Textbook Torrents says final goodbye

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Danny Fekete

"Negotiation" as I meant it may take the form of piracy or shared purchasing and photocopying. Anything that impacts the decisions this sort of publisher makes is part of that broad sense of negotiation. The metaphor could be extended to imagine potential buyers as a union (where they get organised, as Geekman had hoped, I suspect), collectively bargaining against the price of textbooks. Again, though, I think this is becoming moot with open education publishing ascendant.

It may be. One interesting trend is universities make class material effectively "open source", freely available for download by anyone.

They can be $22 for a hard-bound engineering textbook with no warehousing costs. I'd pay shipping. That's still cheap enough for me.

They can? Where do you get your numbers on what it costs to produce that hardbound engineering text hat would make it possible to sell it at that price?
______
Dennis

[Dumas]

Harry:

I can see how my description would bear little resemblance to your practical experience as a textbook author. I also am unaware of any existing model (fast, easy, and nearly free distribution of non-infringing content) as it relates to textbooks.

Joel recognized and agreed that scarcity doesn’t exist in the world of digital goods and my commentary was meant to take the discussion to the next level in terms of how content creators of digital goods could be compensated in a future of abundance where the value of said good quickly approaches zero.

Nearly everyone is familiar with iTunes. While iTunes is fast, easy, and nearly free when it comes to the distribution cost of content, many musicians actually benefit less from sales of non-infringing content through this distribution model as a percentage of sales than they would through artificially scarce content sales.

My point being, that while this particular business model has adapted to marketplace demands for digital content, content creators themselves haven’t benefited proportionally.

Dumas

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Dumas

Joel recognized and agreed that scarcity doesn’t exist in the world of digital goods and my commentary was meant to take the discussion to the next level in terms of how content creators of digital goods could be compensated in a future of abundance where the value of said good quickly approaches zero.

This is a false premise. The value is not zero nor is it approaching zero. The authors contribution is not devalued based on the media. This idea that the value is zero is what causes a total destroying of the fundamental capitalistic system and provides excuses to pirate goods since its value is zero anyway.

Dale

[Danny Fekete]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I'm not sure it's possible for it to exist outside of a capitalistic framework. People will create the content, and need to be compensated, and others will manufacture and distribute it, and need to be compensated. Where does the money come from, and how does it get distributed?

My understanding of capitalism as it pertains to this discussion is that it declares the right of the individual to seek compensation (typically monetary) for resources expended (money, time, effort, etc.). My concern is that this framework is often extended into a moral realm, and the conclusion becomes, rather that it is right to seek compensation for resources expended; consequently, it is wrong (or at least weird) not to. That was the basis of the goofy apartment discussion I was having with Bob on page two. If you're willing to suspend our capitalist viewpoint for the moment, consider entertaining a behavioural one which does not prescribe rights, but describes phenomena.

"People will create content." I agree. As a teacher, I create handouts for my students. As a student, I create papers for my professors and for publication. What compels me (behaviourally) to do so is necessity: I feel obligated to give my students the best resources I have access to (or can create), if not for my individual, moral reasons, then more practically because it improves my security in my teaching position. As a student, that content creation likewise drives my viability to remain and advance in academe, which I may wish to do for individual, moral reasons, or because it will lead to something else I want (like a source of income that requires academic credentials). Here, content creation is rewarded by prestige or personal satisfaction, both of which can contribute to behaviours that will secure my financial, and eventually physical, security.

In this system, there are behavioural elements that will determine my standpoint to other people using my materials, or my using other people's materials. As a teacher, I may feel that what I can produce, plus the resources I invest in producing it, is of superior value to what I can access (if this isn't the case, I will probably get my resources elsewhere rather than create them; I frequently do). As a student, the risk of discredit and expulsion from academe, the individual moral inquietude, and the perception that I am reducing my educational rewards may, if they are powerful enough, mitigate my compulsion to plagiarise.

Certainly, in practise I don't think about these things quite so discretely in my day-to-day decisions. Indeed, my individual morality serves me as a shorthand in this way. Right to compensation for my efforts does not enter into this description, yet the description accounts for perpetual content creation. Educators and students making their resources and research freely available (as they do in open education and culture) does not interfere with this description and does not rely upon compensation. In fact, a bonus of this approach is prestige and validation of having one's efforts appreciated and used by someone else.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

And "community authorship" leads you into the morass that Wikipedia sometimes becomes. I'll use Wikipedia (and do daily), but with distinct reservations and grains of salt, depending upon the topic, because I don't assume that the view most commonly held is correct, nor that facts can be determined by committee.

