DRMed textbooks

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Krytes

But why, I hear you ask, would I pay for the book if it had been pirated and was available for free? It's a simple question of ethics. If someone has made their work available in a non-DRMed format, that represents a conscious decision on their part. They realize that anyone could easily copy and redistribute the work, and they're taking the chance that people will choose to do the right thing and pay for it. I feel a sense of responsibility in response to the implicit trust placed in me

I like this

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

I've asked before, but you ignored the request. Where are you getting these percentages from?

Numerous news sources, the most polished being:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/bu.../01ebooks.html

General interest is clearly going to be different than K-12 education which is different than higher education.

However it's entirely plausible that the higher education market may be more predictable than general interest, which would reduce returns and other costs.

There are a lot of things I don't know about the ins and outs of higher ed textbooks. That said I'd be downright stunned if 50% of the cost of a $150 science textbook was just printing and distribution.

[Kali Yuga]

Well, I found what I presume is a reliable window into the nature of texbook pricing.... Namely the US Department of Education.

http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/lis...xtbkstudy.html

I haven't gone over all the materials yet, so I'll reserve comment. For the moment.


On a side note, it is worth considering that this issue runs the risk of a "penny wise, pound foolish" mentality. For example, if your books cost $500 for the Fall semester, and $600 in the Spring semester, you'd notice immediately and react. If your tuition went from $9,826 for Fall to $9,926 -- or, if the cost of textbooks were included in your tuition -- you might not even notice, despite the fact you are out of pocket by the same amount. (Numerous studies indicate this kind of behavior is typical, btw.)

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Well...

For some subjects, the material does need to be constantly updated -- particularly hard and social sciences. Unless you're teaching at St. John's College, you might not want a physics textbook that is more than 2 years old.

Why not? One of the nice things about physics is that it doesn't change. We do keep learning more and more, so some of the upper level physics classes and more specific classes need to have constantly upgraded texts, but I know from my school most of the 100 and 200 level classes would not need new books every year or two and those are the classes that have the most students in them. By locking down those books (and similar 100-200 level textbooks) the strain of paying for textbooks could be greatly reduced for many students.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Why not? One of the nice things about physics is that it doesn't change.

So, Scientific American should stop publishing monthly and become an annual magazine, then?

Originally Posted by Dazrin

By locking down those books (and similar 100-200 level textbooks) the strain of paying for textbooks could be greatly reduced for many students.

Well....

On one hand, stretching out intro level textbooks to, say, update every 4 years instead of 2 would help somewhat. It would reduce selected costs and extend the lifespan of the used market. Great, right?

However, the latter in turn may be counter-productive. It will still cost a significant amount to produce that new textbook every 4 years; the publishers realize they'll make the most money in the first year, and sales will drop off significantly in subsequent years as students resell the books.

As such, the publishers may decide to actually charge more for new, because they know the book will produce lower revenues in subsequent years.


To me, the best fixes I've heard so far are including textbook costs in tuition. This offers several benefits:
- It ends the "penny wise, pound foolish" error
- It encourages the school to keep costs down, because they're basically paying for the books now
- It may be easier to finance the book costs, since it will be included in tuition

However, in the same way that I don't believe this issue has one single cause, I don't believe it will have one single (let alone simple) fix.

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Numerous news sources, the most polished being:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/bu.../01ebooks.html

General interest is clearly going to be different than K-12 education which is different than higher education.

However it's entirely plausible that the higher education market may be more predictable than general interest, which would reduce returns and other costs.

There are a lot of things I don't know about the ins and outs of higher ed textbooks. That said I'd be downright stunned if 50% of the cost of a $150 science textbook was just printing and distribution.

That article doesn't state the print run size for the stated costs. I imagine a percentage, and proportional copy editing/etc prices would vary drastically between Harry Potter numbers, and a graduate level archeology textbook.

Without some sort of volume to relate the costs to, it's pretty worthless as a citation.

Got anything else from your numerous sources?

