Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

<p><pre><code> No access code means a lower grade, all in the best interests of science. </code></pre> I ... no. I can't even...<p>I'm sorry, but I find it very hard to summon an inkling of sympathy for the publishers' plea against piracy when I see measures like that.<p>When I failed calculus because I didn't prove a theorem the way it was in the lecture notes and then was insane enough to argue the point, I thought it was pretty stupid. Here, I don't think the word even begins to describe the situation.<p>Commodity. That's a good way of describing the role of the students. It shows a rather alarming failure of the system that instead of incentivizing the pursuit of knowledge, students are set up for failure and milked for as much money as possible during their education.<p>I know a patent doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, and I do hope that most people in a position to make decisions in education call it out for being stupid, though I feel that's a tad optimistic. I'm just sad that a <i>professor</i> is the one proposing this. There go my non-existent beliefs in academia.

I'm tired of this. I am not going to pay for any product I can pirate anymore. I don't even feel guilty about it. If the artist wants money he should set up a donations account so I can pay him directly. I'm tired of these middlemen.<p>I'm also tired of people preaching about how piracy is unethical. A copied piece of data is not equivalent to a lost sale. People cannot own information. You cannot own an algorithm or idea. Imagine if Newton owned the laws of motion, imagine if he owned calculus. How can someone own an arrangement of words or sounds. If you think piracy is unethical you are either a dolt or benefiting from current copyright and patent laws.<p>edit: And let us not forget the primary purpose of these laws. The purpose wasn't so you could get insanely wealthy off of an idea. It was to provide an incentive for people to create and learn. Copyright and patent laws are now doing the opposite.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new for students.<p>I have been forced to buy institution specific versions of my books (which simply means they regenerated the practice problems), preventing me from seeking cheaper bookstores like Amazon or the mom &#38; pop down the street. I have been forced to purchase physical CD's with serial codes to access lecture notes (of course, only provided at the school bookstore). But worst of all, I'm very often forced to purchase WebAssign keys. Web Assign is a service that allows professors (in my case, in the math/physics departments) to create online quizzes and homeworks that are graded automatically. Usually the keys cost $45-$60 and they only work for one semester per class, and while they come free with new books (which are exorbitantly expensive, might I add) any used book purchase must be supplemented with these keys. Of course, the professor is glad to tell us we have the option not to buy the key, however we will then get a 0 on the respective assignments.<p>In my very humble opinion, the greed has gotten so out of control that it's hard for the publishers to see what is even wrong with forcing students to PAY TO DO HOMEWORK.<p>Something desperately needs to be done. My hope is that e-books slowly democratize the process, but that could be long after I have graduated.

<a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html</a><p>Richard Stallman, Right to Read, 1997. It's really chilling to read this story today, when half of it is already truth.

Well looks like it's finally coming true: <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html</a><p>What seemed absurd back in 1997 is more and more probable today.

Up-front and clear fees, directly based on the product or service offered, are the most efficient way for a market economy to work. In this case, this should mean simple fees for the classes, and book prices based on the original content in that version divided by the number of people who demand that original content.<p>This patent describes a means to make the prices of things -- like a class -- much more obscure and indirect, which is obviously a perverse market. It's not really about piracy though; it more closely resembles a toll booth on the door to the classroom, or charging students to keep the lights on so they can read the chalkboard. This just happens to resemble a copyright issue, so it triggers that particular response from people interested in copyright.<p>So why are such perverse systems so common? Because we demand them. It's not some conspiracy. We like to play games with prices, and overestimate our ability to outplay our opponent, and think we can get the best of them (in reality, practical matters take over and we just end up paying more on average).<p>Take cellphones. You can buy an unlocked google phone for a simple, direct price based on the quality of the hardware and the support that you expect to receive from google (or the manufacturer). Then, you can get a prepaid service plan for cheap (I pay $30/mo for a good smartphone plan) that is based on the level of service you expect from the carrier for as long as you feel like being their customer. I will save hundreds per year over getting a contract and a discounted phone (let's say a typical smartphone plan is at least $60/mo, so I save $30/mo or $720 over a 2-year contract, but lose at most $400 from lack of a discount, netting me $320). I also have greater flexibility and choice.<p>Yet almost everybody in the U.S., including those reading this comment, are under a 2-year contract right now. Why? I don't know. Economics is about what people actually do though, not what they should do. And given a choice between clear pricing and obscure pricing, people choose obscure pricing.<p>EDIT: And after people get predictably tired playing pricing games with a large company, and end up just paying more, they complain.

This already is in widespread use, not sure how the professor expects this patent to hold up in any way. I had a 4 quarter French language requirement for my major for which I needed to purchase a $125 book, and then a $99 online fee to have access to the homework that was 20% of my grade. The real kicker? My $99 online fee only covers 12 months, 3 quarters is a calendar year without summer school, that fourth quarter requires an extra fee to gain access to the homework materials again.<p>My physics classes also do something similar through the "masteringphysics.com" website I believe.<p>This is nothing new, and it's brutal for students. I can usually get through a quarter with 4-6 classes for under $100 in book costs if I buy used, old editions, etc but once a teacher throws one of these online requirements my way the costs of a quarter skyrocket to unreasonable levels.

"No access code means a lower grade, all in the best interests of science." "Students who don’t pay can’t participate in the course and therefore get a lower grade."<p>It's all about purchasing power, folks. You knowledge only matters a little. Please, do pirate books. For crying out loud, knowledge can and should be pirated if it cannot be afforded.

