First Sale Doctrine now under assault

[teh603]

Originally Posted by HarryT

As a former textbook author myself, I completely understand your viewpoint. The issue with textbooks is that:

1. They are EXTREMELY expensive to publish.

They're expensive because of all that glossy paper and spot color. A simple black-and-white textbook with a few color plates where necessary would cost a lot less. You could also reduce the quality (and quantity) of artwork to a minimum necessary to get the point across. Your textbook might look like it was printed by Mother Earth News in the '70s, but it would still impart information.

At least that was the argument when I was in college. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more went to the editor and the senior executives, though.

2. They have a VERY limited market.

That hasn't stopped Lulu.com and Createspace. If POD can do it, then I don't see why college textbook companies can't.

That's why - in my student days, at least - many people bought their textbooks 2nd hand.

Which is why textbook companies now release a new edition of each textbook every year with no meaningful changes between editions, and give kickbacks to the professors whenever they can get away with it. Some of the high school textbooks even include a rant against used books on the flyleaf- "We cut off this corner[a corner was literally chopped off the book] so you don't have to; always buy your textbooks new so we can keep our costs down and pass it on to you!" The rationale being that secondary market sales are outright theft from the author and publisher, and that "theft" was why textbooks were so expensive.

Also, nobody never seems to ask how much of the cost of the high school textbook went into tailoring it to the state board of education's religious prejudices.

Originally Posted by wodin

The facts are that just as any other business college texts sell for whatever the market will bear. If a publisher can get $186.19 for Fundamentals of Aerodynamics he most certainly will. And if a student can find the same text on the used market, then he will do that.

In my college days, which admittedly were a very long time ago, professors would frequently supplement their income by authoring and publishing a small run textbook and assigning it to their class. Their clientele usually was limited to their own students, so they might sell a maximum of a few hundred books over a several year run; but when the used book market caught up, that well would run dry. Selling and trading used textbooks was a thriving business in college towns across the country.

Yes, I recall junior in college the professor teaching the class in reaction engineering required the book he published the previous summer. The first day of class he passed out copies, at least 25-30 typed pages, of errata. We were expected to keep that folded and inserted into the book to read the relevant corrections for every book page. I know that I paid at least $75 (1975 dollars) for that piece of crap. A new edition was issued the following summer with the corrections in that errata and many more we guinea pigs found. No chance to sell my copy to anyone then.

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by teh603
How long ago was that decided?

The reason I ask is because the Supreme Court has had a much stronger pro-Big Business bias since the past Bush administration, and this is an election year. Depending on how the election goes, any damage they do could take years or even decades to reverse.
'
I am not sure about when or what was decided. It seems to have gone away.
You probably are quicker than I at looking up things like that but if I get a chance I will look.

Originally Posted by SeaKing

'
I am not sure about when or what was decided. It seems to have gone away.
You probably are quicker than I at looking up things like that but if I get a chance I will look.

I spent a little time looking and never found a formal court case. I did find several mentions of the same thing that I said.

Perhaps it was a fond thought the publishers had that never got off the ground.