Academic Publishers Attempting To Eliminate Fair Use At Universities [Updated]

from the you-kind-of-don't-get-to-call-yourselves-academic-publishers-anymore dept

There are stories about legal battles over copyright that make you shake your head in bewilderment.  There are some that make you chuckle.  And then there are some that simply infuriate, such as this one sent in by Chris ODonnell.

For those who may not be aware, e-reserves are a practice by which universities can share course materials with students, relying heavily on fair use.  Basically, it used to be that professors would have to reserve printed materials in the university library for students, the school paying permission fees for each printed copy.  In the digital world, of course, this is wholly unnecessary.  Professors more often put a single copy of the reading material up on a school server, slap some password protections on it to make sure only students of the class have access, and all of that dead tree copying suddenly becomes antiquated.  This, of course, is great for education, as students who are already paying rising costs for course material and tuition suddenly don't have to share in the materials cost for digital goods now protected under fair use.  It's a huge win for higher education, something every good citizen realizes is of rising importance in the global economy.

So, of course the content creators are suing.  Specifically in what reeks of a test case, Cambridge, Oxford, & Sage publishers are filing against Georgia State University and asking the court to issue one of the all-time-detrimental-to-education injunctions in the modern era.

Some quick background is probably in order.  E-reserves have long been a contentious issue for academic publishers.  Publishers Weekly has been following the long history of so-called academic publishers using strong-arm tactics to get institutions to limit what can be done with e-reserves:
"Indeed, there has been mounting concern over e-reserve practices since the early 1990s, when publishers predicted that e-reserves could erode revenue from printed coursepacks. In 1994 publishers sought to deal with e-reserves at the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU), but the issue proved so contentious that the participants could not agree on a recommendation for the final report. Since then, the threat of litigation has loomed over a number of universities concerning their e-reserves, as publishers' reproduction revenues dipped."
Read carefully, and you can immediately see what's going on here.  Basically, the digital world has made sharing educational documents more efficient, such that reproducing printed copies of material is no longer a necessity.  And academic publishers are freaking out because a revenue stream is threatened.  This, of course, is where fair use should come into play as a protection for those seeking to share and enhance knowledge for our nation's young people, something which virtually everyone would agree is important.  But not so-called academic publishers.  For them, it's that revenue stream that's important, and the progress of the nation's knowledge be damned.

That would be bad enough, but the injunction the publishers are seeking against Georgia State is even worse.  This is outlined by Kevin Smith, Duke University's first Scholarly Communications Officer, in a piece entitled "A Nightmare Scenario For Higher Education".  Smith notes several revelations about the injunction, which would first seek to make Georgia State University responsible for everything that is copied within their grounds and associated web spaces.  It does this by enjoining university students and professors to the injunction.  It includes not only e-reserves, but also faculty web pages and LMS systems, effecitively encompassing the entire educational institution under Georgia State's responsibility to monitor materials available to anyone anywhere.  Smith notes:
"In short, administrators at Georgia State would have to look over the shoulders of each faculty member whenever they uploaded course material to an LMS or any other web page.  Arguably, they would have to monitor student copying at copiers provided in their libraries, since GSU would be enjoined from “encouraging or facilitating” any copying, beyond a limit of about 4 pages, that was done without permission."
The whole concept of higher education revolves around the ability of an institution's professors to share and expound upon knowledge.  The very label of "a free exchange of ideas" now goes out the window, as the injunction results in the giving up of fair use by not only university staff, but students as they try to learn.  Let's be clear: students are attempting to use this material to further knowledge while "academic" publishers are putting up roadblocks.

