Advanced

Anti-Piracy Patent Stops Students From Sharing Textbooks

Posted by BernardSwiss on · 9 comments
TorrentFreak		Mail this story
Print this story

A new patent granted this week aims to stop students from sharing textbooks, both off and online. The patent awarded to economics professor Joseph Henry Vogel hopes to embed the publishing world even further into academia. Under his proposal, students can only participate in courses when they buy an online access code which allows them to use the course book. No access code means a lower grade, all in the best interests of science. For centuries, students have shared textbooks with each other, but a new patent aims to stop this “infringing” habit. The patent in question was granted to Professor of Economics Joseph Henry Vogel. He believes that piracy, lending and reselling of books is a threat to the publishing industry.

Full Story

  Nav
» Read more about: Story Type: News Story

» Get new stories by e-mail: nightly or as they are published

« Return to the newswire homepage

  Related stories
» More like this

Comments (9)

It boggles the mind.

kenjennings ·
How can someone patent lending?

Does anyone else remember when the primary goal of educators was to teach kids, rather than to become published authors?
Fettoosh ·
Quoting:How can someone patent lending?


Better yet, how can they enforce it?

I would never take any of his courses. And if I had no option, I would go to another U.

tuxchick ·
Textbooks have been scammy since forever. They're overpriced, and then new editions are released with minor changes and students required to buy them, rather than borrowing an older edition or buying it used.
skelband ·
What boggles my mind is that someone with the title "professor" thinks that this is a good idea.

I'm not sure that this is a good predictor of his competency to teach anything that I want to know.
alc ·
"Does anyone else remember when the primary goal of educators was to teach kids, rather than to become published authors?"

Published authors are making more money. Teaching kids is only for those new teachers that don't know any better.
BernardSwiss Story submitter ·
Obligatory link to Stallman's distopian short story:

The Right to Read

http://www.upword.com/right-to-read.html (nicely formated)

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html (gnu.org)

tracyanne ·
RMS is looking more and more like a prophet all the time. Both figuratively and literally.
skelband ·
@ta: Truly.

But a lot of what he has said many years prior is all too familiar these days.....

ya gotta wonder

helios ·
I'm way too lazy to look it up but one should wonder how many of those "books" did HE author. Vested interest and all that.

Post a comment

A free account is needed to post. Write your comment here first: your text is kept in this browser while you sign up or log in, and is waiting for you when you come back.

Your message:
|||||
10
Markdown: **bold**, *italic*, [text](https://link), - lists, > quotes, $x^2$ for math. Formatting help

Sign up and post (it is free)  or  Log in and post