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Poster:	garthus	Date:	January 20, 2012 08:36:09am
Forum:	texts	Subject:	Apple and Digital Textbooks; Dejavu and SOPA

Apple is claiming to provide affordable textbooks to the public. $15 per year to replace textbooks which previously cost $75 and which lasted 5-10 years. Does not seem like a savings to me. I am beginning to provide the text and lab materials and integrate them right into the courses which I am teaching right now at the College level. Seems like these people either do not know that the Archive exists or are scared to admit to its existance.

Every semester, I introduce my students to the Archive site and they are amazed that something like it exists. It is sickening how the mega-publishing houses and now even digital providers are jumping in on the ravaging of students attending Universities. An Astronomy class which I was asked to teach this semester, had as its recommended text. a book which cost over $200 after tax. I canceled the book and am using on-line materials for the course and only had the students purchase the Virtual Lab part of the text. It is sad that for a course costing $1200, students routinely are required to spend $200-$300 for text materials. This is the system which our corrupt intellectual property statutes protect. The right to endlessly churn textbook content, so as to enable these corporate greedsters to extort increasing sums of money from their captive customers. SOPA is a symptom of the logical end to this system. Government sanctioned extortion would be a better name for this bill and its associated Intellectual Property statutes.

Gerry