But it gets even worse.  Smith discusses how permission fees are the real goal here, as well as the obliteration of fair use for all of Georgia State, before noting:
"Added to these rules from the Guidelines is a new restriction, that no more than 10% of the total reading for any particular class could be provided through non-permissive copying.  The point of this rule is nakedly obvious.  If a campus had the temerity to decide that it was going to follow the rules strictly (since the flexibility which is the point of fair use would be gone) and make sure that all of its class readings fell within the guidelines, they still would be unable to avoid paying permission fees.  Ninety percent of each class’s reading would be required, under this absurd order, to be provided through purchased works or copies for which permission fees were paid, no matter how short the excerpts were."
I'll paraphrase in case there are others like me, because when I read the above my brain immediately began attacking my eyeballs for exposing it to something so utterly ridiculous.  Publishers are attempting to require universities to pay more in permission fees for using their content and they want to make it a rule that no more than 10% of course material may be material that was acquired without payment.  It's classic monopolistic behavior: you have to pay for our stuff and you have to use our stuff by rule, therefore you must pay no matter what.  If this sounds familiar, it's because music publishers have tried this on high school radio stations in the past. Update: A bunch of commenters make the convincing point that we may have read too much into the 10% limit, and that it does not forbid other types of licenses... though the agreement is still highly questionable on almost every other point.

To summarize, we've got "academic" publishers threatening litigation upon universities that are sharing educational material, under clear fair use protections, in a more efficient manner to further knowledge, while at the same time attempting to codify rules demanding that they use such material.  All while education costs rise and the United States continues its hand-wringing over its slipping education system.

To summarize more succinctly, I have to go throw up now.
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Filed Under: copyright, education, fair use, learning


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2011 @ 12:35pm

    Let me just roll the wheel o' trolls here to decide which rant will dominate the comments:

    * Rolls wheel *

    Ok, let's see what we've got:

    "But Mike, making these publications costs money! Are you saying that copyright holders shouldn't get paid!?! Your sick!"

    Ah! A classic. Fire away trolls!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Dark Helmet (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 12:38pm

      Re:

      Question: Did your troll attempt reference Mike incorrectly and mistake "your" for "you're" on purpose?

      If so....that was awesome!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Kaotik4266 (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 5:02pm

        Re: Re:

        It's triply hilarious (especially given the use of "your") if you consider it as a reference to you needing to throw up!

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      DannyB (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 1:13pm

      Re:

      What are the other items on the Troll-o-Wheel?

      I just don't get it.

      I just don't see it.

      You must be a pirate.

      You are anti choice.

      You can't compete with free.

      That's a bad analogy (because I don't like it). Try an analogy that involves law breaking (even though law breaking is irrelevant).

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2011 @ 1:53pm

        Re: Re:

        "There must be more to the story!"

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        rubberpants, 27 May 2011 @ 2:00pm

        Re: Re:

        I'm a big fan of personally insulting Mike. Calling him a liar, etc. Even if he didn't write the post of course.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    :Lobo Santo (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 12:37pm

    The time has come!

    To begin only using freely available open-source ;-) educational materials which are available entirely on the interwebs and lack dead-tree protectionist companies to bitch and moan about their lost business models...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      cjstg (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 12:40pm

      Re: The time has come!

      what is the sentence structure that you used called? i am not familiar with it. is it new?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 12:44pm

        Re: Re: The time has come!

        Saved by the ellipses!

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        :Lobo Santo (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 12:55pm

        Re: Re: The time has come!

        "Ad-Hoc"

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        MrWilson, 27 May 2011 @ 1:27pm

        Re: Re: The time has come!

        It's perfectly sensible if you include the subject line as the beginning of the sentence (barring the exclamation point and capitalized T in To).

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Jose_X, 31 May 2011 @ 11:03am

          Re: Re: Re: The time has come!

          Congress shall have the power:

          ...

          To promote the progress:

          "To begin only using freely available open-source ;-) educational materials which are available entirely on the interwebs and lack dead-tree protectionist companies to bitch and moan about their lost business models..."

