What To Do About Students Pirating Textbooks

If you only need a couple chapters, I wonder if you could just pirate those chapters and call it Fair Use.

I've certainly known professors who've photocopied a chapter or two and emailed them to the class.

Osulagh said:

I don't agree with that at all.

Textbooks aren't required to pass the class; they're recommended. Certainly you find the same info--even better--online and in a library for free. A textbook just has the info already collected. By no means does the teacher force the students to buy a textbook.

I don't believe it's unethical because it allows the teachers to prepare their lessons the way they want--by perfectly structuring the textbook's content to their teaching method. I've learned from teachers who taught "straight from the book" and to their own way, and the latter is greatly superior.
While the textbook also can be cheaper, better suited for classroom/online work, more specialized to the area, and more. Hell, if the teachers can pull this off well, I think they've earned their royalties.

Now, it's unethical for a college to enforce professors to require a textbook, and teach from it--like I noted before.

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A student doesn't have to buy a textbook, but they're at a disadvantage. There's a reason why it's listed on the syllabus -- teachers often use that material directly. Lectures often correspond to the material, even if it's not verbatim. Sure, there are books that don't get used, but the majority of books stated on the syllabus ARE used, even if it's just briefly. Having the book allows the student to know what areas to concentrate on, in addition to the fact that sometimes the students are required to do exercises directly from the book, or read aloud, or whatnot.

But how the book gets used in the course is not the point. The point is that the professor is profiting from it because it is directly tied to the course. The textbook is assumed to have a direct impact on their grade. It's not a suggested reading that the student can decide to read on their own.

There are rules about fair use, and yes, if something's below a certain length, it may apply.

There's also an issue with how many times you do it. I remember being told a while back that photocopying an article or book chapter to distribute once is acceptable, but you're not supposed to do it semester after semester without permission.

To be honest, if I assigned a textbook I'd written as the required text for a class, in light of what Chompers said, I'd simply donate the royalties gained from the sales for my particular class that semester (estimated by class enrollment). I'd rather give up whatever the money is for those particular 40 or so students (I don't know what it would be, but I've been told it's miniscule, especially considering the hours and hours that goes into researching and writing a textbook) than be accused of being unethical.

It just never occurred to me that the profs I had at UC Davis who had written textbooks were sleaze balls who were assigning their own books in class in order to gouge their own students. I assumed they'd written and used their own books because they liked their books and thought they were better for their particular courses than the other books that were out there. I don't think my dad was a sleaze bag, but I never asked him how he handled that issue either (the appearance, at least, that he was assigning his own book, even thought there might have been better ones out there for his course, in order to gouge his students).

One thing to be aware of is that textbooks are as expensive as they are because there are often only a small number of sales. Someone said 5000. Often it's far less than that. If you think books for introductory level general ed classes are expensive, try the books for upper division course for majors with relatively few students. you may just sell a couple hundred a year.

One issue is how frequently they come out with new editions these days. I get that biology is a rapidly evolving science, and even introductory classes have lots of new information coming out every year. But I wonder if they really need to create an entirely new edition of the book every two years (when in fact, the real changes in content are usually pretty small). Maybe they could put just that new information on the website associated with said book. This would allow them to possible sell thousands of copies of a given book instead of just hundreds, which would allow for larger print runs and a lower per-book cost.

And with some subjects, the frequent appearance of new editions is even more baffling. My husband teaches an engineering physics series. over 90% of the course content is Newtonian and basic electronics and stuff--areas that have been pretty set for a very long time. Are newer, prettier diagrams really worth a new edition ever 2-3 years?

ShaunHorton said:

College textbooks are a bit of a conundrum in and of themselves, separate from other books.

The costs for college textbooks in American has been grossly over-inflated over the past decade or so.



What's interesting to note, is that this is only in the US. The same textbooks commonly cost a third of the price or less in other countries, and some textbook manufacturers tried to get legislation making it illegal to import them into the US.



With textbooks having price tags of $200 or more, to be used for three months, (give or take the quarter vs. semester model) and then only make a quarter of that back upon re-selling them back to the school bookstores, (If you can, new editions come out on average every 2 years, partially to restrict the used book market), I certainly wouldn't blame a student for helping others out.

Honestly, if I was a teacher, I would encourage it.