I used to have the exact same reservations, but in studying university and information systems, I've come to see that there are no immediate answers to the question of "what determines the veracity of a fact" which satisfy the ideal of objective truth. Wikipedia can become a morass and is open to individuals or groups with private agendas making changes to the content to suit their needs, rather than to reflect Truth. What makes a published, hard-bound encyclopaedia more reliable? There is, after all, no necessary correlation between the attractiveness of a proposed idea and its factuality.

The answer, in practise, is peer-review, and is the same principle which bolsters confidence in the truth content of academic publications (where each individual reader isn't in a position to test proposed, new information for him or herself). This leads to consensus about what's true and what isn't; this is truth by committee, and it drives a great deal of what we consider to be knowledge. It's the basis of Connexion's "Lenses," which help educators sort through the available content when designing the open-content textbooks I've been talking about.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

But you might benefit by focusing your attention on the demand side of the equation, not the supply side. Remember, textbook publishers aren't really selling to you as the student. Yes, you have to buy them, but what texts you buy is determined by the school you attend, and the courses you take. You buy the books required for that class. You don't get to decide which to use.

I agree. I think the only real place to grapple with this is from the position of the educator, though if I'm a professor and I notice that all of my students aren't doing the readings, that puts a pressure on me to put a pressure on the publishers.

Regarding my figures for the electronics textbook, see the Baraniuk video from around 8:40. Sorry, I should have referenced that right in my post.

[Dumas]

Well, I think Baraniuk’s video from August 2006 addresses all of the issues I’ve seen raised in this thread as they relate to textbooks and then some.

Thanks to Danny for sharing this. It’s around 19 minutes long and moves very quickly if you haven't seen it yet.

[Azayzel]

Originally Posted by TadW

Another (legal) way to fight against outrages textbook prices: textbookrevolt.

This would have been cool back in the day. I actually used Half.com and bought/sold my textbooks there. I could usually pick up a book for 1/3 what the bookstore was trying to rip out of us. The cool thing about that was I could flip the book after the class and most times get my money back out of it.

It sucks watching all the poor students lining up to sell back their textbooks for only $5-15 and see the pirates at the store re-mark the as "Used" and sell it for $90-100. Worse yet were the poor saps who found out their books were worthless and had to toss them due to a *new* edition. They even had a big bin next to the return windows where students could toss the book they paid $70 for 10-12 weeks ago.

[Dumas]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

This is a false premise. The value is not zero

haven’t said it was …

Originally Posted by DaleDe

nor is it approaching zero.

And yet it does because scarcity doesn’t exist for digital goods. Digital goods can be copied infinitely at zero cost. Therefore, the supply is effectively infinite. The marginal cost for each new copy is zero. Are you saying otherwise?

Originally Posted by DaleDe

The authors contribution is not devalued based on the media.

haven’t said it was …

Originally Posted by DaleDe

This idea that the value is zero

Your idea again, not mine … I’m saying because supply is infinite its value approaches zero.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

is what causes a total destroying of the fundamental capitalistic system and provides excuses to pirate goods since its value is zero anyway.

You’re joking, right?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Dumas

haven’t said it was …



And yet it does because scarcity doesn’t exist for digital goods. Digital goods can be copied infinitely at zero cost. Therefore, the supply is effectively infinite. The marginal cost for each new copy is zero. Are you saying otherwise?

You’re joking, right?

Value and cost are not the same thing. Saying value approaches zero is a mistake. The value of something is not necessarily related to its availability. Not everything is based on supply and demand IMHO. Some things are valuable even if they cost nothing. All software in your mind would have zero or close to zero value yet a computer is worthless without software. There is value add and intrinsic value to intellectual property. And I am not kidding. Worth is often determined by the price people are willing to pay to enjoy it but that is unrelated to the cost of making a copy. Years may go into the development but in your mind since it can be copied for zero cost is value approaches zero as well.

