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Back in September last year, Mike wrote about the remarkable court ruling in India that copyright is not inevitable, divine or a natural right. As we have been reporting since 2013, the case in question was brought by three big Western publishers against Delhi University and a photocopy shop over "course packs" -- bound collections of photocopied extracts from books and journals that are sold more cheaply than the sources. Although the High Court of Delhi ruled that photocopying textbooks in this way is fair use, that was not necessarily the end of the story: the publishers might have appealed to India's Supreme Court. But as the Spicy IP site reports, they didn't:
In a stunning development, OUP, CUP and Taylor & Francis just withdrew their copyright law suit filed against Delhi University (and its photocopier, Rameshwari) 5 years ago! They indicated this to the Delhi high court in a short and succinct filing made this morning.
This withdrawal brings to an end one of the most hotly contested IP battles ever, pitting as it did multinational publishers against academics and students. The law suit was filed as far back as 2012 and it dragged on for 5 long years!
[...] That's an important point. So often it seems that copyright only ever gets longer and stronger, with the public always on the losing side. The latest news from India shows that very occasionally, it's the public that wins.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday March 14 2017, @12:28AM (10 children)
Instead of making college free make the textbooks free. When I went to college (early 80s) the textbooks were easily twice the cost of tuition.
Lets be honest, for a 4 year degree nothing has changed in a good 50-100 years. Same algebra, same calculus, same physics, same biology, same chemistry, same world studies, etc etc etc.
So now you spend $100 a semester and maybe $40 for paper/ink to print out the textbooks.
IMHO free college is a non starter, too many unqualified idiots will sign up thinking "jobs, hell yeah!!" but won't be willing to/be capable of doing the coursework.
Added advantage? Old farts like me can get the textbooks for free and learn the new improved stuff.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Uncle_Al on Tuesday March 14 2017, @12:37AM
"Old farts like me can get the textbooks for free and learn the new improved stuff."
If nothing has changed in your lifetime, what's to learn?
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday March 14 2017, @03:22AM (1 child)
Physics and biology has changed significantly. For example, quantum field theory was only just emerging 100 years ago. The Higgs boson was discovered five years ago.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday March 14 2017, @12:11PM
99% of textbooks are sold to freshmen working inclined planes, kinematics, maybe second semester they hit electromagnetic theory, with or without calculus. Cool trivial pursuit stuff is cool, but doesn't really matter to learning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 14 2017, @03:30AM
Yup, nothing has happened in the world in 50 years.
(Score: 4, Informative) by patrick on Tuesday March 14 2017, @03:35AM (1 child)
nothing has changed in a good 50-100 years ... same physics, same biology, same chemistry, same world studies, etc etc etc.
The following timelines seem to disagree.
Timeline of fundamental physics discoveries [wikipedia.org]
Timeline of biology and organic chemistry [wikipedia.org]
Timeline of chemistry [wikipedia.org]
20th-century events [wikipedia.org]
I support free textbooks, but a textbook from 1917 wouldn't be my first pick.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday March 14 2017, @03:53PM
I completely agree that we've had significant changes in most fields. On the other hand, there are still instances where a textbook (or significant portions of a textbook) from a century ago could still be more than adequate. Most math classes except for really advanced math majors, for example. A lot of freshman physics (as VLM said in another post). Chemistry textbooks would need some editing, but a lot of the basic stuff about reactions, basic calculations, etc. covered in a typical first-semester college course is still there. Etc.
I'm frankly surprised there isn't more of an industry to lightly edit public domain textbooks from these fields and republish them for cheap. In some classes, you could just add in a few sections to cover more standard curricula for today and excise the really out-of-date stuff. And for the amount of work it would take to put together, you could probably sell the book for 1/5th the cost of a modern textbook (maybe less; a lot of it will probably just be printing costs).
If I were teaching freshman calculus or mechanics or something, I'd definitely consider drawing significantly on a public domain textbook from a century ago, either lightly edited and/or supplemented by my own materials where necessary.
(Score: 3, Touché) by ese002 on Tuesday March 14 2017, @04:27AM
Instead of making college free make the textbooks free. When I went to college (early 80s) the textbooks were easily twice the cost of tuition.
You will be happy to learn that this problem has been resolved. Tuition is now much more expensive than books. Books aren't cheaper though.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 14 2017, @04:45AM (1 child)
IMHO free college is a non starter, too many unqualified idiots will sign up thinking "jobs, hell yeah!!" but won't be willing to/be capable of doing the coursework.
That's almost already the case. However, instead of being incapable of doing the coursework, many of the unqualified idiots are actually capable of doing the coursework because a grand majority of colleges have next to no standards. Our society is hostile towards real education; schools are encouraged to train people to become worker drones, rote memorization is confused with understanding, education is seen as a mere means to an end (good jobs and money), and assignments are one-size-fits-all.
As long as you force colleges to sharply raise their standards, free college wouldn't necessarily greatly increase the amount of anti-intellectuals who attend,
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday March 14 2017, @06:16PM
Yes, this one right here -- in new America's preschool-themed "everybody gets a medal for showing up to the race" degrees are handed out similarly, especially now because it's racist to give people failing grades or not allow them to arbitrarily skip exams because "stress from the election" or whatever.
Somewhat related, you wouldn't believe how many engineering grads are taking work as techs because corporations are looking for no less than 3 years' direct industry experience, for all shades of STEM grads. There's a reason why corporations are being more and more silent about the "lack of qualified graduates" while they're not even giving recent grads the time of day -- while hiring more and more H1-B subhumans.
The corporations preach diversity and inclusion as a way to insinuate that critics of their H1-B use are racist, as well as to justify bringing in more H1-B hires - but are not very diverse at all. Their populations are overwhelmingly White and Chink, often with a significant Indian H1-B army component. But Blacks are still underrepresented, unless you count those imaginary Google Doodles that imply that our space program is run entirely by Blacks.
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Tuesday March 14 2017, @07:52AM
I wish it were $140 per semester. Average yearly tuition at a 4 year state college is $9,410.
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/pay-for-college/college-costs/college-costs-faqs [collegeboard.org]