[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I realize students have come to rely on the ability to make a few books by selling their textbooks after the semester. I consider that an aberration of the current system... it's certainly not something the text publishers want to encourage... but at any rate, as texts migrate from physical to electronic media, this will simply not be an option in the future.

Steve, with respect, the ability to resell a book you have purchased is not an "abberation" of the current system; rather it is a fundamental example of fair use. Whether the publishers want to encourage the system or not is irrelevant to the situation. In fact we know they do not, and we know they are trying to build DRM schemes that prevent many types fair use of electronic media.

Further, with respect to your claims that it will not be an option in the future, I think the real question is whether it will be a legal option in the future. It is a simple fact that no DRM scheme is unbreakable (since the user has by definition access to both the clear text and the key). The ultimate question is whether or not students can sell each other unique copies of electronic text books or do they go underground and buy pirated copies?

I think it would be a better idea for students to want to keep their texts after the semester is over, for future reference (a much easier task when they are electronic). I still have a number of my old textbooks. But I understand that this doesn't apply to all of the texts you've ever gotten.

Actually, I would say that most of the text books I ever kept quickly became dated and were effectively useless within 5 years. Even when they didn't become dated, they often were arcane and specialized in such a way that they had little utility outside the class they were used for (never found much use for finite automata for example).

Hopefully students will be able to obtain texts for less once they are electronic, but as others have pointed out, the economy of educational texts isn't great, and prices are not likely to come down by much. And reselling is just plain unlikely to happen. So, to those who enjoy buying and selling used texts, I can only say: Enjoy it while you can, those days are probably numbered. (And the way the educational industry is dragging its feet, take solace in the fact that that number is probably large.)

Actually, ultimately, if I were to support a DRM scheme, it would have to be one that was adaptable to allow users to exercise their fair rights. All in all, it should not be that difficult to set up a DRM scheme that allowed works to be transferred to others in a fashion that would allow lending, would allow selling and would not ultimately violate the privacy of the users involved. Unfortunately, the publishers have zero motivation to develop such a system. If they don't though, they simply encourage the development of an underground where people download their textbooks (and other books) from torrents.

I will grant that this is slightly a moderation of my earlier position on DRM. But the more I think about it, the more I think it should be possible to set up a DRM that protects fair use, privacy and at the same time discourages casual copying. Nothing will stop dedicated pirates, but a system of standards needs to be put in place to ensure that ordinary readers don't need to become pirates just to exercise their fair use.

--
Bill