Dale

[Danny Fekete]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Value and cost are not the same thing. Saying value approaches zero is a mistake. The value of something is not necessarily related to its availability. Not everything is based on supply and demand IMHO. Some things are valuable even if they cost nothing. All software in your mind would have zero or close to zero value yet a computer is worthless without software. There is value add and intrinsic value to intellectual property. And I am not kidding. Worth is often determined by the price people are willing to pay to enjoy it but that is unrelated to the cost of making a copy. Years may go into the development but in your mind since it can be copied for zero cost is value approaches zero as well.

Dale

Okay, Dale. Why don't we define "value," "worth," and "cost" for the purposes of this discussion, so we're not all just tripping over confused semantics?

[Dumas]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Value and cost are not the same thing.

Actually, one of Merriam Webster’s definitions for value is the monetary worth of something and I believe I used it correctly in that context.

You have chosen to use another definition of value, that of relative worth, utility, or importance. Hence, your usage and references are no longer economic, but of a philosophic nature.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

The value of something is not necessarily related to its availability.

Perhaps in a philosophic sense, but not in the context of economics and the definition I have posted under.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Not everything is based on supply and demand IMHO. Some things are valuable even if they cost nothing.

Such as …

Originally Posted by DaleDe

All software in your mind would have zero or close to zero value yet a computer is worthless without software.

This could be the eureka moment for you (and hopefully everyone else.)

1 – You have correctly asserted that a computer is worthless without software,

2 – Yet we can agree that computers are a scarce resource (an apparent economic contradiction),

3 – Hence, the reason computers have any value at all is because of software, a digital good in unlimited, non-infringing supply (of the Open Source variety.)

The worth of software does not come from in and of itself or the discs and tapes it may reside on, but in its transformative ability to turn a scarce resource of little value into one of great value.

Dumas

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by Danny Fekete

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

Use #nn link at the top right of the post.
</thread hijack>

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Danny Fekete

Okay, Dale. Why don't we define "value," "worth," and "cost" for the purposes of this discussion, so we're not all just tripping over confused semantics?

Ponder this: Who would place a higher value on a glass of water: someone in a rainstorm or someone in a desert?

I have a couple pirated ebooks that _cost_ me nothing. I place a high _value_ on them because they are some of my favorite novels. (If they were available legally, I would buy them.) You might not like the author, so you would place a lower value on them.

The point I am trying to make is that value is relative. Two individuals might pay the same cost for something, but might place a different value on it.

[Dumas]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Ponder this: Who would place a higher value on a glass of water: someone in a rainstorm or someone in a desert?

In this instance you have used the definition for value in a monetary sense. Scarcity dictates a person would place a higher value (pay more) for water in a desert. Abundance dictates you will not likely find a person willing to pay anything for water in a rainstorm where water is essentially unlimited.

Originally Posted by Nate the great

The point I am trying to make is that value is relative.

Following your first example, I think you are saying that "value" (cost) is relative to an item's scarcity/abundance. If so, that would be consistent economically speaking.

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Two individuals might pay the same cost for something, but might place a different value on it.

Having paid the same amount for an item and therefore indicating its level of abundance/scarcity to be static at a particular point in time, that item's sense of worth, utility, or importance could be different to those two people. That is consistent with what I have termed the philosophical definition of value.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Dumas

In this instance you have used the definition for value in a monetary sense. Scarcity dictates a person would place a higher value (pay more) for water in a desert. Abundance dictates you will not likely find a person willing to pay anything for water in a rainstorm where water is essentially unlimited.

Following your first example, I think you are saying that "value" (cost) is relative to an item's scarcity/abundance. If so, that would be consistent economically speaking.

I was trying to separate the monetary cost of the item from how much it is valued by someone. Another way to divide the two words is internal and external. How much you value something is a process that occurs inside your own had (internal). Deciding the cost occurs between two or more people (external).

It just occurred to me that there at least two ways to use the word value. I am using it in the way that Heinlein used it in Starship Troopers. The other way to use it is the phrase "monetary value".

Originally Posted by Dumas

Having paid the same amount for an item and therefore indicating its level of abundance/scarcity to be static at a particular point in time, that item's sense of worth, utility, or importance could be different to those two people. That is consistent with what I have termed the philosophical definition of value.

We seem to have reached a similar conclusion, though.

[tompe]

My problem with the examples was the formulation "place a value". To place a value is to do something that is external and therefore not something internal. I also do not think that it is possible to assign values that corresponds to the internal reasoning. I am pretty sure that we have "loops" ( A>B, B>C, C>A) in our reasoning processes.