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> And the simple fact is you are not forced to possess textbooks nor attend the university, no matter how beneficial it may be to do so. This is how people rati
by halgir 5y ago
> And the simple fact is you are not forced to possess textbooks nor attend the university, no matter how beneficial it may be to do so. This is how people rationalize all forms of crime.
This is a good argument. I'll try to speak for others when I say that the problem is with professors who actively engage in predatory behavior to gouge students. I appreciate that's not the norm, but it happens enough to at least be perceived as a major problem.
The predatory behavior lies in identifying a group of people who already have considerable sunk cost in their education, and then using a combination of methods (such as decreeing a monopoly by assigning your own books, and creating scarcity by insisting on this year's revised edition) to force them to purchase material or potentially waste the enormous sunk cost already incurred.
You write "we" don't do that, so I'm assuming you're a professor who assigns, and maybe even writes, textbooks. I'm sorry if this whole thread is turning into a personal attack on you. For my part, it absolutely isn't meant to be that. It's an attack on predatory practices that (a minority of) members of all professions occasionally engage in. This time the profession in question happens to be university professors.
I think few people have problems with IP law in and of itself. We have problems with the weaponization of said laws to exploit those in vulnerable positions.
- unishark 5y agoI don't see this as defending myself from an attack but as debating the logical basis of an ethical position that strikes me a purely emotional. In my initial comment I already pointed out trying to pick cheap textbooks. But people wanted to go after the easier target of expensive textbooks, so fine. The more people pirate textbooks the more publishers will pivot to a business model where they can make money. Such as with online software instead (they're already doing some of that with software like Pearson's MyLab, which forces students to buy the book anyway to get a license). At which point we're back to the same argument about the freedom to set prices.
- halgir 5y ago> In my initial comment I already pointed out trying to pick cheap textbooks. But people wanted to go after the easier target of expensive textbooks, so fine. Expensive textbooks are not the easier target, they are the only target. What people find issue with are certain predatory practices by a minority of bad actors. I think it's great that you make an effort to pick more affordable textbooks, and I hope that your students are paying for them.
- unishark 5y agoBut I started this thread talking about students pirating these cheap textbooks, which got hijacked to feed the expensive textbooks narrative.