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This. I just recently graduated so I remember well the textbook struggle each semester. I flat-out could not afford my books most of the time. I bought what I could used on Amazon/etc., but if there was a digital version online, I DEFINITELY pirated my textbooks because I could not (still would not be able to!) drop $600 on books I was only going to use for 4 months (...or at all, because I just did not have the $600, lol). The other thing about textbooks (edit: which I re-read and saw was already mentioned^^^^^, but I'm going to complain anyway ) is that they're updated so often and the colleges require the newest versions (not available used, always massively expensive) and then by the time you're ready to sell the book back, they have the NEXT version and the book is suddenly worth less than 1/10 of the purchase price.

I adored my professors who understood this and would let us have older [or digital, some professors didn't allow digital at all] versions of the textbooks and photocopy any additions for us.

Back when I was I college, we would photocopy books chapter by chapter if we couldn't afford the entire textbook. That was acceptable. What's the difference, I wonder?

pandaponies said:

This. I just recently graduated so I remember well the textbook struggle each semester. I flat-out could not afford my books most of the time. I bought what I could used on Amazon/etc., but if there was a digital version online, I DEFINITELY pirated my textbooks because I could not (still would not be able to!) drop $600 on books I was only going to use for 4 months (...or at all, because I just did not have the $600, lol). The other thing about textbooks is that they're updated so often and the colleges require the newest versions (not available used, always massively expensive) and then by the time you're ready to sell the book back, they have the NEXT version and the book is suddenly worth less than 1/10 of the purchase price.

I adored my professors who understood this and would let us have older [or digital, some professors didn't allow digital at all] versions of the textbooks and photocopy any additions for us.

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I can only speak from my local college, but more often than not, you were boned if you wanted to sell the books back at the end of the quarter. If there was a new edition coming out next year, tough, there were no buybacks of the edition used that year, period. On top of that, they had a set number of books they would buy back, even if there wasn't a new edition coming. If you didn't manage to get your book in the first or second day of buybacks, you were pretty much SOL.

chompers said:

Back when I was I college, we would photocopy books chapter by chapter if we couldn't afford the entire textbook. That was acceptable. What's the difference, I wonder?

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There isn't any.

I've done this too - gotten a book from the library or someone else who bought it (depends on how obscure the book was) and taken pictures of or scanned the pages I knew I was going to need for the class.

If you can't afford the book, you can't afford the book, and sometimes there really is no choice but to do things like this^. It's not like when you pirate fun things because you don't ~feel~ like paying for your entertainment.

ShaunHorton said:

I can only speak from my local college, but more often than not, you were boned if you wanted to sell the books back at the end of the quarter. If there was a new edition coming out next year, tough, there were no buybacks of the edition used that year, period. On top of that, they had a set number of books they would buy back, even if there wasn't a new edition coming. If you didn't manage to get your book in the first or second day of buybacks, you were pretty much SOL.

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Yep, it was the same at mine. SOMETIMES they'd buy back old versions (it depended on the book), but as I said, at less than 1/10 the original price. I had a calculus textbook I paid $160 for. I went to sell it back to the bookstore... they offered me NINE f*cking dollars.

Whenever I've contributed to textbooks (both text and illustrations), they've been multiauthor works and I've been paid a flat fee rather than royalties.

A lot of the cost in producing textbooks (biology textbooks at least) is associated with the illustrations. I've packed away my copy of Campbell (mentioned by Roxxsmom upthread), but it almost certainly has an illustration on every page. That adds up. (In fact, I suspect I've made more from books illustrations than from writing over the years.)

As for photocopying for classes, I don't know what the situation is elsewhere, but we were required to fill out forms when we photocopied copyrighted material to distribute to students. A right pain in the arse, I can tell you, but I imagine it ensured fees were paid to the copyright holders.

Helix said:

I don't know what the situation is elsewhere, but we were required to fill out forms when we photocopied copyrighted material to distribute to students.

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I'm 99% sure that none of my teachers filled out anything and no higher-ups knew/cared (one or the other, maybe a bit of both). They didn't exactly announce "I'M PHOTOCOPYING COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL!!"... more just said "Hey, I get that most of you are broke, and while the school officially says you have to have the 9th edition, it's $200, and the 8th edition is $30 on Amazon. If you need to get the 8th edition, let me know after class and I'll make sure you get the sections of the book you're missing." As far as I know they did it on their own time/dime and at their own risk. And as I said, I adored them for it.

