Textbook Torrents says final goodbye

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by dsuden

\

More parsing.

No, pedantry.

[UKHaiku]

Originally Posted by dsuden

Thanks, that's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Comparing stealing medicine to save a life with stealing a textbook to save a few bucks. Using convoluted logic will never justify doing what you know is wrong.

Here's a homework assignment for you. Every time you feel yourself tempted to invent a justification; every time you catch yourself concocting analogies to justify something, stop and think about what you're doing. And especially, be hesitant to post those sorts of arguments publicly, because they look like just what they are.

Actually I was responding to your position and attempting to explain why it's very difficult to argue in terms of black and white / right and wrong in absolute terms, which is what you were doing I felt.

My example of 'stealing medicine' was an example of why stealing isn't always bad - and therefore not subject to the type of reductionist logic that you're espousing. (Law says stealing is bad, therefore all stealing is bad, therefore... blah blah)
It had nothing, strictly speaking, to do with copyright - the comparison is yours to make, or not - which is my point. (Though there are some pretty compelling parallels with patent law there)...

p.s. You'll find that I generally think my posts through reasonably well (for content, spelling and grammar) - even if they're not always understood in the spirit in which they're intended...

[RobbieClarken]

Originally Posted by UKHaiku

Hmm, that's debatable... Unrestrained capitalism and making money IS ethically wrong - the fallout of which we've seen demonstrated in the past few weeks...

Unrestrained capitalism is merely the right of every individual to produce and trade freely. How can this be ethically wrong? Negative behaviour like theft and fraud are not inherrant in capitalism (unrestrained or otherwise) but crimes that must be fought under any economic system.

Originally Posted by dsuden

I'll acknowledge I know from first-hand experience the art of introducing clever circumvention mechanisms into my thought processes when I'm tempted to do what's clearly wrong. Over the years I've learned that I don't have to "travel" nearly as far in when I stick to doing what's right.

But on this issue, parsing by any means is difficult. It doesn't work to dilute or divert blame for stolen works. The word "copyright" speaks for itself. It refers to "copy rights." If we don't have "copy rights," we have no right to make and/or keep a copy of something we have not purchased. Nor do we have the right to duplicate copyrighted materials and distribute them to others without the consent of the person owning the copyright. To do so is, by law, theft.

None of this is to say I necessarily agree with the way the laws are currently applied. But I think it's more credible to work within the law, and if necessary, help change it, rather than performing my own "moral rewrite" of the law by doing whatever I please.

Just because some people wish to grant themselves a monopoly on the distribution of information doesn't entitle them to decide who has the rights to copy what. And blind adherance to the law is no virtue. One should question the law and if one finds it to be wrong, then civil disobedience is a justified way of opposing the law.

As Danny Fekete so elequently explained, downloading a file has no more of a consequence to the authors bank account than writing a negative review of the book on your blog. I'm sure the publishers would love to outlaw bad reviews but thankfully we value free speech too much.

pilotbob's example of someone squatting on your property is interesting and I love Danny's reply. I would have to agree that if there is no risk of damaging the property or preventing the owner access to his property (if he comes home early) then the squatter wouldn't, necessarily, be doing anything wrong. Of course this isn't be plausible with the house example, but there may be cases where it is.

[UKHaiku]

Originally Posted by epiphany

Unrestrained capitalism is merely the right of every individual to produce and trade freely. How can this be ethically wrong? Negative behaviour like theft and fraud are not inherrant in capitalism (unrestrained or otherwise) but crimes that must be fought under any economic system.

<snip>

Ahh, the joys of language...
You're quite right to correct me - I should have used a different word, or at least some more words (not usually one of my failings, using too few words, though I'm working at it!) - though the allusion to rapaciousness contained in unrestrained is still valid I think..
I guess what I'm angling at is Unrestrained self-centred capitalism? Or at least something very similar to that... Unempathetic? Unreasoning? Short-term?
It was the nature of acting in one's own interests without factoring in (and caring about) the impact on others, or the longer-term impact, that I was trying to refer to... Which is why I'm not a big fan of 'unrestrained' Capitalism - it breeds activities like short-selling and people saying things like "Well if it wasn't me doing it, someone else would be..."

[Dumas]

I’ve been a long time lurker, but felt compelled to finally post since the conversation turned to capitalism/economics.

While many involved in this discussion seem to feel the issue is one of copyright, I think the REAL issue is that of artificial scarcity.