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    cjstg (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 12:38pm

    stupidity or opportunity

    i am a bit of a reactionary when it comes to this type of thing. but if anyone ever tried to rope me into something like this, i would simply go somewhere else to get my content. if i couldn't find the content i would create it. some of my instructors in college (80's) were so disgusted with the state of certain textbooks back then that they wrote their own. where are these guys now?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Dark Helmet (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 12:40pm

      Re: stupidity or opportunity

      "i am a bit of a reactionary when it comes to this type of thing. but if anyone ever tried to rope me into something like this, i would simply go somewhere else to get my content. if i couldn't find the content i would create it. some of my instructors in college (80's) were so disgusted with the state of certain textbooks back then that they wrote their own. where are these guys now?"

      Ah but that's the REAL problem w/this. They're trying to make it a rule that 90% of the reading material in any given class MUST be paid-for material. So no going elsewhere, no creating your own material. You have to use "theirs", or someone similar (which there isn't much else out there).

      It's actually fucking disgusting....

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        cjstg (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 12:44pm

        Re: stupidity or opportunity

        granted i am not a lawyer, but i am trying to come up with a basis in law that would allow them to do that.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Christopher (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 1:17pm

          Re: Re: stupidity or opportunity

          There isn't any, and any judge who has not been bought and sold would rule that there is no basis in law for that.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        PrometheeFeu (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 1:06pm

        Re: Re: stupidity or opportunity

        Hm... Re-read the sentence: "Added to these rules from the Guidelines is a new restriction, that no more than 10% of the total reading for any particular class could be provided through non-permissive copying."

        There are other interpretations which would make more sense. What they are saying is you can only use up to 10% without getting permissions. So CC material is ok since permission is granted. Your own material is ok since permission is granted. So the only things that this would limit are: Public domain and fair use. It's illegal and bastardly, but not quite as much as you make it sound.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Dark Helmet (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 1:18pm

          Re: Re: Re: stupidity or opportunity

          Perhaps, but that's not what Smith from Duke's Communications dept. interpreted it as, and I'm guessing he is fairly up on this stuff....

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Kevin (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 1:19pm

          Re: Re: Re: stupidity or opportunity

          Shorter version of what I said below (I was typing as you wrote this).

          link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        dwg, 10 Jun 2011 @ 10:05am

        Re: Re: stupidity or opportunity

        Does this mean that if I have my class meet 10% of its scheduled time, but read 100% of the reading slated for those meetings, I've satisfied these bloodsuckers? So here's the plan: schedule your class for 10x the number of meetings you actually want, give 10x the reading, but make clear that, were a student to focus only on 10% of that reading, s/he should read the following portions: [insert portions here].

        Option 2: every single prof. does the exact opposite of what these trolls are mandating and let the publishers haul every university into court. I'd love to see that one.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Marcus Carab (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 12:41pm

    Added to these rules from the Guidelines is a new restriction, that no more than 10% of the total reading for any particular class could be provided through non-permissive copying

    Wow... so in, say, a philosophy class, where students are reading the full text of ancient books like The Republic, would that mean they are barred from treating such works as public domain? It seems like this contract would basically give the textbook publishers a new copyright over millenia-old works within campus walls.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2011 @ 12:50pm

      Re:

      Yeah, like you can learn stuff for free! Do you know how much it costs to go to a website or click a link?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Dark Helmet (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 12:56pm

      Re:

      Worse, actually. Based on this contract, it would appear that such a class would be barred from using more than 10% of their reading material from public domain classics. They would like have to buy a more recently released version of it supplied by publishers, which may or may not include commentary, lesson plans, tests w/it.

      It's absolute nonsense....

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Chris ODonnell (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 12:46pm

    //some of my instructors in college (80's) were so disgusted with the state of certain textbooks back then that they wrote their own. where are these guys now?"//

    Odds are they go fat and happy on textbook royalties and are at least indirectly connected to the publishes filing suit.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Joe Publius (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 12:52pm

    Maybe these publishers should just stop publishing their books for public consumption and become a team of oral instructors for hire. That would be a great way to guarantee a revenue stream.