I was in English and Journalism so I didn't have to deal with the STEM textbooks that I gather can be insane.

It was always a gauge of how well a prof knew/liked the subject area by how in-depth they went into the revisions. Like editors, most good profs have substantial opinions on which edition or translation of a text is better and they've chosen one for a particular reason but ask and you get the full blow-by-blow account of the differences between the editions and how you can manage with an older copy. It can actually end up being a useful comparison and I used it to my advantage once or twice on essays.

That's the same reason profs occasionally assign their own texts. It didn't happen often to me and it did kind of rankle a little, but in every case I've had to read a text by the prof it was covering something more in-depth than would have been possible in lecture. Research, for instance, can be difficult for a prof to relay in class. It's often valuable when advanced classes can focus on analyzing a subject after students have done the required consumption of background research. When the prof is the leading expert in a field--usually a good sign--it can be very beneficial to access that research through the prof's own book.

Finally, while textbook sales are often minuscule, a fine-but-important line should be pointed out: tenured professors are paid in part to do research. I realize this varies and that adjunct profs get the short end of the stick in a myriad of ways. It also doesn't address the time a prof might spend putting together an intro-level textbook, I grant. But outreach in the academic community and the publication of research are (supposed to be) paid for by tenure salary, which is part of what the tuition itself (is supposed to) pay for. There are exceptions here, of course, but one of the major upsides of academia--if there are any left at all--is that it's a salaried job in which to read and write. The business model is, in some cases anyway, slightly different than commercial books.

pandaponies said:

If you can't afford the book, you can't afford the book, and sometimes there really is no choice but to do things like this^. It's not like when you pirate fun things because you don't ~feel~ like paying for your entertainment.

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I think this is a serious truth. My husband's run into the issue lately of students buying "black market" bootlegged copies of the text book he uses. They're not quite the same, but are close enough. It's a frustrating issue, but we aren't doing a very good job of making college affordable for students these days (in the US at least), and high textbook costs are just one part of the squeeze.

When it's cheaper to photocopy or scan and print a 500 page text book than it is to purchase it, it's a sign that the things are too darned expensive. If the textbook companies really can't afford to lower the cost without sacrificing all profitability, then we need to look at subsidizing the darned things.

Osulagh said:

I don't agree with that at all.

Textbooks aren't required to pass the class; they're recommended. Certainly you find the same info--even better--online and in a library for free. A textbook just has the info already collected. By no means does the teacher force the students to buy a textbook.

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Nobody's holding a gun to a student's head and saying, "You must buy this upon penalty of death," no. But to think that you can breeze through every class and never procure an assigned class textbook is . . . odd. I have no idea where you're getting this information from to be perfectly honest. You're assuming that you can guess exactly how an instructor will word and comprise test/quiz/essay questions based on.... what?

My topic is human behavior and technology. The book discusses 3 specific cases. Those 3 specific cases will be used on the test. Or, I go online and look through 125,000 other cases, hoping I get the correct one. Okay. Sure. Let me get on that.

Some of the classes I've taken require you to read a chapter. Summarize the contents of that chapter. Analyze specific concepts using quotes from within the book. Pull essay question responses directly from the book. Want you to focus on case studies, research studies, data and methodology specifically mentioned in chapter X, Y or Z.

You ask another student? Hey, can I borrow your textbook, waste your time, use your resources, to get an idea of what to google on what I hope are reputable websites? Sounds like a plan.

kuwisdelu said:

If you only need a couple chapters, I wonder if you could just pirate those chapters and call it Fair Use.

I've certainly known professors who've photocopied a chapter or two and emailed them to the class.

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I've done this. I had a difficult time finding one textbook that I liked one semester (that wasn't really super expensive), and I ended up pulling from several books instead. Some writers cover certain topics better than others. And, it gives students a variety. Once I started doing this, I became less and less inclined to use textbooks.

Some classes, I simply can't get around it. It's a department requirement or whatnot. In that case, I use the books heavily so that students will at least feel they got their money's worth on the book they purchased. Nothing I hate more than buying a textbook only to read 1-2 chapters in it.

chompers said:

If the professor did profit off of them, it would be unethical.