For most people, economics is the study of resource allocation in the presence of scarcity. That only makes sense when there is scarcity, and in the world of digital goods (ebooks, etextbooks, music, etc.), scarcity doesn't exist.

The textbook industry's resistance to the application of new technology hinges on their belief that the free market cannot function with a lack of scarcity. It is not difficult to see why publishers would feel threatened ... it's how they've been doing business since Gutenberg and before. Their current business model is based on a desire to force scarcity where there is none, just so the economics they are accustomed to can continue to be based on the principle of scarcity.

I think the inability to get rid of scarcity thinking lies at the root of this discussion, not copyright.

[Joel123]

Dumas: I'm also a long-time lurker posting for the first time to thank you for an insightful comment. The digital world is wreaking havoc on the business models of record labels, movie studios, and book publishers. But the real question is what to do about it.

Copyright was intended to give an artificial monopoly for a limited time to content creators as incentive to create. However, in a market without scarcity, enforcing copyright becomes near impossible and if there is no scarcity the value of the good quickly approaches zero.

So how do we reward the content creators for their work if replication and distribution of said work is fast, easy, and nearly free?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Dumas

The textbook industry's resistance to the application of new technology hinges on their belief that the free market cannot function with a lack of scarcity. It is not difficult to see why publishers would feel threatened ... it's how they've been doing business since Gutenberg and before. Their current business model is based on a desire to force scarcity where there is none, just so the economics they are accustomed to can continue to be based on the principle of scarcity.

I think the inability to get rid of scarcity thinking lies at the root of this discussion, not copyright.

I'm sorry, but I really can't agree with you.

If a publisher decides that, in order to make it economically viable to publish a textbook, they need to generate revenues of $100,000 from it, and they know that only 1000 people are likely to buy it, they have to get $100 per customer. The point about textbooks is that they are of very restricted interest - you won't sell more copies of a molecular biology textbook if you reduce the price from $100 to $20, because the average "man in the street" doesn't give a damn about the subject and wouldn't want the book if you were to give it away free. For the people who actually need it, they'll still need it whether the price is $20 or $100.

It IS a scenario where there is genuine (not artificial!) "scarcity", but the scarcity is the size of the customer base, not the number of books available to sell to them.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The point about textbooks is that they are of very restricted interest - you won't sell more copies of a molecular biology textbook if you reduce the price from $100 to $20...

If I needed that book for my course, I'd buy a copy at $20 (1 sale).
If it was $100; to be honest, I'd photocopy one from the library (0 sale).

[HarryT]

Depends if it's a book aimed at students or professionals in the field. Eg, most computer programming textbooks are aimed at IT professionals, and spending £40 or so on a book is entirely normal.

[Dumas]

Joel:

I would generally argue that all of the business models you listed - record labels, movie studios, and book publishers, are not content creators but publishers/aggregators. I agree that the digital world is wreaking havoc on their business models. I think we all have a pretty good idea of what the “publishers” have tried to do to preserve their model.

Given:
1 - In the world of digital goods (ebooks, etextbooks, music, etc.), scarcity doesn't exist;
2 - Enforcing copyright becomes near (is) impossible;

If we agree, then we can now focus our efforts on finding a solution for rewarding content creators – musicians, writers, and authors (to use your previous examples).

I would argue that rewards to content providers for non-infringing content under the existing model (fast, easy, and nearly free distribution of content) are negligible. The publisher takes all but a pittance that goes to the creator. Content creators are hardly better off than if their content were wholly infringed.

Dumas

[Danny Fekete]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If a publisher decides that, in order to make it economically viable to publish a textbook, they need to generate revenues of $100,000 from it, and they know that only 1000 people are likely to buy it, they have to get $100 per customer. The point about textbooks is that they are of very restricted interest - you won't sell more copies of a molecular biology textbook if you reduce the price from $100 to $20, because the average "man in the street" doesn't give a damn about the subject and wouldn't want the book if you were to give it away free. For the people who actually need it, they'll still need it whether the price is $20 or $100.

It IS a scenario where there is genuine (not artificial!) "scarcity", but the scarcity is the size of the customer base, not the number of books available to sell to them.

I think this is a good point, Harry, and I can appreciate the direct connection between textbook piracy and driving up prices; thank you for phrasing it this way. I think, though, that there is room for negotiation (between users and publishers) in a couple of places, given your description.

