The right to copy
Arovet Li
Issue date: 12/1/09 Section: Opinion
Well, it's November.
The semester is drawing to a close. Reading lists are running dry, essays are being written, exams are being studied for - it's a busy month. Pretty soon we'll be getting our booklists for next semester, and it will be back to the store for most of us to get the textbooks that we'll be ignoring for the better part of four months. It's times like these when I look at my shrinking bank account and wonder: why am I buying this?
The source of my uncertainty is the $55 collection of Shakespearian comedies that I bought in September, and the similarly priced collection of tragedies that I'll be buying for next. It's also the copy of Huckleberry Finn that I bought for my American Lit course, and the other copy I'll have to buy as part of the package for my Children's Lit class next semester.
What annoys me is that most, if not all, of my booklist could have been found for free on the Internet and posted on Sakai in only a few short minutes. Instead I, and my classmates, have had to shell out hundreds of dollars so that we can all quote from the same edition of a text that most of us will just be getting off of Cole's Notes anyway.
Now, I'm not suggesting that our professors go and break the law. If the book is under copyright then it would be stupid to distribute it online. However, according to Canadian copyright law, any work whose creator has been dead for over 50 years, and any work written before the constitution act of 1867, is in the public domain. This covers about 99 per cent of everything humanity has ever written such as Shakespeare, Gibbon, Darwin, Einstein, Marx and any major figure in any field of study who died before 1959 (sorry Camus, we'll get you next year). It is a near guarantee that at some point in your education, you are going to have to buy something that you could have easily been given for free.
I understand why professors don't do this. They want everyone to quote the same edition and they want to include supplementary material that would itself be under copyright. The first problem is easily solved. The professor needs only to put the work as a PDF file online, and ask that everyone quote that. The second is trickier. If the new information, such as footnotes or appendixes, is vital to the course, it may be better to buy the book.
However, if the extras are just unnecessary fluff then it only makes sense to cut it out and place the raw text online.
Anything else is a worthless expense.
The semester is drawing to a close. Reading lists are running dry, essays are being written, exams are being studied for - it's a busy month. Pretty soon we'll be getting our booklists for next semester, and it will be back to the store for most of us to get the textbooks that we'll be ignoring for the better part of four months. It's times like these when I look at my shrinking bank account and wonder: why am I buying this?
The source of my uncertainty is the $55 collection of Shakespearian comedies that I bought in September, and the similarly priced collection of tragedies that I'll be buying for next. It's also the copy of Huckleberry Finn that I bought for my American Lit course, and the other copy I'll have to buy as part of the package for my Children's Lit class next semester.
What annoys me is that most, if not all, of my booklist could have been found for free on the Internet and posted on Sakai in only a few short minutes. Instead I, and my classmates, have had to shell out hundreds of dollars so that we can all quote from the same edition of a text that most of us will just be getting off of Cole's Notes anyway.
Now, I'm not suggesting that our professors go and break the law. If the book is under copyright then it would be stupid to distribute it online. However, according to Canadian copyright law, any work whose creator has been dead for over 50 years, and any work written before the constitution act of 1867, is in the public domain. This covers about 99 per cent of everything humanity has ever written such as Shakespeare, Gibbon, Darwin, Einstein, Marx and any major figure in any field of study who died before 1959 (sorry Camus, we'll get you next year). It is a near guarantee that at some point in your education, you are going to have to buy something that you could have easily been given for free.
I understand why professors don't do this. They want everyone to quote the same edition and they want to include supplementary material that would itself be under copyright. The first problem is easily solved. The professor needs only to put the work as a PDF file online, and ask that everyone quote that. The second is trickier. If the new information, such as footnotes or appendixes, is vital to the course, it may be better to buy the book.
However, if the extras are just unnecessary fluff then it only makes sense to cut it out and place the raw text online.
Anything else is a worthless expense.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
jhengstler
Julia
posted 12/01/09 @ 12:01 PM EST
You make some great points. Here's my two cents. Why not ask departments to support 2 versions when a work is well know to be freely available online: 1 the freely available online version vetted by the instructor; and then for those who want it, a vetted textbook version. (Continued…)
Adam
posted 12/01/09 @ 12:14 PM EST
In history, some professors have been kind enough to use old translations and online versions for primary documents.
What actually bugs me are photocopying reserves. (Continued…)
Post a Comment