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chompers said:

To require the students to buy a book that the professor would profit from, that would be unethical. It would be like securing a way to get royalties. It's an assigned textbook in order to complete the course.

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As others have noted, this doesn't really seem to make sense. I've had a number of books written by the professors teaching the classes that were the, or some of the, texts assigned in the classes.

Of course they profit, but it's not as if there are 400 books to choose from and they pick theirs to make money. They pick theirs because they're doing the relevant research and/or have the relevant knowledge - that's why they're teaching the classes, presumably, because of their expertise in the area.

For one class I took, the 'textbook' was actually a massive (massive, like 600 or 800 pages or so) double volume of photocopied pages that the professor had compiled and had on order at a copy shop. He'd add or remove material each semester and they'd copy and plastic ring bind the suckers into these gigantic things you could've bombed a small country into submission with. Those, we just paid for the cost of the copying/binding. It was like $40 or 50 or something for the pair; you just had to go to the copy shop and give his name and they'd haul a set out and ring it up as if it were a copy job.

Osulagh said:

I don't agree with that at all.

Textbooks aren't required to pass the class; they're recommended. Certainly you find the same info--even better--online and in a library for free. A textbook just has the info already collected. By no means does the teacher force the students to buy a textbook.

I don't believe it's unethical because it allows the teachers to prepare their lessons the way they want--by perfectly structuring the textbook's content to their teaching method. I've learned from teachers who taught "straight from the book" and to their own way, and the latter is greatly superior.
While the textbook also can be cheaper, better suited for classroom/online work, more specialized to the area, and more. Hell, if the teachers can pull this off well, I think they've earned their royalties.

Now, it's unethical for a college to enforce professors to require a textbook, and teach from it--like I noted before.

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I don't know where you went to school but this was true exactly none of the places I did.

The info in textbooks often can't be found other places but the book, especially in the cases we're talking about in which the teachers wrote the books themselves.

In other cases, even if it's information that exists, that doesn't mean it's presented in the same way, or about the same stuff, or etc. I can find 10 books on the Holocaust, but that doesn't mean any will contain the same information that might be in a text or in readings from a text any one professor assigns.

Most classes, you couldn't get along without the books; they were not in any way recommended material, but indeed required. Having textbooks didn't mean teachers can't make their own curricula either. Professors use multiple texts, or use a grounding text, as jumping off points.

chompers said:

Back when I was I college, we would photocopy books chapter by chapter if we couldn't afford the entire textbook. That was acceptable. What's the difference, I wonder?

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There is none - it wasn't acceptable then; it's not acceptable now. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement. Just because you could physically do it and no one stopped you doesn't mean it was ok.

cornflake said:

As others have noted, this doesn't really seem to make sense. I've had a number of books written by the professors teaching the classes that were the, or some of the, texts assigned in the classes.

Of course they profit, but it's not as if there are 400 books to choose from and they pick theirs to make money. They pick theirs because they're doing the relevant research and/or have the relevant knowledge - that's why they're teaching the classes, presumably, because of their expertise in the area.

For one class I took, the 'textbook' was actually a massive (massive, like 600 or 800 pages or so) double volume of photocopied pages that the professor had compiled and had on order at a copy shop. He'd add or remove material each semester and they'd copy and plastic ring bind the suckers into these gigantic things you could've bombed a small country into submission with. Those, we just paid for the cost of the copying/binding. It was like $40 or 50 or something for the pair; you just had to go to the copy shop and give his name and they'd haul a set out and ring it up as if it were a copy job.
.

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I didn't say the professors couldn't make their own textbooks. I said having them profit from it would be unethical. I've seen lots of professors put together booklets to supplement the class. But they didn't profit from it. The cost of it was just for printing usually.

cornflake said:

There is none - it wasn't acceptable then; it's not acceptable now. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement. Just because you could physically do it and no one stopped you doesn't mean it was ok.

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Likewise, nor does illegality mean something is wrong.

I hit this topic when my daughter went to university. I couldn't allow her to get copies on the downlow. It just wasn't in me. I see piracy as wrong no matter the justification. I DO think textbooks are overpriced. But that wouldn't cause me to walk into a bookstore, strap one to my girdle and sneak out without paying for it. It's theft. I paid for every one of her textbooks.

