Serendipity35

Students are now applying the tools used to download music and movies that have caused so many legal problems (and the collapse of the record industry, if you believe the RIAA) to download textbooks.

The site that is getting all the attention right now (sort of the Napster of textbooks) is Textbook Torrents. It listed at one point more than 5,000 textbooks for free download. It's motto is “Because you can’t torrent beer.”

Is it a copyright infringement? It seems to be, on the same grounds that made sites like Napster go down. It's not associated with any publishers, and authors and publishers make no money from the downloads. Their defense is also similar to the current crop of bit torrent sites for downloading music and movies: they are not hosting the content, only providing a way to find it.

BitTorrent is the peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) communications protocol that people use to distribute large amounts of data (songs, video, movies, software, textbooks...). Someone downloading a large file actually supplies pieces of the data to users downloading after them, reducing the burden on any individual source. It provides redundancy against system problems, and reduces the dependence on the original distributor. When you download a file, you're not getting it from someONE; you're getting it from a lot of ones.

If I use it to allow you to quickly & efficiently download the copyright-free podcasts that I have been producing, that's great. If I use it to allow you to download a copyrighted movie in its entirety, that's good for you, but probably illegal.

Publishers seem to be now scanning the Net looking for book download sites and demanding the files be removed.

78 Torrents Disabled, write the folks at Textbook Torrents:
"On Friday, we received a request from Pearson Education, one of the bigger textbook publishers, listing 78 torrents that they wanted disabled. While they are acting on extremely shaky legal ground, we are not in a position to fight a legal battle with the organization. As a result, in the interest of allowing the continued existence of this place, I have acceded to their request and disabled access to the listed torrents. Because of the batch process I used, uploaders will not receive the usual notification associated with a disabled torrent.

This is not a happy day, but I want to take the opportunity to make a few comments. First, I swear to you that I will do everything in my power to prevent the server's logs from falling into the hands of those that might use them against you. If that means bankrupting myself in the process, so be it. I would prefer that it not come to that, but I have drawn a line which I will not cross no matter the cost.

In the next few days, I will be drafting an agreement that all users must accept in order to continue using the site. This will be mutual in nature, with both parties agreeing to abide by certain guidelines and to uphold certain responsibilities. It will hopefully put us all in a more comfortable legal position."

Whether the site can continue is questionable. I think the most interesting part might be that students are downloading textbooks - rather than Superbad, Hancock and the new Coldplay album. This could actually be seen as educationally encouraging!

On a related note, a company started in 2007 called Chegg bills itself as “the Netflix for college textbooks.” Students pick books they want to rent, order online and the company ships the books to students for the semester. When they are done with the course, they use a prepaid shipping label and send them back. Chegg says renting can save students 60-80% off the price of a book. With two sons simultaneously drawing tuitions from my bank account, I can definitely see a demand for a supply of rented textbooks. It is certainly a better model for students than the one I had as an undergrad and that persists today: But book new for $125. Sell back to bookstore for $25 after semester. See your copy go back on sale as used for $65. Yes, I posted my own tear-off sheets for selling my books (the eBay & Craig's List of the 1970's) but I like this new option.

Any reviews from users of either site?