    "You want to know about the Periodic Table of elements? We'd be happy to tell you for $400. And if you forget, we'd be even happer to come back and tell you again for the new low price of $250!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      DannyB (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 1:15pm

      Re:

      A publisher needs to get copyright on the periodic table of the elements. (Hey, Disney can get copyright on public domain stories.)

      Another publisher needs to -- wait for it -- patent the periodic table of the elements.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2011 @ 1:04pm

    In the post, the following was said:
    This, of course, is where fair use should come into play as a protection for those seeking to share and enhance knowledge for our nation's young people, something which virtually everyone would agree is important. But not so-called academic publishers. For them, it's that revenue stream that's important, and the progress of the nation's knowledge be damned.
    It is the revenue steam that is important to them, and maybe that is how it should be. Treating patients is seen as important too, but that doesn’t mean doctors should not care about their revenue stream. They have to care about how they will get paid, or at least some of this material would never be written. It may not be wrong that publishers are very concerned about their revenue stream. But this concern could manifest itself in different ways. The publishers could ask themselves why they can’t seem to compete with e-reserves. Maybe it has something to do with the price they set. The price publishers charge for this material is often more than most students feel they can afford. If publishers would fix that problem, maybe people would not feel the need to turn to e-reserves. Having used e-reserves myself, I would much rather have my own copy, and I would pay for the privilege. I just don’t want to pay $150 for a book that was really written in 1989 and has only been updated with a few sections since. It is possible the publishers overvalue what they produce.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Kevin (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 1:14pm

    Are we sure...

    ... that this means you can't use free & open-source material?

    The rule says only 10% of a given course's material could be from non-permissive copying. It seems like if a textbook was released under CC-BY-SA or something, it would fall under "permissive copying" to even use it in an e-reserve (provided attribution). Public domain seems at odds with this interpretation as well.

    Where they'd get you in a philosophy degree (disclosure: I was a philosophy major and did a year in grad school) is possibly with copyrighted translations of major works (cf. Plato's Republic). Even then, it seems that the translators like Reeve and others would actually own their respective copyright, and even if they've licensed specific uses of it for various publications (which they certainly have), there may not be a strong legal position for stating that they have a pre-existing copyright stance on all of it. They are perhaps only relying on case law to establish that, were it ever challenged. Thus, they could perhaps "revise" their translation according to some minimum legal standard and re-release it CC-BY-SA or similar to dodge this.

    I do not think this strongly implies that you would be forced to accept a major publisher's content, as worrisome as that would be if it did. That said, it does continue the "make others police my copyright for me" stance, which is bothersome in and of itself.

    On an unrelated note, it would be very interesting to see the SCOTUS or legislature strike this specifically from law, namely, to bar having others police your own copyrights. I think something similar is already implied by trademark law, where you have to aggressively defend your trademark or risk losing it. Shifting the costs back onto the IP maximalists (as opposed to ISPs, governments, universities, and whomever else they want to try to saddle with the responsibility) might go as far as anything to shut them up or put them out of business. They'd quickly find out how unsustainable their recommended policing is.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2011 @ 1:18pm

    "So, of course the content creators are suing."

    Please don't confuse 'content creators' with 'publishers'. Two separate entities.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2011 @ 1:31pm

    I'm sorry Tim Geigner, I think you're misinterpreting what was said. I read what you quoted and read your interpretation, and it just doesn't match. Someone else in the comments already responded, but here is my response.

    "Ninety percent of each class’s reading would be required, under this absurd order, to be provided through purchased works or copies for which permission fees were paid, no matter how short the excerpts were.""

    I read that to mean that where permission is required, then 90 percent of the readings would be required to be provided through purchased works, regardless of how short those works are. The later seems to be the point of disagreement.