KTC said:

I hit this topic when my daughter went to university. I couldn't allow her to get copies on the downlow. It just wasn't in me. I see piracy as wrong no matter the justification. I DO think textbooks are overpriced. But that wouldn't cause me to walk into a bookstore, strap one to my girdle and sneak out without paying for it. It's theft. I paid for every one of her textbooks.

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The difference is that you are stealing a physical product which cost money to produce. Downloading digital media creates a new copy, the same as photocopying pages out of a friend's book. Not exactly the same thing.

pandaponies said:

The difference is that you are stealing a physical product which cost money to produce. Downloading digital media creates a new copy, the same as photocopying pages out of a friend's book. Not exactly the same thing.

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Well, it IS the same thing. It's a moral issue, really. Stealing is stealing is stealing. It's the same as pirating a song. You're stealing intellectual property. You can think it's not the same thing, but technically it is. Stealing is stealing. It just depends on where your conscience sits and where your moral ground happens to be located. I won't download a song without paying for it either. Just as I wouldn't download a novel without paying for it.

Well, your kids are lucky to have you, then, a parent who (I'm assuming ) was there to provide support and back his morals up with his wallet.

My parents are poor and couldn't have bought my textbooks even if they'd wanted, so I downloaded what books I could and made copies of pertinent pages and I don't feel bad about it. I got my useless degree and it's done me zero financial good and the school is getting PLENTY of money out of me via loans.

(agree 100% with Roxxsmom btw, repped the post but forgot to say so in the thread lol)

I'm here to chime in as someone with a STEM major, and probably not the most expensive STEM major: there is absolutely no replacement for the textbook assigned in class. This is usually because of the exact problem sets contained within.

It's kind of funny to see people here on a website say, "Welllll, it's perfectly okay to download it w/o paying for it, because it's a textbook and textbooks are overpriced and I couldn't afford it anyway.... and big, bag textbook companies shouldn't get my money... poop-noise to them."

BUT....

Whoah, wait, I sure hope nobody illegally downloads my book someday. That's bad.

Really? So, there are conditions to these morals? Got it.

Can't afford textbooks? Well, golly, I'm sorry. You're in college. You're a grown-up now, right? Maybe you didn't think these things through all the way if you get to this point, pay for all the other college expenses (fees, tuition, parking, food, gas/car) and oops. I didn't consider that I'd have to buy books. What happens if you run out of money halfway through the semester? And you can't illegally download money to pay your bills?

Sure, textbooks are expensive and yeah, that's a problem.

HBO is expensive.

Car insurance is expensive.

My gas and heating bill are expensive.

My pets are expensive.

I'm not saying that people won't go and download books and that it's not a viable (albeit illegal) option when a textbook is way too expensive. But how about we don't pretend that this is the one instance where it's morally justified because we decide it is. Seems a wee bit convenient.

As for students having to buy a teacher's work, I've seen this go either way. One, a creative writing teacher that a pal of mine had forced students to buy her self-published romance novel for the class. That was a big WTF to me.

One of my instructors during graduate school had us purchase his textbook. He was teaching a class on a specialized topic of which he was probably one of the leading experts in the nation. There were only one or two other books out there like his. His was not only the better rated version, but the cheapest by far. And, most of the copies in the bookstore were used, so I don't imagine he got profit from those.

Sorry to sound like a spoilsport for people desperately wanting to justify all their pirating, but yeah. You're really no different than some dude in a basement giving Showtime the middle finger because you just don't want to pay to watch Homeland. And if you're okay with that, hey... all the power to ya, but let's not pretend there's some kind of Robin Hood, benevolent act going on here. Really, there's not.

Just sayin', necessity or need does not make a wrong a right. I'm not personally judging anyone who does this...I'm just saying I wouldn't do it. And, technically, it is wrong. You can't say it's right because they are too expensive and you don't have the money to afford them. I can't afford a yacht, but I'm not stealing one because I feel justified in having one. Whether you're stealing a grain of sugar or a country, there's no difference.

CrastersBabies said:

Really? So, there are conditions to these morals? Got it.

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Of course. All morality is relative.

KTC said:

And, technically, it is wrong.

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Technically?