used in the class).
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tartoran 6y ago

If the books were decently priced nobody would resort to pirating, except for the very few who have the know how and who wouldn’t think that it’s not the right thing to do. But since most students don’t have an income and the books are priced so high they’re all are forced to find an alternative, that alternative being pirating if used books aren’t available. Back when I was in college I was always buying used books and was selling them afterwards. But the industry realized that and they started pumping out new editions more often. Books pirating wasn’t a think back then. I really have no idea what the situation is right now, are a lot of students workng off pirated pdfs?

somethingsome 6y ago
The situation is worse than ever in my opinion, there are very few used books and they cost as much as the new ones or more. The new books from previously well respected editions (eg Springer GMT) are now 'print on demand' directly by resellers, that means longer time to receive the books and often a very bad binding which last only a few years before falling apart. Of course they kept the same price.

StanislavPetrov 6y ago

>I remember the costs for science/engineering textbooks at university were absolutely outrageous. It wasn't limited to science and engineering. I remember in the 1990s being forced, as a poor student, to shell out almost $200 for a ~60 page book of poems written by the course professor (a book we barely used in the class).

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