Quote:
Originally Posted by TallMomof2
As a former student if I were faced with the choice of purchasing a dead tree version that I could resell or an electronic version I couldn't then the electronic version had better be less than the dead tree minus the resell value. If it's not then I'd buy the dead tree version.
What will happen is that the electronic versions will be cracked and widely disseminated. The publishers will lose out on even more revenue and withdraw the electronic editions.
Pessimistic, no. Realistic, yes.
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I agree but am more "realistic". When I was in college, I always bought used text books when I could, partly because as an engineering student, I wanted to keep many of my technical text books.
The way the Universities (and probably publishers) will get around this is to require text books that are not available in paper versions, thus requiring the e-version. As you say, the students will find ways around this. One way would be to sell the KDX each year, with text books still on them to the next class and buy a new KDX. With the text books on them, a one year old KDX would probably sell for more than the new KDX cost so both seller and buyer would comeout ahead. This advantage would increase each year for the first several years since a second year student would have bought a used KDX with text books (probably having to add a few where difference schedules existed), and he would be buying a used KDX for the upcoming year. Each student could claim that he was not selling etextbooks but used KDXs.
I'm sure a law would be passed (or at least a school regulation) to prevent this but I'm also sure it would continue even if it went black market.