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

have you actually BEEN to college? with very few exceptions textbooks are unique and it is impossible to substitute them. ANY hard science book is normally well over $100. history, religion, philosophy, all of the "ology's" are anywhere from 50 to 300

In my experience, the actual information is easy to duplicate, but the practice and work information is what you are unable to duplicate. I have two editions of a Calc book, because my school breaks Calculus up into two semesters, and the teachers I had for the fall semester used the older book, where as the teacher I had for the second semester in the spring had already switched over to the brand new just released edition. The Units, Chapters, and Sections were all the same, but the practice work at the end of each section had changed (and were the only changes). I couldn't use the old book, because I had to have the information out of the new edition for homework, and I couldn't sell the old book because no one wanted it because everyone was stuck in that situation. $140 was what each book cost.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by TGS

Or cut out the middle man - get it from the slightly darker net.

That assumes it is available - the other way is guaranteed to work.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Krytes

A few publishers have tried offering non-drm books for sale. In the case of O'Reilly, their ebook sales actually increased. In the case of David Pogue, although the book was pirated, his sales stayed the same or actually increased slightly. Both experiments make interesting reading.

http://boingboing.net/2010/01/22/ore...ops-ebook.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/11...l#previouspost

You've also got the experience of Stephen King, though. He tried the same thing, and the experiment failed.

The problem is that non-DRM'ed e-books are trivially easy to copy, while paper books aren't. This makes it very tempting for publishers to stick with paper books, and resist converting paper to e-books with all their might. The more piracy they see, the more likely they are to say, "Screw it!" and go back to paper-only (especially when, on top of that, people are saying that the e-book version of the books are worth less than the paper versions).

Having a book "expire" (except for lending purposes) is an unconscionable solution, but it makes good sense to me that they'd want to make sure (unless it's being lent) that the person who has the file is the person who bought it.

[rogue_librarian]

In today's book market it's all about exposure. There are very few authors that don't need it (any more), so this model might not work as good for them. The likes of Clancy or King are clearly in the minority, though.

[CommonReader]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

The problem is that non-DRM'ed e-books are trivially easy to copy, while paper books aren't. This makes it very tempting for publishers to stick with paper books, and resist converting paper to e-books with all their might.

There are plenty of books available as ebooks that were only sold as paper books. While it takes more time to copy, ocr and proofread the copy of a paper book than to simply break the DRM the barrier doesn't seem to be too high.
Natascha Kampusch's "3096 Days" (the Austrian girl who was kidnapped and held captive for 3096 days) was a bestseller in Germany last year. The publisher didn't publish it as an ebook and guess what happened? The book was available as epub all over the net. The same seems to happen with scientific textbooks.

[Gunnerp245]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Do what students have always done, forever - a few team up to get one copy, crack it and share it.

Alf...

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by CommonReader

There are plenty of books available as ebooks that were only sold as paper books. While it takes more time to copy, ocr and proofread the copy of a paper book than to simply break the DRM the barrier doesn't seem to be too high.
Natascha Kampusch's "3096 Days" (the Austrian girl who was kidnapped and held captive for 3096 days) was a bestseller in Germany last year. The publisher didn't publish it as an ebook and guess what happened? The book was available as epub all over the net. The same seems to happen with scientific textbooks.

Oh, it happens. But it's not quite like ripping a CD.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by CommonReader

There are plenty of books available as ebooks that were only sold as paper books. While it takes more time to copy, ocr and proofread the copy of a paper book than to simply break the DRM the barrier doesn't seem to be too high.
Natascha Kampusch's "3096 Days" (the Austrian girl who was kidnapped and held captive for 3096 days) was a bestseller in Germany last year. The publisher didn't publish it as an ebook and guess what happened? The book was available as epub all over the net. The same seems to happen with scientific textbooks.

Sure it can happen. As far as I'm aware, Project Gutenberg works on scanners, so it's certainly possible. The difference is, with a paper book, it's non-trivial. With an e-book, once you've got the DRM stripped, copying takes seconds or minutes, and are there any DRM formats that haven't been cracked yet? It's no longer a question of the availability of the technology. The only barriers are the users' knowledge of where to find the solution, and the technological ability to apply it.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

Sure it can happen. As far as I'm aware, Project Gutenberg works on scanners, so it's certainly possible. The difference is, with a paper book, it's non-trivial. With an e-book, once you've got the DRM stripped, copying takes seconds or minutes, and are there any DRM formats that haven't been cracked yet? It's no longer a question of the availability of the technology. The only barriers are the users' knowledge of where to find the solution, and the technological ability to apply it.

Many text books are in a propietary format, that are uncommon. My school book store sells in like 4 or 5 different formats, and only one is a format recognized by Calibre (ePub, but only a book from my Chinese class was available in ePub).