TimmyHTextbook Torrents: Because you can't Share Beer
July 11th 2008 00:11
File sharing has lone been the domain of the university student. Despite repeated crackdowns there is more than enough expertise on campuses worldwide to keep the practice going. But where the film and music companies have failed, textbook publishers are hoping to succeed and see the end of file sharing on university campuses.
TextbookTorrents.com is one of the new site mentioned in a report by The Chronicle of Higher Education which believes itself to be acting in the public interest. Their catchphrase “Because you can’t torrent beer” has become legendary overnight.
The site’s rules page encourages users to save they money they save on textbooks and spend it on scanners so that they care share their good fortune. “Scan as many of your other textbooks as you can, and put them up here for others to benefit from,” says the page. “There aren't very many scanned texts out there, so let's change that.” Anyone who manages to find all their books through the site are encouraged to go out and buy a text simply to contribute it to TT's collection.
The site urges users to contribute to the education of others, waning that if you don’t “Karma will pay you back, sooner or later.” But Karma is coming, and she’s pissed! The site recently had to remove a number of torrents following a request from Pearson Education. The site’s administrators said the request was made on “very shaky legal ground” but nevertheless complied. The site cleverly blocks access from IP addresses that are known to belong to Peer Guardian’s database of copyright enforcement groups as a reaction.
Scribd is another useful online source for students. Doing a quick search for “Evolution” reveals over 100 copyrighted texts. By comparison, Scribd promises to remove any copyrighted material and ensure that offending users are blocked from access the site. But the problem is that this can only be done after the site is alerted to the problem by a user. Unlikely.
So far, publishers have targeted the sites rather than end-users. At this stage they also seem content to make requests for the removal of copyrighted material rather than pursuing expensive legal methods. But the lack of legal action could be reminiscent of the small scale of the problem for publishers. In contrast to the relatively simple process of ripping an MP3, scanning an entire textbook is just a little difficult for the average stoned university student.
But one of the main motivations for students to share digital copies of text is that they are so seldom available to buy from publishers. As access to electronic texts increases because of student demands, problems with their sharing will likely rise simultaneously.
TextbookTorrents.com is one of the new site mentioned in a report by The Chronicle of Higher Education which believes itself to be acting in the public interest. Their catchphrase “Because you can’t torrent beer” has become legendary overnight.
The site urges users to contribute to the education of others, waning that if you don’t “Karma will pay you back, sooner or later.” But Karma is coming, and she’s pissed! The site recently had to remove a number of torrents following a request from Pearson Education. The site’s administrators said the request was made on “very shaky legal ground” but nevertheless complied. The site cleverly blocks access from IP addresses that are known to belong to Peer Guardian’s database of copyright enforcement groups as a reaction.
Scribd is another useful online source for students. Doing a quick search for “Evolution” reveals over 100 copyrighted texts. By comparison, Scribd promises to remove any copyrighted material and ensure that offending users are blocked from access the site. But the problem is that this can only be done after the site is alerted to the problem by a user. Unlikely.
So far, publishers have targeted the sites rather than end-users. At this stage they also seem content to make requests for the removal of copyrighted material rather than pursuing expensive legal methods. But the lack of legal action could be reminiscent of the small scale of the problem for publishers. In contrast to the relatively simple process of ripping an MP3, scanning an entire textbook is just a little difficult for the average stoned university student.
But one of the main motivations for students to share digital copies of text is that they are so seldom available to buy from publishers. As access to electronic texts increases because of student demands, problems with their sharing will likely rise simultaneously.
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