This first one's from a student in response to a copy of the Princeton DRM piece that his father, an INFOWARRIOR-L subscriber, passed along to him.
> ----- Original Message ----- > From: @Dartmouth.EDU > Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2005 6:48 PM > Subject: Re: Fw: [IP] Princeton to launch DRM'd textbook program > > This is utterly crazy. All of these new technologies are great, but they're > being spoiled by ridiculous implementation schemes. This company must be > making a killing-selling a $150 textbook for $100 and instead of having to > print and ship every textbook, they just need to set up a server. I can't see > how anyone would want to buy a book that would expire in 5 months...what good > is that when you need to take GREs or MCATs in 2 years or go back to an > organic chemistry textbook when a new drug comes out in 10 years? I buy every > book I can online, and I usually save 33-50% off of the price of a *used* book > on campus. I cannot imagine why anyone would buy a textbook that was that > expensive with so many restrictions on it. On 8/7/05 3:42 AM, "Kurt Seifried" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=4658 > > So if you can resell a physical textbook for 1/3 it's value or more you're > ahead of the game by buying the physical text book. > > So if you want to keep the textbook long term (like... more then one term, > imagine that) you're ahead of the game by buying the physical text book. > > So if you want to bring the textbook with you to class os study hall and you > don't have a laptop you're ahead of the game by buying the physical text > book. > > So if you have a laptop with good battery life but want to back up your > textbook in case it crashes or you buy a new laptop you're ahead of the game > by buying the physical text book > > If you want to print out a chunk of the text book to read... you can't, > you're obviously ahead of the game by buying the physical one in this case. > > If you want to add notes or highlight your textbook... does the electronic > version allow this? The physical one certainly does. > > What possible use case does the electronic text book have that benefits the > student? Unless it was _significantly cheaper, like 10% of the physical one > all the above problems really make the physical textbook a lot more > desirable. This from a guy with multiple laptops and a paperless office (I > don't have a working printer), but I do own about 200 information/computer > related books, all of them physical. On 8/7/05 12:03 PM, "Bob Frankston" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Look at the good side - no more shelves full of old text books. No need to > rewrite history when the original isn't available anyway. > > No longer will you need to say that the dog ate your homework -- you can now > blame a computer virus! > > This is the anti-internet archive -- assuring knowledge is spent and never > accumulated. > > Knowledge is ephemeral and don't you forget it ... it's what? I don't remember > ... You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior list. Visit www.infowarrior.org for list information or to unsubscribe. This message may be redistributed freely in its entirety. Any and all copyrights appearing in list messages are maintained by their respective owners.