    In cases that permission is not required (ie: CC licenses) then it would not be the case. Your "It's classic monopolistic behavior: you have to pay for our stuff and you have to use our stuff by rule, therefore you must pay no matter what."

    doesn't seem to hold.

    No offense, but posts should go through some sort of editing process before being posted, I thought Techdirt has an editorial staff. Bad reporting can easily damage Techdirt's reputation, and Techdirt has had a good reputation so far of keeping their facts straight (and correcting mistakes that it does make because no one is perfect).

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2011 @ 1:38pm

      Re:

      (and I'm not saying that I agree with the attempted injunction. I think it's very troublesome and I hope it doesn't get granted. I'm just saying that you're misrepresenting the injunction here).

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Dark Helmet (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 1:41pm

        Re: Re:

        " I think it's very troublesome and I hope it doesn't get granted. I'm just saying that you're misrepresenting the injunction here"

        To be fair, I'm relying a bit on the commentary revolving around this issue by others, such as Kevin Smith who I named in the piece.

        In addition, your interpretation wouldn't be much better, because you're still talking about a contract that goes out of its way to erode fair use, and not just for the university, but for the student body as well.

        Even in this "nicer" possible interpretation, it's still crazy....

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2011 @ 1:53pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          "To be fair, I'm relying a bit on the commentary revolving around this issue by others, such as Kevin Smith who I named in the piece."

          What I'm reading is Kevin Smiths interpretation and it doesn't look like you interpretation of his interpretation is correct. and the commentary around the issue, at least in the comments section on that site, doesn't seem to support your interpretation either. In fact, on that link

          Mary E. says:

          "Perhaps it’s time to switch to mostly texts that have creative commons permissions?"


          "Even in this "nicer" possible interpretation, it's still crazy...."

          I agree.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Marcus Carab (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 3:57pm

      Re:

      No offense, but posts should go through some sort of editing process before being posted, I thought Techdirt has an editorial staff. Bad reporting can easily damage Techdirt's reputation, and Techdirt has had a good reputation so far of keeping their facts straight (and correcting mistakes that it does make because no one is perfect).

      Note the update in the post. See, that's the beauty of blogs like Techdirt - you get to see and participate in the editing process, instead of waiting until tomorrow for the story.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2011 @ 1:39pm

    I am trying to wrap my arms around the declarative statement "under clear fair use protections".

    There have been guidelines since the late 70's concerning use of copyrighted works in classroom settings. Are you saying that the uses involved here are clearly within those guidelines, or are you trying to make a different point?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Dark Helmet (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 1:44pm

      Re:

      "There have been guidelines since the late 70's concerning use of copyrighted works in classroom settings. Are you saying that the uses involved here are clearly within those guidelines"

      I'm saying that the Universities are declaring that their use is fair, and the contract is attempting to route around fair use with it's 10%/90% directive.

      But, from all available reading, the kind of e-reserves this particular school were providing would be covered under Fair Use.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Kevin (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 2:12pm

    An even darker issue...

    ...not touched on in the post is here:

    Also, the rule about cumulative effect — a limit on the total number of excerpts that can be made — would be enforced across the entire institution. Two classes could not use the same work without paying permission, and Georgia State would be responsible for making sure that no system across its campus was providing access to any more than two excerpts (for the whole campus and of no more than 1000 words each) by the same author.


    That's excerpted from the Kevin Smith article. Now, what that says to me, is that the publishers are attempting to require an unheard of (and, as Smith rightly points out, beyond infeasible) level of collaboration between professors in totally unrelated departments to make sure they're not excerpting from the same works. That could conceivably require the creation of an entire new department in many universities, existing solely to deal with licensing issues so that professors could properly teach without the burden falling to them. It would also potentially censor a lot of material (i.e., "You can't teach using that text: it's too popular/expensive and we can't afford to have people learning it.").

