Being interested in opinions on the rights, wrongs, virtues and demerits perceived by many communities, I found the following article http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080828-study-students-need-open-source-e-textbooks.html to be of some interest.

If you read the article, you start from an offered conclusion that student text books ought to be available under open source type Creative Commons licenses.  But as you dig further down, you find out that students are complaining about the cost of text books.

The arguments seem to be:

- text books are too expensive anyway;
- you can’t print out much at a go;
- they have a short life;
- they cost as much as the print editions.

So the complaints seem to be much more like those being used on film and music companies than they are about DRM itself.

Now I would have to agree that it seems very strange that it costs me the same to buy a book that I have for ever, or an electronic book which I only get to use for 6 months.  At the same time the electronic book supplier might be offering me something rather different with the electronic book – things I just can’t do with the paper edition.  Searching (it saves me having to read the whole thing although maybe I actually learn less?) and hyperlinking to other reference work, articles, forums and so on are things I just don’t get on paper, or images I can work with.

Why should I get upset about not being able to print the ebook?  If I want a print edition then surely that is what I should have purchased to begin with.  If I want to print information then I should expect to pay a premium (normally called a royalty) for the right to make copies of the book.  That’s totally normal.  And just the same as in the software world.  It isn’t realistic to think I can buy some software for one machine and then put it on as many machines as I suddenly decide – hey man, that’s piracy.

So I am not totally convinced by the student’s arguments.  Yes, we all moan about the price of things, from cars to condos and from tuna to text books.  And that’s normal, good and healthy.  And in the bargaining business you always start from an extreme position if you think you can get away with it, so, of course, a study that asks the students the right questions will get whatever result they feel like. 

I’m equally certain that if you asked the College Professors who specified the books for the term and the course (and maybe even wrote them?) they would not be wanting to give away their work, even though they were paid to gain their expertise.  And if you asked the publishers, they will have a view all of their own (but don’t ask me what it is because I haven’t asked them).

So bottom line, it’s popular to attack DRM because, hey, it stops me from doing my own thing.  Everyone seems to think that buying something grants you the right to use what you bought anyhow you want.  Well, that isn’t the case with automobiles, guns, software, drugs, or a whole load of other things.  And so far there’s no proof ebooks are any different.

As a closing thought, the other day I had to spend 350 bucks to buy a paper book that is a definitive reference on company valuation methods.  It is out of print, and there are only two companies who can supply it from stock.  There are no electronic versions, and it is not in the library.  Next?  I would have liked an ebook version with search and hyperlinks but it isn’t available.  And I bet if it was it would cost a damn site more than the paper edition – and I would have paid it!