First, there's the idea that the publisher decides how much to charge because it determines what is economically viable; under circumstances where the publisher is seeking to do more than break even on the costs (which themselves may be variable), the profit margin is arbitrary and I don't think that the publisher necessarily has to have the sole right to determine what it is. This is especially important, I think, where competition between publishers is reduced due to the rarity of a particular subject area: the flip side of your example above is that, if the publisher expects that only a thousand people will buy the book and knows that their professors don't have any viable alternatives (as has been the case with, say, my Sociology for Educators in Canada textbook), prices suggest that the publisher has acted to take advantage of its monopoly. One of my professors during my teacher education year told us about his experience of being required to buy a single, two-hundred page, narrow-interest, business-education text for over $1000.

Leading into my second point, although in the above example it may be difficult to tell where the production-cost:demand ratio ends and the monopoly begins with the information I have, the proliferation of print-on-demand publishing and open (non-copyright) content are making the first half of the equation obsolete. A textbook can be produced as a one-of or 30-of to the exact specifications of a teacher or professor, using information content that does not need to be paid for (say, content made available under CC by fellow educators in the field), at a cost that makes the sale of traditional textbooks look atrocious. I've mentioned Baraniuk before, and if you've got twenty minutes to watch the video link, he explains this model much more effectively than I do. This model makes $20, hard-cover, high-quality, completely legal textbooks possible, and they're in use right now.

I appreciate that this does not address the illegality of pirating traditional textbooks. However, I think that the advent of textbook piracy and the advent of open-source, print-on-demand textbooks come out of the same thing: the proliferation of digital duplication and access. My textbook costs were $500/year when I started university, seven years ago. This year, they were about $60, and the volume of assigned reading I'm doing is much, much greater. The difference is digital transmission and the increased photocopying by my professors of their own, published work (which is effectively CC publishing). Compounded by adoption from my generation of educators in "the West" and by "developing" countries who have far more to gain from cheap educational reasources, it's very clear that this is going to become the dominant publishing model of our time. For that reason, I see textbook piracy as a growth pang, rather than an atrocity of intellectual theft or selfish contribution to a cost spiral.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Dumas

I would argue that rewards to content providers for non-infringing content under the existing model (fast, easy, and nearly free distribution of content) are negligible. The publisher takes all but a pittance that goes to the creator. Content creators are hardly better off than if their content were wholly infringed.

Dumas

Could I enquire, Dumas, what your experience in the textbook publishing business has been? Your description bears little resemblance to my practical experience as a textbook author.

[Dumas]

Harry:

You have chosen to compare what sounds like:

1 - A limited edition, pre-ordered print run of 1000 molecular biology textbooks (QUITE SCARCE and hopefully signed by the author)

with

2 – My assertion that in the world of digital goods (an ebook version of said molecular biology textbook), scarcity doesn't exist and as many copies can exist as desired or not.

I can see why you wouldn’t agree – I wouldn’t either. The comparison is apples to oranges.

On a side note, is it really your position that the size of the customer base determines the price of textbooks? I would be interested to hear from other forum members where they have found that the price of their textbooks was directly related to their relative class size. I have not found that to be the case in my personal experience whatsoever.

It was also my impression from earlier posts that the discussion on textbooks was limited to a small market population (students) who are required to purchase textbooks in order to successfully acquire their educational credentials. I think any references to the "man in the street" are confusing, unconstructive, and the basis for a different discussion if you want to go there.

To wrap up the discussion at hand, you said you wouldn't sell more copies of a molecular biology textbook if you reduce the price from $100 to $20. Sparrow disagrees – he said if required for his course, he would buy one at $20 and zero at $100.

Dumas

[Danny Fekete]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Could I enquire, Dumas, what your experience in the textbook publishing business has been? Your description bears little resemblance to my practical experience as a textbook author.

May I enquire, Harry, how recent your textbook publishing experience has been? I recall you mentioning in an earlier conversation that you're not at present engaged with the industry (post #20).

(Sorry. I don't know how to link to specific posts.)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Danny Fekete

May I enquire, Harry, how recent your textbook publishing experience has been? I recall you mentioning in an earlier conversation that you're not at present engaged with the industry (post #20).

(Sorry. I don't know how to link to specific posts.)

About 10 years ago, but I don't think that the fundamental way that the publishing industry works has changed in that time.