    Another clearly troubling issue of this requirement would be that many professors would be unable to cope with survey classes. Imagine, as a commenter above stated, a philosophy class, in this case a 100-level survey course. The licensing fees to teach a class composed mainly of short excerpts read every day would be staggering.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Spaceman Spiff (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 2:18pm

    Publish or Perish

    Has been the maxim for academics since, well a long, long time (forever?). However, I don't think that today an academic text, monograph, or whatever has to be in hard copy to be considered "published". That said, there are academic books that I have purchased in hard copy form at inflated prices, and would still pay for them today - Codd & Date, Knuth, Schneier, I even got paid the enormous sum of $500 by Wiley & Sons for a chapter to a text book I wrote about 10 years ago. I think the book retailed for $70-$80USD. In any case, the most expensive part of publishing academic texts these days, be they electronic or paper, has to be the editing of them. A LOT of work goes into that, and I think editors should be paid just as much as the authors.

    So, all in all, there is time and $$ invested in writing, editing, and publishing academic tomes. Somehow, that investment needs to be recouped. The question is just what is fair given the ease of disseminating electronic volumes? I personally purchase a fair number of ebooks, but I refuse to pay more than $5-$6 for them. They should not be any more expensive than a paperback book was 30-40 years ago, IMHO. After all, there is no need to pay for printing, paper, ink, bindings, shipping, warehousing... The value is in the content, not in the covering (or lack thereof).

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Jesse (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 4:35pm

    Easy Workarounds

    For the 10 percent rule, I see two easy work arounds:

    a) Writers who want to publish copyleft licenses can add a clause to their creative commons (or whatever) that says educational facilities can license their entire collection indefinitely for $10 paid to the school's favourite charity. Therefore, it was bought and paid.

    b) Teachers who want to get around the 10 percent number could simply make a "reading list" that is significantly larger than they normally would make, but set it up so that only 10 percent of that larger list is testable.

    Of course, it would be best if we didn't have to work around such silly monopolistic laws in the first place.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      The eejit (profile), 28 May 2011 @ 3:25am

      Re: Easy Workarounds

      Alternatively, they could collaborate with thoe who wrote the initial textbooks, wrtie them, and then allow for a CC deal with the publisher. That way, we can have a win-win for everyone.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      dwg, 10 Jun 2011 @ 11:48am

      Re: Easy Workarounds

      Dammit--you beat me to it on (b).

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2011 @ 5:06pm

    Like Frank Zappa said if you want to get laid go to collage, if you want an education go to the library.
    Now you don't even need to go to the library, just head on over to Project Gutenberg and read the Harvard Classics for free.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    anonymous CUP author, 28 May 2011 @ 10:21am

    academic publishers and their ilk

    As a former CUP author, I can tell you stories about how they effed up the publication of my last book so badly that it will never make back the paltry advance they gave. They consistently missed pub deadlines, put idiots on the typesetting (imagine seeing an image on one page and the caption seven or eight pages later), and screwed up the marketing so badly that it was embarrassing. And now this gang of publishing misfits (with whom Isaac Newton, their first author, would be livid at such amateur actions) is worried about fair use at universities? If I were them, I'd pay attention to doing the first job right: creating books that look good, get out on time, and people want to buy.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    james moylan, 29 May 2011 @ 1:37pm

    about text books

    I have a web site where I give advise on penny stocks and stocks under five dollars. Let me make a suggestion about text books on line and off. With all the major corporations raving any ranting about the subpar value of education in the united states why not have these major corporations who are great beneficiaries of the private and public unversity systems set up a trust fund for all the private and public unversities so their students can get a payment to pay for some of the high cost of their text books. In other words major corporations should put their money where their mouth is.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    ahmed, 31 May 2011 @ 6:20am

    what i know

    to get good things you must PAY!!!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      dwg, 10 Jun 2011 @ 11:49am

      Re: what i know

      since when has quality been guaranteed? isn't the lack of that guarantee the whole point of shrink-wrap licenses?

      link to this | view in chronology ]


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