The patent itself doesn't stop students from sharing textbooks, it stops <i>publishers</i> from implementing systems to stop students from sharing textbooks without paying this guy a fee...

It's been my experience that the people who share/photocopy textbooks aren't doing it to screw publishers, they do it because they cannot afford to buy the book themselves. It is a lot of extra work to pirate textbooks this way; I doubt anyone would bother without a good reason.<p>Once again, it seems like all it's going to do is make legitimate customers jump through hoops, while the pirates find loopholes or simply fail... neither of which results in additional revenue for publishers.

The scorn in the TorrentFreak article is so heavy that I thought that, surely, they were exaggerating to stir up the masses, and the method described in the patent was not so heavy-handed as they claimed. (I am a university professor, and I would like to believe that my profession is an honourable one.) Well, no. They've got a link to the actual patent (with many spaces missing, for some reason), and its text, or at least what I could bear to read of it, is just as they describe.<p>By the way, as someone unfamiliar with this sort of patent, is there some legal meaning to the constant reference to "a plurality of lines of code" when detailing the mechanics of the software, or is the author just fond of the term 'plurality'? (He also refers later to a plurality of teachers and students working together.)

I really wouldn't mind paying for a textbook access code for every class I take, if the price was actually reasonable (unlike new textbook prices). In an ideal world: go around the print publishers and digitally publish books with an access code at a low price with nearly all proceeds going to the author.<p>I have teachers that won't actually use textbooks because kids at my school cannot afford them. Professors will actually photocopy the material for us.

Since time immemorial students have shared information on good and bad professors. This will be yet another thing that is passed along. Don't take <i>his</i> section, he forces you to buy a code. Take <i>her</i> section and you can use my book.

I have always thought that Universities should offer self-contained courses, with original homework and practice, specially in technical courses. Books should be considered as reference/reinforcement materials, never a requirement for anything.<p>After the irruption of Coursera and Udacity, I heard a couple of professors in my university talking about the impact those courses can have in the future. They saw themselves in the future as TAs of those courses, where the students only "use" them to clarify concepts.

I do hope I'm not the only one who thought of this:<p><a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html</a>

That's an approach... Open source textbooks are another: <a href="http://inl.info.ucl.ac.be/CNP3" rel="nofollow">http://inl.info.ucl.ac.be/CNP3</a>

I don't know which country is it talking about, but no libraries and no book sharing is only going to put more load on students. They already pay good amount of fees to their schools.

Hilarious - your education system is getting similar to those in Nigeria congrats. Nigerians professors/lecturers have implemented this for years - you don't need a patent for this kinda crap and you can see for yourself where its led them.

Just another reason for not hiring people based on their grades.

I believe professors at my university may already be infringing on this patent. I was required to buy a $90 "workbook" authored by the course professor to access a "course survey" worth 10% of the final grade. Granted, you could share the book and access to the material online, but not if you wanted an A.

People, think positive. Having a patent means that no one except his genius Vogel (or his licensees) can actually implement this system. So our goal is not to bash his brilliant idea, but to convince Vogel that it's worth at least $1B (per year). To prevent this idea from implementation :-)

Don't bite the hand that feeds; I predict a drop in enrollment of classes that use these textbooks...

&#60;joke&#62; Well with more people increasingly dropping out of college, salaries have to come from somewhere &#60;/joke&#62;<p>This has been going on for years in many institutions, he has just managed to make it legal.<p>Instead of limiting his works to his classroom only, i think he will make more profit on his work if he pushed sales and adoption of his books in other institutions, to other professors/lecturers, even than he can ever make charging a class of +/-100 excessively. And forget about the stupid patent.<p>The main confusion comes in when you realise: Hey he's an economics professor, you'd think he'll understand business better.

<a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html</a><p>Richard Stallman's "The Right to Read"<p>I find myself wanting to post this link more and more frequently these days.

I'm struggling to figure out how this can't be a hoax that the professor is pulling on the system. But after closer reading, he does seem serious. And he'll likely give his cause more harm than good.

You already pay for the use of the labs, the chairs, the time of the professor, etc out of tuition, right?<p>Then why on earth do you not also pay for the use of a book?

Right, so let's reinforce the idea that a good education is for people who can pay for it, not for people who are smart enough to benefit from it...

.. during a time of a great liberating educational revolution, with the likes of Khan, Coursera, MIT/Harvard platforms forming..

How many books do we need for school? A hundred? Some charitable soul please donate $100MM so we can create 100 free books for our children's education and put some pressure in government to create laws to use these books in all elementary school across the nation. Then college, then university. Free forever.<p>Sorry maffias, can't fight against progress.

<i>Under his proposal, students can only participate in courses when they buy an online access code</i><p>Isn't that called tuition?

How the hell does this warrant a patent? There seems to be nothing that is either novel or innovative about this particular "invention". Oh wow, unique codes as a way of limiting free participation, absolute genius. Somebody give this guy a Nobel and Tenure, oh wait...

I'm somewhat confused as to how this would work. Surely the university is responsible for awarding the degree and academic staff choose a supporting textbook to help students? So I assume universities wanting to use a textbook don't have to adopt the system.

I don't see how this is any sort of revolutionary invention... certainly not an idea that is patent-able.<p>I've already participated in classes where an online code was required to access the publisher's homework... same idea really.